It takes affect after 90 days.
Frederick, Md (KM) A bill which sets up design and siting criteria for data centers in Frederick County was approved Tuesday night by the Frederick County Council. It would restrict these facilities to areas zoned general industrial and limited industrial.
The vote was 5-2 with Council Members Steve McKay and Jerry Donald opposed.
“We have mitigation of visual impacts; mitigation of sound and vibration impacts; the designation of unacceptable areas of the county that we don’t want to have data centers in: legacy areas, priority preservation areas, agricultural preservation areas and treasured landscape areas,” says Councilwoman Renee Knapp who was a co-sponsor of the bill.
Councilman Steve McKay., who voted in opposition, said the Council made bad decisions in approving some amendments to the bill. “The Council majority said ‘no’ to citizens complaints. It said ‘no’ to baseline testing. It said ‘yes’ to increasing the height to 75 feet, despite the fact the justification that was made repeatedly was categorically wrong. It said ‘yes’ to industry self-policing every two years which is a recipe for non-enforcement,” he said.
One of the amendments approved by the Council would require noise and vibration testing every two years instead of the original requirement of twice a year.
Also opposed was Councilman Jerry Donald. He noted that a lot of the recommendations from the data center work group set up to examine how to regulate these facilities were not contained in the bill. “But with this one we’ve gotten away from what the work group said. A lot of it is in this bill. but a considerable amount isn’t, and I don’t hear anybody pushing the fact that we have to do what the work group said. Somehow our philosophy has changed between one and the other,” he said.
But Councilwoman M.C. Keegan-Ayer said not everyone got what they wanted in this bill,, and it will need some tweaking in the future. “We’re already recognizing that there needs to be some certainty about where these things can go, and looking at where in the county is appropriate, and making sure that the structural infrastructure is there to make that it is a good fit . But we’re so much further ahead than places in Virginia,” she said.
Throughout the debate over data centers, Council members and other citizens said they did not want Frederick County to turn into Loudon County, Virginia, which has numerous data centers.
This bill take affect after 90 days.
By Kevin McManus