St. Louis moved closer Friday to adopting its first comprehensive regulations for data centers, advancing a plan that would limit where the facilities can operate and set standards for their electricity and water use, noise and effects on surrounding neighborhoods.
The Board of Aldermen advanced Board Bill 49 on a 13-0 vote, with one abstention, after months of debate over how the city should regulate an industry that can bring major investment but also place enormous demands on electricity and other infrastructure.
The bill is not yet final. It returns to the city Planning Commission on Sept. 9 for review of changes made by aldermen before an anticipated final vote by the Board of Aldermen Sept. 11.
“This bill is the result of a year-long intensive effort to tackle this complex and contentious topic head-on,” Mayor Cara Spencer said in a statement Friday.
The regulations would replace a system that has treated data centers as offices or warehouses because the city’s zoning code has no separate classification for them. The bill says the facilities can affect surrounding areas through noise, heat and air pollution and can strain infrastructure because of their large power demands.
The proposal follows months of sometimes contentious debate over data-center development. The St. Louis NAACP has pushed for stronger safeguards, while residents and others have raised concerns about electricity and water use, environmental effects and whether surrounding communities would receive enough benefit from the projects.
At one point, Alderwomen Alisha Sonnier and Anne Schweitzer sought to prohibit mega-scale data centers in the city. The Planning Commission rejected that approach and instead moved forward with regulations allowing the facilities under tighter restrictions.
“We’re talking about an unregulated industry that has grown in a way that I don’t think we would have wanted it to, based on the intensity of use and the drain on our resources,” Schweitzer, the sponsor of Board Bill 49, said during an earlier Planning Commission discussion.
The bill divides data centers into three categories — micro, standard and major — based on their size and electricity use. The largest facilities, those classified as major data centers, would be allowed only in the city’s unrestricted zoning district and would need special city approval.
Major data centers also would have to be at least 600 feet from residential and several other protected properties, including schools and public parks. Smaller facilities would have less restrictive setbacks.
The bill puts particular emphasis on electricity use. Standard and major data centers would have to show that at least 25% of their electricity would come from renewable sources when they begin operating. That would increase to 50% after five years and 100% after 10 years, with some flexibility if enough renewable energy is unavailable.
For the largest projects, the electric company also would have to tell the city whether serving the data center could affect other customers’ rates or the reliability of the power grid.
Water use also would be regulated. Data centers could not use cooling systems that rely solely on water-intensive evaporative cooling. Larger facilities would have to reach agreements with the St. Louis Water Division and pay applicable costs resulting from their demands on the water system.
Major data-center developers also would have to hold a community meeting before applying for city approval and notify neighborhood organizations within a mile and residents and property owners within 1,000 feet.
Stephen Westbrooks, president and CEO of the St. Louis Development Corp., said the regulations are intended to allow the city to compete for technology investment.
“Keeping St. Louis nationally competitive through updating our tech-based economy allows the city to attract development and jobs to strengthen the tax base,” Westbrooks said in the mayor’s news release.
Spencer said the city can pursue development while protecting neighborhoods.
“We can attract responsible investment while simultaneously upholding our high standards for environmental sustainability and neighborhood protection,” she said.
The legislation comes as developers pursue the $3 billion Armory Innovation District in Midtown, which includes a large data center planned for the former Famous-Barr warehouse near the Armory. The project received city approval in April and would continue under the conditions of its existing permit rather than the new requirements.
The proposed city rules specifically cover facilities used for artificial intelligence training and processing, cloud computing and other large-scale computing operations.