KNSI reports…

St. Cloud residents can weigh in Monday on proposed rules for data center construction, and the city council could vote on them the same night.

The St. Cloud City Council will hold a public hearing on November 16th at 6:00 p.m. at city hall on zoning changes city staff drafted ahead of any developer proposal. In a memo to the council, Community Development Director Matt Glaesman wrote that adopting standards before a site-specific proposal comes in is the best practice.

City officials say data centers are relatively new, and the city’s planning rules haven’t caught up.

Council member Tami Calhoun told KNSI News last month, after the council set the hearing, that she had concerns about energy use, noise and what happens to a building if a data center operator leaves.

Right now, St. Cloud’s code has no data center category. A data center could fall under a broad “communication facility” use that’s allowed by right in the I3 planned industrial district, with no design standards.

The proposal would split data centers into two groups. Smaller enterprise data centers, with no more than 2,000 servers, 10,000 square feet of building space and 50 megawatts of peak power use, would be allowed in the C3 Central Business and C5 Highway Commercial districts without special approval. Larger hyperscale facilities would need a conditional use permit, could only locate in the I3 district and would have to stay at least a quarter mile from residential zoning.

Every data center would have to submit studies on noise, environmental and community impacts, backup power, sustainability and how the site would be shut down. Projects of 450,000 square feet or more would also face a state environmental review, and the city could deny a permit based on what that review finds.