TL;DR · 30-second read

The Short Version

A power company, Talen Energy, and a business partner want to build up to 29 huge computer buildings on about 900 acres in a small Pennsylvania township. Buildings like these run cloud services and artificial intelligence.

The largest version would have floor space equal to about 60 football fields. It would also have its own power plant. The developers have offered the township up to $50 million in community payments.

The local zoning board did not rule on the project. It gave the township’s elected leaders 60 days to act on rules for projects like this. A local deadline, not the power supply, now sets the schedule.

The Upper Mount Bethel Township Zoning Hearing Board in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, voted 4-1 on Monday, Oct. 19, to postpone a hearing on Slate Belt Holdings’ challenge to the township’s zoning ordinance. The hearing now resumes Dec. 17. In the meantime, the board gave township supervisors 60 days to take action on data center regulation, The Morning Call reported. Slate Belt Holdings is a partnership between Talen Energy and River Pointe Logistics.

The challenge covers 23 data center buildings and two substations on 754 industrially zoned acres west of River Road. A second challenge, filed Oct. 8 and due to be heard by November, covers six more buildings, battery storage and a power plant on roughly 152 acres east of the road. Land development plans filed Oct. 13 show two layouts across the roughly 900 acres. One has 29 buildings totaling 3.5 million square feet. The other has six buildings totaling nearly 1.5 million square feet.

Executive Summary

The postponement does not decide anything. It does move the project’s next date onto a township calendar. The zoning board chose not to rule on whether the township’s ordinance is valid as applied to data centers. Instead it handed the issue back to the elected supervisors. According to the board’s solicitor, they are expected either to advance the long-delayed data center ordinance or to act on the memorandum of understanding the developer has proposed. A memorandum of understanding is a negotiated, non-final agreement between the parties.

This matters beyond one township because of what the project bundles. The plan pairs hyperscale data center buildings with two substations, battery storage and an on-site power plant. Hyperscale means very large facilities built for cloud and large-scale computing customers. Developers increasingly treat that combination as the scarce asset in data center buildout. Here it is held up at an earlier gate: whether local land-use law permits the buildings at all, and on what terms. Two and a half years after the township’s zoning officer was first asked that question, the township has not passed a data center ordinance.

The Gate Is a Township Ordinance, Not a Power Plant

Power is often described as the binding constraint on large data center projects. That means grid connections, substations and on-site generation. Slate Belt’s plan addresses power directly. The western parcel includes two substations, which step high-voltage transmission power down for use on site. The eastern parcel adds battery storage and a power plant. Having a power producer as a partner signals that the developers see energy supply as part of the product, not something they hope to secure later.

None of that sets the timetable right now. The next operative date is Dec. 17, and a five-member zoning hearing board chose it. The legal question is narrow but decisive. Slate Belt’s attorney, Shawn Gallagher, argues that an April 2024 determination by the township’s zoning officer makes a data center a use permitted by right. That would mean approval without discretionary review. The township’s newly hired solicitor, Bill Jones, counters that the April 2024 plans did not include square footage. Under the township’s ordinances, total square footage determines whether a developer needs a special exception, which is a discretionary approval with its own hearing and conditions.

That is why the two layouts matter. The gap between the 29-building, 3.5-million-square-foot option and the six-building, roughly 1.5-million-square-foot option is about 2 million square feet. On the township’s reading, that kind of size difference changes the approval path. For anyone who builds, supplies or finances a campus like this, the scale of the investment depends on how a township defines a land use. That is the mechanism behind the headline. Securing power and securing permission are separate tracks, and the slower one sets the pace.

What $50 Million Has and Has Not Bought

Slate Belt’s August proposal offered up to $50 million in donations. In exchange, the township would end the legal fight, work with the developer on data center zoning changes and eventually approve its plans. An updated $50 million community benefits agreement came with the Oct. 13 filing. Community benefits agreements are common in large developments. They package payments or commitments to a host community, usually in return for cooperation on approvals.

The offer is substantial, but it is conditional by design. As described, the money depends on outcomes the township would have to deliver, including zoning changes and approvals. That explains why it has not settled the question. Supervisors have split on strategy. Some argue that negotiating directly with the developer is the best way to win environmental protections. Others want to pass the township’s own ordinance first. Several versions of the deal have gone back and forth without a resolution. The zoning board’s move now puts both paths on the same 60-day clock.

For developers watching from elsewhere, one lesson is clear from this case. A large benefits package can open a negotiation, but it does not replace a legal basis for approval. Where the underlying ordinance is unsettled, the money becomes one bargaining chip among several. It does not shortcut the process.

A Deadline With an Undefined Ask

The 60-day instruction is firm on timing and vague on substance. Ron Angle, the alternate member who made the motion, said he expected supervisors to “do the job that the citizens of this township elected them to do.” Supervisors Chair John Bermingham told The Morning Call he did not know what he was supposed to do in 60 days. Solicitor Chad DiFelice’s reading, either advance the ordinance or act on the memorandum, is the clearest guide available. It still leaves supervisors to choose between two strategies they have been divided on.

The process is also gaining participants. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network was granted standing on behalf of 27 members who live within half a mile of the proposed campus. One non-member resident in that radius was also admitted. Standing gives these parties formal rights to present evidence and argument. A second validity challenge covering the eastern parcel, which holds the power plant, is scheduled separately for November. The developer’s spokesperson said that challenge seeks to clarify how zoning applies to the full buildout.

The supervisors’ draft ordinance went to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission for review on Sept. 21. An earlier March 2025 draft, written after Amazon showed interest in a data center deal, was never finalized. Each delay so far has carried a cost for everyone involved. The developer has faced litigation and uncertainty. Residents have had to organize legal representation. Supervisors have had to defend an ordinance whose application to this use is still disputed.

Background

Upper Mount Bethel is a township in the Slate Belt region of Northampton County, in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley along the Delaware River. The question of how its zoning ordinances apply to data centers dates back two and a half years, to an April 2024 request for an interpretation from the township’s zoning officer. Amazon’s interest in a data center deal, beginning in 2024, prompted a March 2025 draft ordinance that was never adopted.

Hyperscale data centers are very large facilities built to serve cloud and large-scale computing customers. They need large tracts of land, substantial electricity and approval from local governments, which often lack rules written for this kind of use. Slate Belt Holdings, the Talen Energy and River Pointe Logistics partnership, has pursued both a legal track through zoning challenges and a negotiated track through a proposed $50 million community benefits agreement.

Sources

Source: ‘They’re on notice’: Upper Mount Bethel board gives supervisors 60 days to take action on data center regulation (The Morning Call): the zoning hearing board postpones Slate Belt Holdings’ validity challenge to Dec. 17 and gives supervisors 60 days to act on data center rules.

TL;DR · 30-second read

The Short Version

A $10 billion complex of computer buildings could come to Clinton, a small Iowa city on the Mississippi River. It may be the biggest project of its kind in the state. The company, QTS, has not formally applied yet.

About 100 people came to a city meeting to push for tougher rules. One of their main requests was changing one word: “may” to “must.”

That small edit matters. It helps decide whether requirements on things like water use and local roads are guaranteed from the start or left to later negotiation.

Iowa Public Radio reported that roughly 100 people attended a July 15, 2026 meeting of Clinton’s City Planning Commission, where the city attorney presented a draft of the city’s first data center ordinance. The rules are being written as QTS eyes Clinton for a $10 billion hyperscale campus, meaning a very large complex of data center buildings, that would rank among the largest data center investments in Iowa to date, if not the largest.

After about two hours of public comment, the commission put off a decision. It will reopen the public hearing at its August meeting and must finalize its recommendations before the ordinance goes to the city council for a vote. QTS has not yet submitted a formal proposal.

Executive Summary

Clinton is writing its data center rulebook before the project that prompted it has formally arrived. City attorney Patrick O’Connell described the draft as broader than the other eastern Iowa ordinances reviewed, with “more constraints, more regulations, more requirements in it than any of the other ordinances I reviewed.” Many residents at the hearing still asked for more.

The most consequential request was also the simplest: replace permissive wording such as “may require periodic water use reporting” and “may require a Road Use Agreement” with “must.” Most attendees wanted stricter terms written into the ordinance upfront rather than left to a development agreement, the project-specific contract a city negotiates with a developer later.

That matters beyond Clinton because it shows where a large project’s risk can sit before any construction plan exists. For a campus of this size, the choice between a mandatory rule and a discretionary one determines which conditions are settled in public code and which remain open for negotiation.

Why One Word Carries a $10 Billion Question

The dispute over “may” and “must” is really about when a condition gets decided and who decides it. Under “may,” the city council retains the option to impose a requirement, and the details can be settled later in a development agreement. Under “must,” the requirement applies automatically, and the negotiation starts from a higher floor. Theresa Andrews, who would be a direct neighbor of the data center, put the objection plainly: “there is far too much council discretion.”

Each approach has a cost. Discretion lets a city tailor conditions to a project it has not yet seen and gives both sides room to bargain, but neighbors must then trust a later process to deliver protections they cannot read today. Mandatory language gives residents and developers a clearer view of the baseline, but it can lock in requirements before the facts of a specific design are known. With $10 billion in potential investment under discussion, that wording could affect reporting obligations, road arrangements and the leverage each party brings to the table.

The people most directly affected are the immediate neighbors, the council members who would hold or give up that discretion, and QTS, whose eventual proposal would be measured against the final text. Any future applicant in Clinton would inherit the same rules. For developers and the AI and cloud customers who depend on new capacity, the lesson is practical: a zoning review means reading the verbs, not just confirming that a data center is an allowed use.

Writing the Rules Before the Proposal Arrives

The sequence gives Clinton unusual room to set terms. Because QTS has not filed a formal proposal, the ordinance is being debated as general policy rather than as a yes-or-no vote on a specific site plan. The city attorney also noted that the draft draws on measures adopted elsewhere in eastern Iowa, while acknowledging that “any one of those sections of the ordinance could be more strict than it is.”

Borrowing works in both directions. Each city’s ordinance can become a reference point for the next, so a comprehensive Clinton draft could influence later local debates if it is adopted. Clinton is not the only Iowa flashpoint: a potential data center has sparked a moratorium push in the northwest of the state, and Google has been reported to be eyeing Palo as a way around Linn County regulations. Those examples show local rules are a live siting consideration in Iowa, though they do not by themselves establish a statewide trend.

The immediate schedule effect looks modest. A few weeks of revisions is not a serious delay for a project that has yet to be formally proposed. The larger variable is what the August hearing and the later council vote leave in the final text, since that will determine how much is settled in code and how much remains for a development agreement.

Both Sides’ Claims Still Need a Project to Test Them

The draft opens with the city’s finding that “data centers may provide substantial economic development benefits, including tax base growth, construction activity, long-term employment, and significant private investment in real property and utility infrastructure.” Grow Clinton, an economic development nonprofit, is advocating for data centers in Clinton County to help build a sports complex and “ensure future growth.” These are benefits in outline. Their size depends on terms that have not yet been set out in a formal proposal or a development agreement.

Opponents’ claims face the same test. Resident Carol McGuire argued that “a data center is not good for Clinton and nothing in this ordinance changes that,” adding that it “puts the wealth of a few over the health of many.” Residents’ specific requests on well monitoring, noise and air quality identify legitimate things to measure, since data center impacts vary with design choices such as cooling method and backup power. How large those impacts would be in Clinton cannot be assessed without a project design.

That is an argument for the kind of reporting residents are requesting, and for evaluating benefit claims with equal care. Monitoring requirements would produce data that either side could cite later. A turnout of roughly 100 people is a clear sign of engaged opposition and concern, though not a measure of citywide opinion. Commissioner David Brown’s suggestion to pause, “This is so much to absorb,” drew applause and gave the commission time to work through the requests before its next hearing.

Background

Clinton is a small city on the Mississippi River in eastern Iowa, and it has not previously had an ordinance written specifically for data centers. A zoning ordinance is a local law that governs how land can be used and what conditions a development must meet. Clinton’s draft draws on measures adopted in other parts of eastern Iowa, and it must pass through the planning commission’s recommendations before going to the city council for a vote.

QTS is a data center company now eyeing Clinton for a $10 billion hyperscale campus. Hyperscale facilities are built to supply computing at very large scale, and their water use, noise, air emissions and road traffic are the kinds of local issues residents have raised in Clinton. Questions about those effects, weighed against promised tax base growth, construction activity and jobs, are at the center of the city’s debate.

Sources

Source: Clinton residents request steep restrictions in the face of QTS hyperscale data center, Iowa Public Radio’s report on the July 15, 2026 Clinton City Planning Commission hearing on a draft data center ordinance.

TL;DR · 30-second read

The Short Version

Kentucky’s two biggest cities are drawing lines around the giant computer warehouses being built to run artificial intelligence.

Louisville proposed a size limit of 500,000 square feet, roughly nine football fields. Only three months earlier, the city approved one about 28 football fields big. Lexington stopped accepting new applications until October 31 after neighbors objected to plans to expand one.

Why it matters: city halls, not just tech companies, are now deciding how big these buildings can get and where they can go.

Kentucky’s two largest cities moved on June 9 to rein in hyperscale data centers, the Kentucky Lantern reported. Lexington’s Urban County Council suspended its legislative rules to impose a moratorium on data center applications through Oct. 31 while it writes zoning amendments. The same day, the Louisville Metro Planning Commission released a draft ordinance that would ban any data center larger than 500,000 square feet and restrict facilities over 250,000 square feet to industrial areas.

Louisville residents have 30 days to comment on the draft before it goes to Louisville Metro Council. In March, the same planning commission approved a 1.6 million-square-foot data center in West Louisville despite local opposition.

Executive Summary

Lexington and Louisville took different routes to the same goal on the same afternoon. Lexington hit pause: no new data center applications until Oct. 31, prompted by a developer’s purchase of a local data center property that it intends to expand. Louisville went straight to rules: a draft siting ordinance with a hard size ceiling of 500,000 square feet and industrial-only zoning for anything over 250,000 square feet.

The significance lies in the numbers. Louisville’s proposed ceiling is less than a third of the size of the facility the city approved three months earlier. For developers planning large AI campuses, that means the maximum scale of a project in Kentucky’s biggest city may be fixed by a planning document, regardless of what the grid or the supply chain could support.

Both cities cited resident concern. Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said she supports “very tight controls” and that the city does not support public incentives for the developer seeking to expand.

A Ceiling Set Below a Third of March’s Approval

The number that carries this story is the gap between two Louisville decisions made three months apart. In March, the Louisville Metro Planning Commission approved a 1.6 million-square-foot data center in West Louisville over local objections. On June 9, the same commission released a draft ordinance that would ban any data center larger than 500,000 square feet, less than a third of that approved facility, and confine anything over 250,000 square feet to industrial zones.

This is how local zoning becomes a constraint on the scale of AI buildout. Hyperscale campuses, the very large facilities built for cloud and AI operators, draw much of their economic advantage from concentration: one site, one large electrical connection, one security perimeter, shared cooling infrastructure. A hard floor-area ceiling means a developer who wants that scale in Louisville would have to split it across buildings or sites, if the final ordinance allows that at all, or build somewhere else. In either case, the largest permissible project is being set by the planning code, independent of what power and equipment supply could support.

The effects fall on specific groups: developers and landowners holding Louisville sites, the local utility planning for large new electrical loads, and residents who opposed the March approval. Brian Davis, director of Louisville’s office of planning, described the goal as “clear, achievable standards that provide transparency and clarity for both residents and potential developers.” Clarity does have value for investors, since a known ceiling is easier to finance around than a case-by-case fight. But the ceiling sits well below the size of the projects that prompted it.

Two Cities, Two Tools: Pause Versus Rulebook

Lexington and Louisville used different instruments on the same day. Lexington’s council suspended its legislative rules to impose a moratorium through Oct. 31 while it drafts zoning amendments: pause first, rules later. Louisville, where a separate committee tabled a data center moratorium earlier in June, went straight to draft regulations and opened a 30-day public comment period before the ordinance reaches Metro Council.

For developers, the difference matters. A moratorium stops the clock entirely and leaves the eventual rules unknown. Lexington’s amendments could end in controls or, potentially, an outright ban. A draft ordinance keeps applications possible and tells the market roughly what it will face. Neither city has final rules today, and Lexington’s pause alone runs for nearly five months.

Lexington’s action was triggered by a single transaction, a developer buying an existing local data center property with plans to expand it. Council member Emma Curtis called it “a case of an issue being expedited because of constituent concern and advocacy.” That is a direct statement that resident objections, not a staff study, set the timetable. That is a legitimate part of local democracy. It also means the rules will be written with one specific project in view.

Square Feet Are a Blunt Proxy for the Grid

Mayor Gorton stated the concern most clearly: data centers “do not produce many jobs, and have the potential to increase utility costs on local residents.” Both points are common in these debates, and both deserve the same scrutiny applied to developers’ promises of economic benefit. Gorton did not attach figures to either claim. Whether a large facility actually raises household bills depends heavily on how the utility and state regulators assign the cost of new generation and transmission, and neither city’s action settles that question.

That exposes a limit in Louisville’s approach. Floor area is easy to measure and enforce, but it is only an indirect measure of what worries residents most: electricity demand. Servers built for AI draw far more power per rack than conventional cloud equipment, so two buildings of the same size can place very different loads on the grid. A 500,000-square-foot cap controls land use, traffic and physical footprint. It controls power draw only loosely.

For industry readers, the practical point is that Kentucky’s largest cities are regulating the most visible dimension of data centers first. Site selection now depends on local square-footage thresholds as well as power availability and land cost, and Louisville’s shift between March and June shows those thresholds can move within a single planning cycle.

Background

Kentucky has long hosted smaller data centers supporting services such as cloud storage. The wave of investment in artificial intelligence has brought a different class of facility nationwide: hyperscale data centers that can consume as much electricity as an entire power plant and can span millions of square feet.

Louisville has already experienced that shift. In March its Planning Commission approved a 1.6 million-square-foot data center in West Louisville despite local pushback, and earlier in June a separate city committee tabled a proposed data center moratorium. Lexington’s action followed a developer’s purchase of an existing local data center property with plans to expand it.

Sources

Source: Kentucky’s two largest cities take action to address concerns over hyperscale data centers (Kentucky Lantern), on Lexington’s data center moratorium and Louisville’s draft data center siting ordinance.

TL;DR · 30-second read

The Short Version

Birmingham, Alabama, has passed strict new rules for giant data centers, the warehouse-sized buildings full of computers that run cloud services and artificial intelligence.

• They must sit at least 500 feet from homes, more than a football field and a half.
• They cannot run their own gas-fired power plants on site.
• Their cooling must use no more water than an ordinary office building.
• Nearby neighbors must be told by certified letter before one is built.

The city, not the state, now decides these terms.

The City of Birmingham announced on June 9, 2026, that its City Council had approved a zoning ordinance setting 20 protective conditions for hyperscale data centers, the very large facilities built by cloud and AI operators. The city describes it as the toughest such ordinance in Alabama.

The rules include a 500-foot setback from residential districts, a 1,000-foot separation from high-capacity transit facilities, a 5-acre minimum lot size, mandatory closed-loop cooling, a ban on onsite gas turbines and round-the-clock diesel generation, noise studies before and after construction, disclosure of projected peak electricity demand, and certified-mail notice to property owners within 500 feet.

Executive Summary

Birmingham has written the most contested parts of AI data center development, power, water and noise, directly into its zoning code. A developer seeking a site in the city now has to show where its water comes from, how much electricity it expects to draw at peak and in what phases, which utility will supply it, and how it will keep noise at the property line in check, all before the project can proceed.

The most consequential provision is the prohibition on onsite gas turbines and diesel generators running 24/7. Onsite gas generation has become one of the ways large AI campuses bring capacity online faster than a utility connection allows. Birmingham has closed that route within city limits while leaving room for solar, fuel cells and battery storage under review.

The city pairs these limits with a pitch: it cites its strong electrical grid, industrial infrastructure and affordable land as reasons developers want to build there. The ordinance is an attempt to keep that demand while setting the conditions locally.

Power Moves From the Utility Contract to the Zoning File

Traditionally, how a data center gets its electricity is negotiated between the developer and the utility, and the city’s role is limited to land use. Birmingham’s ordinance changes that in two ways. First, it restricts the generation a site may build for itself: gas turbines and diesel generators running around the clock are prohibited, solar and fuel cells are allowed, and battery storage is permitted subject to emergency-response review. Second, it requires developers to disclose projected peak demand, planned development phases and the identity of the utility provider as part of the application.

For AI-focused developers, that matters because speed to power is often the binding constraint. When a utility cannot deliver a large new connection quickly, one workaround has been to install gas turbines on site and run them as primary or bridging power. Within Birmingham, that option is off the table. A hyperscale project there will depend on grid supply, supplemented only by solar, fuel cells or batteries, which puts the utility’s delivery timeline back at the center of the project schedule.

The disclosure requirement has a quieter effect. Peak demand projections and phasing plans give the city a public record of how much load each project intends to add and when. That turns electricity from a private commercial term into something neighbors and officials can see and question during permitting.

The Water Rule Is a Performance Standard With an Energy Cost

The ordinance does not just require closed-loop cooling; it sets a benchmark that water use be no greater than that of a similarly sized office building. That is a performance test, not simply a technology checkbox. Closed-loop systems recirculate the same coolant rather than evaporating water to shed heat, which sharply reduces consumption.

The trade-off is well understood in the industry: cooling without evaporation generally takes more electricity, particularly in hot, humid summers like Alabama’s. Birmingham has therefore chosen to protect local water supplies at the price of somewhat higher power draw per facility, which loops back to the peak demand figures developers must now disclose. Dense AI hardware, which runs hotter than conventional servers, makes that trade-off more pronounced.

Setbacks, Not Lot Size, Will Decide Where Campuses Fit

A 5-acre minimum lot is modest by hyperscale standards, so it is unlikely to be the constraint that matters. The 500-foot setback from residential and urban neighborhood districts is more demanding: a 5-acre parcel is only about 470 feet on a side if square, so a small site bordering a neighborhood could struggle to fit a building at all. In practice, the rules steer large projects toward bigger industrial tracts, which Birmingham, with its long manufacturing history, has in supply.

The 1,000-foot separation from high-capacity transit facilities is less common. It keeps land near major transit, which cities typically reserve for housing and employment-dense development, from being absorbed by facilities that employ relatively few people once built. Combined with pre- and post-construction noise studies, acoustical walls and certified-mail notice within 500 feet, the ordinance front-loads community disclosure rather than leaving disputes to surface after construction.

Weighing the City’s ‘Toughest’ Claim

The city’s description of the ordinance as Alabama’s toughest and as a mark of national leadership is its own characterization, and it has not published a side-by-side comparison with other jurisdictions to support it. What can be said is that combining an onsite gas ban, a water-use benchmark, noise studies and power disclosure in a single zoning instrument is more comprehensive than codes that address only setbacks or noise.

For developers, stricter rules are not purely a cost. Clear conditions published in advance reduce the risk of a project being stalled by opposition late in the process, and a site that meets them arrives with a documented answer to the questions neighbors most often raise. The larger point is structural: state-level tax incentives can make Alabama attractive, but in Birmingham it is the city code that now determines whether and how a specific site gets built.

Background

Birmingham grew as an iron and steel center, leaving it with industrial land, heavy electrical infrastructure and rail and utility corridors that suit large facilities. Alabama has courted data centers with state tax incentives and has already drawn large projects from companies such as Google and Meta elsewhere in the state.

Nationally, the surge in AI computing has driven demand for ever-larger data centers that consume significant electricity and, depending on cooling design, water. Many local zoning codes were written before facilities of this scale existed, and cities have begun adding specific rules on siting, noise, water and power as proposals arrive.

Sources

Source: The City of Birmingham approves Alabama’s toughest zoning ordinance, establishing 20-point community protections for data center development, the City of Birmingham’s June 9, 2026 announcement of its hyperscale data center zoning rules.