Okaloosa County Commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday to pursue a 12-month moratorium on data centers, weeks after the board rejected a similar proposal.
- The motion directs county staff to schedule a public hearing on an ordinance creating a temporary stay on development orders for data centers, with the ordinance to include a specific definition of what is being stayed. Commissioners set a Dec. 8 target date for the hearing.
Commissioner Sherri Cox made the motion, and Commissioner Paul Mixon seconded it. Chairman Trey Goodwin and Commissioner Carolyn Ketchel, who attended by phone, also voted in favor. Commissioner Drew Palmer cast the lone vote against it.
On Sept. 15, commissioners voted 3-2 against pursuing a 12-month moratorium proposed by Mixon, with Goodwin, Ketchel and Palmer opposed. Mixon said Tuesday that because his earlier motion failed, he could not make it again, but another commissioner could.
Staff presents framework
The vote followed a presentation by Strategic Planning & Development Manager Elliot Kampert. At its Sept. 3 meeting, the board directed staff to begin developing a regulatory framework for data centers and return in 60 days.
Kampert said the agenda packet did not include a proposed regulation, but rather information to help commissioners direct staff on what to bring back.
The staff report outlined six areas for possible regulation: water consumption and wastewater, noise generation, power consumption, thermal pollution, hazardous waste and location.
On water, Kampert said evaporative cooling towers are the biggest concern because they require a constantly replenished supply of water. According to the staff report, 20% to 30% of the water used in evaporative cooling becomes wastewater. Kampert said alternatives such as closed-loop and immersion systems would likely make more sense in Florida, where water is a concern. The report suggests requiring data center applications to include a water budget and management plan.
On noise, Kampert said regulations should address the full range of frequencies a data center produces, not just what the human ear typically hears. He said low-frequency sound and infrasound travel farther, and typical buffers such as plants and trees will not address them.
On power, the staff report notes that Senate Bill 484, signed into law May 7, defines a “large load customer” as a facility with an anticipated load of 50 megawatts or more. Using federal energy data, the report estimates a 50-megawatt data center running at full capacity for a day would use about the same energy as 32,600 Florida homes.
The law requires utilities regulated by the Florida Public Service Commission to set rates so the costs of serving large load customers are not passed on to other ratepayers. According to the report, Florida Power & Light submitted its compliance filing to the PSC on Oct. 1, and the PSC has not yet ruled on it. The county’s other electric provider, Choctawhatchee Electric Cooperative, is not subject to the requirement. Kampert said CHELCO’s member-owned structure gives its members a direct incentive not to raise their own rates for a data center.
- Mixon noted that location was listed as a sixth item in the written report, and said residents in District 1 often assume a data center would go to Shoal River Industrial Park.
Goodwin asked about regulating the visual appearance of data centers, saying residents had told him they think the facilities might be ugly. Kampert said recent state legislation limits local governments’ ability to regulate architectural design, but buffering requirements could help.
Asked by Palmer whether any local government had successfully addressed all of the issues, Kampert said he had not found a cohesive ordinance the county could simply copy, though there are useful models.
‘A dangerous place to be’
Mixon asked what protections the county has today if a fully funded developer approached the county to build a large data center.
Kampert said such a project would require a development order, but the county’s comprehensive plan and zoning code do not address a standalone data center campus. He said staff and the County Attorney’s Office would have to decide whether the county could even accept and process an application.
“I don’t want to give you a political answer. I hate giving political answers, but unfortunately, right now it is kind of an unknown because our code simply does not address it,” Kampert said.
Mixon said he was concerned about the future, but more so the present.
- “To know that we don’t have protections is a dangerous place to be,” Mixon said. “How do we protect ourselves in the moment?”
Goodwin then asked Kampert whether a moratorium differs from a ban.
“Absolutely. A moratorium is a temporary stay, basically,” Kampert said. “Yes, they can be extended, but a moratorium eventually goes away. It’s basically a timeout.”
Goodwin said a moratorium ordinance would need a clear definition of what is being stayed.
“There’s even signs in the room, ‘no data centers,’ but if we just put out an ordinance that said, ‘Hey, we’re putting a moratorium out for X number of months on data centers,’ and we extrapolate it out, someone could say, ‘Well, don’t change the server in your office, because it’s a data center,‘” Goodwin said. “And that’s not what we mean, obviously.”
Kampert said he believed staff could write a definition that targets large facilities without affecting, for example, a bank with a few server racks. Asked how long staff would need to bring back a comprehensive set of regulations, he said 12 months.
“The glib answer would be as long as you can give me,” Kampert said. “But the truthful answer, probably 12 months would be very reasonable given what we’re going to have to maneuver through from the comp plan and the zoning, involving the Planning Commission, the requisite public hearings and the advertising.”
Goodwin said he could support a temporary stay based on that assessment. He also asked staff to look into whether the county has the right to franchise data transmission. Kampert said the idea had been discussed before, but he did not know what the answer would be.
Palmer opposes, agrees to help
Palmer said an outright ban or moratorium could harm the local economy, such as a software company trying to set up its own data operation. He said a moratorium based on the state’s 50-megawatt definition would create a loophole allowing a developer to build a 49-megawatt facility, which he said would still be an enormous capacity.
Palmer said he wants strong regulation addressing each issue, and believes they are all solvable, such as by banning evaporative cooling.
- “I think the problem that we encounter is that people want a simple fix, and I don’t think there’s a simple fix here,” Palmer said. “I think if we take too heavy-handed of action, I think we cripple our local economy. And I think if we don’t take any action, or even if we take action and then it’s not specifically and well-defined, I think we create loopholes that are also negative.”
Palmer also raised concerns that some defense test labs can consume dozens of megawatts and handle large amounts of data, and said the stay would need to be very specifically defined to avoid affecting them.
Goodwin suggested staff work with Palmer on the definition. Palmer agreed to help despite voting against the motion, saying he was against the action but would help with the technical work.
Cox, Ketchel support moratorium
Cox asked staff to explore micro-nuclear reactors, saying her research showed interest in large-scale data centers is shifting toward them. She said she was not necessarily in favor of micro-nuclear reactors and did not have the expertise to say whether they would be a cleaner option, but wanted the public to have that information.
Cox said a 12-month moratorium would give technology a chance to catch up with demand, and that the board could reverse its decision later. She pointed to Crestview, where the City Council voted in August to move toward a data center ban.
“We have a beautiful set of assets here, whether you’re talking about my district, where it’s rivers and streams, or you’re talking about the South End, where there are beautiful Gulf-front beaches,” Cox said. “We want people to want to be here, both our citizens and our visitors alike, and I think that we are in a very delicate place here for making a decision that’s going to impact us for a very, very long time.”
Ketchel said she favors a moratorium of at least 12 months, and asked staff to look at the impact on groundwater.
“My biggest concern is our fragile aquifer. We’re already under attack with farm nitrates, with septic systems,” Ketchel said. “There’s a lot of issues in our aquifer, and I’m not convinced the data centers wouldn’t add an additional groundwater burden.”
What’s next
To meet the Dec. 8 target, Kampert said the hearing would need to be advertised at the end of November, around Thanksgiving. Commissioners agreed to let staff begin the advertising process while they review a draft ordinance, which can still be changed at the public hearing.
Staff will also continue developing the broader regulatory framework. Under state law, comprehensive plan amendments require hearings before the Planning Commission and the board, followed by state review and a second hearing for adoption, according to the staff report. The staff report states the county has the authority to regulate data centers in its unincorporated areas under state law.
