| Dear friends,
WE NEED YOUR VOICES!
In 2025, the Louisville Metro Council asked the Louisville Metro Office of Planning to create recommendations on zoning regulations for data centers. This followed alarm and public outrage over the approval of the Campground Road hyperscale data center with no land development codes in place to regulate data center’s construction or impacts on the community.
On June 9, 2026, the Louisville Metro Office of Planning released a draft of zoning regulations governing data centers. While it does take into consideration some concerns, such as lighting and utility rate increases, careful analysis by experts has shown several deficiencies. The draft was found to be seriously lacking regulations that will keep Louisville residents safe and healthy for decades to come. For more information please see the Kentucky Resources Council’s Model Ordinance and Recommendations.
TAKE ACTION!
We need your help to let the Louisville Metro Office of Planning know that the draft is not good enough. For your convenience, we have created some sample comments below for you to post online directly to the Office of Planning. Please share this with your other contacts so that they may also send comments.
COMMENTS NEEDED NOW! Follow the steps below:
- Go to the Office of Planning website and open the comment form.
- You may copy one or more of the comments below and paste into the web form. We have put the ones that we consider most important at the beginning, but feel free to choose which ones express your deepest concerns.
- Please modify the comments slightly with your own words, leaving the key points intact. When planners see repetitive “copied” text, it has less impact. Changing a few words here and there makes a big difference. Please avoid using any profanities as these comments will get tossed out. Have fun with it!
- Submit the web form. That’s it! You’re finished!
Sample Comments:
As a resident of Louisville, I am asking the Office of Planning to strengthen the ordinance on data centers, Case Number 26-LDC-0014, before adoption.
A new Industrial Data Center Zone should be created, and Conditional Use Permits should be required for all data center applicants. This will ensure public notification and provide for public input when any data center is proposed. Rules should apply to all data centers regardless of square footage. Intensity of use is the correct metric to protect the public. This considers water usage, hazardous waste, noise, light pollution, and exhaust. This means elimination of the draft’s proposed “data center accessory” and “telecommunications hotel” classifications. These are potential loopholes which bypass the Conditional Use Permit.
Regarding noise levels, these facilities run cooling fans continuously and the hum, vibration, and low frequency sounds can be damaging to human hearing and health. I want mandatory limits, not suggestions, backed by a pre-construction acoustic study, post-construction testing and real-time ongoing monitoring. Backup generator testing should be limited to the weekdays between noon to 5 PM.
Knowing that data centers are huge power consumers, regulations should require verification that any new data center can be operated without impact on the availability, reliability, quality, or safety of electrical service to other customers and that electricity bills for other customers will not increase. Additional rules must be created to address on-site, off-the-meter, primary electrical generation. The current proposal addresses only back-up electrical generation. Continuous generator operation as a primary power source should be prohibited. Primary, on-site power plants for electrical generation should be considered a separate use, requiring their own zoning change. Better yet, I suggest that data center users be required to provide a significant percentage of their power from renewable sources.
Considering that data centers are huge water consumers for cooling their equipment, I suggest that closed -loop cooling systems be required outright, so that water is conserved and reused for cooling purposes. Please protect our river, drinking water quality, sewage systems and rate payers from water bill increases.
Knowing that the data center’s cooling of water causes heat exhaust, ambient heat increases beyond the property line should be prohibited. Regulations for monitoring and enforcement need to be required.
Setbacks need to be larger than proposed. They should be 500 feet from property lines, 1,500 feet from homes, schools, daycares, nursing homes, churches, medical facilities, and commercial or agricultural areas. All sensitive areas should be at least 1,000 to 2,000 feet from exhaust stacks or emission points.
Regarding the language throughout the document, the words “encouraged” or “may” are used where the terms “required” or “shall” should be. These terms are inconsistent with regulations and standards and need to be changed.
Maintain accountability throughout the process. Require applicants to show concretely how they will meet every standard. The Planning Commission must hire an independent expert, to review each data center application. This review is to be paid for by the applicant. The review should be made public before the hearing. In addition, clear approval standards must be written so the county isn’t vulnerable to legal challenges in the future.
While we agree with the transparency agreement in the draft that requires the entity making the proposal be transparent and disclose the company that would own and/ or use the property, public notification of changes of ownership or usership should also be required.
The draft has no decommissioning plan and no financial assurance mechanism, meaning that if the facility shuts down or is abandoned, the clean-up risk and costs fall on the public rather than the company that built it. This needs to be addressed. |
