Music Good afternoon. Today is July 30th, 2026, and this is the meeting of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government's Planning Commission zoning items. Before we begin this morning, today is the last hearing of our legal counsel, Tracy Jones, career. Tracy has been with the city for 27 years. She spent many years launching and assisting the PDR program. She has practiced municipal law with planning, including our litigation when it arises. So on behalf of the Planning Commission, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. mention them? If not, the floor is open for a motion. Chair. Commissioner Molly Davis. I make a motion to approve the June 11th minutes as transmitted to us. Thank you very much. We have a second from Commissioner Jonathan Davis. Is there any discussion to that? Seeing none, we will go ahead and put that to a vote. Okay. That carries unanimously. Thank you. All right. Our next item on the agenda today is on page one and that is a public hearing on PLN ZODA 26-8. Mr. Crum. Good afternoon, everyone. Daniel Crum, Principal Planner with Planning Services for LFUCG. The loan item on our agenda today is a discussion about data center regulations. So this is a zoning ordinance text amendment that was initiated by the Urban County Council. In a moment, I'll go through the implications of what that means for the process. But the intent when this was initiated at the beginning of June was to create regulations and modify regulations pertaining to data center uses. Now, just as sort of a background for those that are not familiar, the zoning ordinance text amendment process is a method in which we change the provisions of the zoning ordinance. This establishes new uses and then clarifies how and where those uses can operate. Now it's important to remember as we go through the proceedings today that these uses are not site-specific. So when we are talking about the changes that may occur today, these would be the framework that applies throughout a whole community. So this is not a specific site, a specific development, a specific project. But rather, how is this going to impact our communities as a whole? Just as a matter of procedure, planning staff presents this to you, but ultimately the Planning Commission is going to make a recommendation to the Urban County Council, who is ultimately the decision maker for what text does or does not get adopted. The timeline that we operate on does depend on who the applicant in this case is. Because this was the Urban County Council, there is an expedited review process that is required by law. So the timeline that we normally would consider a zoning ordinance text minute of six months is reduced instead to 60 days. Just the background on the initiation process, the request before us today was initiated by the Urban County Council. However, they did not provide any initiation text or framework to start with. That task was given to planning staff who then began those processes. Once again, the moment that they initiated that request, that 60-day review period started. So we are now at the last available hearing in order to address this particular item, so the Planning Commission will have to act within this window. The planning staff generated a text that's before you, the initiation text that was sent out to all of the neighborhood associations with Lexington at least a month prior to this hearing. But the text that is in front of you was generated kind of through a variety of sources. During that time, since the Urban County Council initiated, staff reviewed what communities have already adopted legislation, We're working to adopt legislation, things like model ordinances prepared at the state level, best practices and literature that was available at this time, and use that to create a starting point to kind of base our comments on, to sort of start a framework where we can have a discussion as to how to best fit this type of context within Lexington and Fayette County. We also had work that was done independently with a consultant who was making recommendations for updates to our existing industrial uses that were a part of the Blue Sky Small Area Plan that you recently reviewed. So all of this was a synthesization of this information that once again is now being presented to you all to make a recommendation after hearing public comment to the Urban County Council who then will take it through their process. So speaking generally about data center uses, these are uses that are devoted to the storage, management, processing, and transmission of digital data. These can have a lot of different components, but we're talking about computer systems, servers, other appliances, cooling apparatus, all these components relating to uses whose sole and principal use is the transmission and management of digital data. The reason that we're really having this conversation today is that we really have a sort of mismatch between the framework that had historically governed these uses, listed in our current ordinance as computer and data processing centers, with how these uses have evolved, especially within the last couple of years with the increased use of AI and other kind of computing intensive uses. So the framework that we have before us today is a framework that allows them with no additional review, no additional criteria, no public notice within a variety of uses, including business and office zones. The Urban County Council, in response, issued a moratorium to pause any future developments of these type while we evaluated these uses and kind of within the framework of how they perform now. Historically, computer and data processing centers have looked kind of wildly different. I mean, we were going back to the advent of computers where we were dealing with computers that were the size of the room. Now the same processing power is in each of our pockets with our iPhones or other cellular devices. But as the computing needs and how interconnected our world has become digitally, the scale and scope of these facilities has increased to where they were originally rooms. Now these are small office park type developments to larger scale facilities that suddenly have these externalities or these land use impacts that were never thought of before just due to the scale and the scope at which they have to operate. And so the intent behind the zoning ordinance text amendment language in front of you is to establish a framework that works for Lexington and Fayette County that establishes appropriate protections for our community in light of the new ways that these uses can operate. But these uses may operate wildly differently based on the scale and the scope, the intent. These could be uses that are just supplying computing power for their own site. These could be massive facilities that are handling a variety of different clients or information from all around the world. So I think it's helpful to kind of get an understanding of kind of where we are as an entire country, where these are being located, and the energy demand that these are kind of occupying. So the graphic in front of you is courtesy of a recent article in the New York Times. Each one of those green dots is an existing data center, and the relative size of the dot is its energy requirements. Here we have a snapshot of what is currently proposed, but we move to what is proposed after 2026. The extent, the energy requirements, the expanse of what is being proposed to meet the growing demand of our digital lives, but also to fund sort of the projected future growth of things like AI. we are seeing kind of a countrywide reckoning on how best to regulate the size, scale, and scope of uses that now are no longer necessarily appropriate for things like office parks or smaller localized locations. So part of the conversation today is what can we do as a community to regulate these uses, what protections can we put in place, and what processes can we put in place to make sure that any type of development that occurs here, if it does occur here, works for our entire community. So to give you an example of what some data centers can look like, because they can, based on their function and intensity, operate in a variety of contexts, I've gotten kind of a couple of snapshots of some existing developments. So they can operate in existing contexts. Here we have Chicago, where this replaced, I believe, a manufacturing facility. This is looking at about 1.1 million square foot structure with an energy demand of 100 megawatts, which, once again, the amount needed to power a home can vary by the location that you're looking at, but we're talking in the tens of thousands of homes. That same energy demand can also apply to a 65-acre campus. So in Oklahoma, this is a 100-megawatt facility, but instead of being located on one single city block, is a 138,000-square-foot structure, once again, that same energy demand. So they can look and behave differently based on the intensity of the use, how it is going to be managed, and the existing context. Here you can see in the picture here, while this is still under construction, oftentimes in order to meet this demand, this is requiring dedicated electrical and other utility infrastructure. That will be a point of emphasis as we kind of manage along this process of how those relate and what demands that's going to place on the surrounding community. What we also are seeing is sort of the absolute limits to what these uses can be. So Amazon in Indiana is currently building out a campus of approximately 1,200 acres, 200,000 square feet per building with a total of 6 million square feet planned. Then we start talking about energy demand that is not in the thousands or tens of thousands, but in the millions of homes. So we as a community need to create rules, regulations, criteria to evaluate these uses because based on our ordinance now, everything from a small 10,000 square foot building to this facility in front of you is being treated equally. So we want to put in protections to make sure that we are not being negatively impacted by the hyper and mega scale data processing centers, but also allowing where reasonable development to occur within our community. So talking through some aspects of the use that staff looked at as we were generating that sort of initiating starting language was implications on how these centers are cooled. When these centers, data processing centers, are operating, these kind of intensely tightly packed computer systems generate a lot of heat, especially as you go into the kind of more resource intensive chips, the development that's powering AI. And so much of the energy of the system is really dedicated to cooling those systems, making sure that those can safely operate and that they do not lose their machinery in the process. The two most common ways to cool those are through evaporative, so where water is pumped into a facility used to cool the hot air being directed off of the machines and then left to evaporate. There also are closed-loop systems that take an input of water or the cooling liquid initially and then recycle that. Now, those are not entirely closed. They do actually have to be recharged or replaced occasionally, but water demands for these uses can vary wildly based on if they have an evaporative system or a closed-loop system, to the tunes of hundreds of thousands and millions of gallons of water difference between the daily use of these two types of uses. Utility capacity is another component. These are uses that use an outsized amount of energy relative to the footprint that they normally would operate for other uses. So this takes significant infrastructure at the larger scales to operate. So these improvements are negotiated with utility. LFUCG does not govern Kentucky utilities or the other utility providers. Those are regulated at a state level through the PSC. And so the ability to kind of look into those negotiations and be a part of those negotiations is limited because, once again, we are not the regulating authority for those options. And without safeguards, there are communities that have seen costs that were originally supposed to be attributed to a data center spill over and affect their rates. Because ultimately, this overarching grid is what is serving these uses as well as the communities around them. Once again, the PSC is the entity that is governing this. And so that is part of the review process. and the utilities themselves are developing their own frameworks to deal with cost increases, how those should be evaluated, their own internal policies and procedures. However, none of that is subject to our zoning ordinance, and so that is not subject or included in our language today. One thing that did get brought up in our review of utility capacity and kind of those conversations was the potential for stranded assets. So before a data center can locate, they have to negotiate with the utility to create these facilities to power the underlying use. These facilities sometimes can be speculative in nature. And so there has been issues in other municipalities where there is approval or facilities built to handle a facility that ultimately does not end up being located there. And so the implications on who pays for the infrastructure, how those costs get divided on a community, and what the impacts are is kind of a reoccurring theme throughout this process from what we've been able to look at nationwide. Generators are another aspect of the use. Now, these uses within data centers are designed to be powering, especially the coolant systems, have to be powered on at all times. They build redundant generators into the facilities in order to supply backup demand in the event of an issue with a primary power source. The implication on surrounding communities is there is regular testing of these facilities, sometimes using electric, natural gas, or even diesel fuel. These are tested to ensure working operation, and when they do, they do produce massive noise impacts because, once again, we are talking about hundreds and thousands of these generators operating simultaneously in a very short window. So in kind of review of the things that staff identified during our initiation text as sort of land use impacts that we wanted to be addressing, the first was demand on the power grid and impacts with other rate payers, water consumption and discharge, noise levels resulting from sort of the constant cooling and operation of the site, but also peak events for things like when the generators are being tested, how these sites are lighted, impacts on things like impervious surface on our larger, more campus-style developments, as well as the loss of jobs producing industrial or business land. One of the aspects that seems fairly consistent across the data center, both the literature that we've reviewed as well as sort of the actual developed context that we see today, is that these really don't necessarily generate a ton of jobs. There are jobs dedicated to the construction of these facilities. There's maintenance and ongoing review and repair. but compared to something like a true industrial or manufacturing use, these do not really produce a ton of jobs in the way that we normally look to with our jobs producing industrial land. So the staff framework before you, and we have once again that language in front of you within Granicus, sets to create some definitions because these are important to kind of classify the types of data centers that we find are not appropriate, the kinds we do find appropriate, and what the conditions they should operate under. So we've created a definition for metadata centers that is greater than 50,000 square feet of the structure. Those are not permitted in any zone based on our recommendation. Minor data centers would be a conditional use within two zones, the B4 and the I1 zones. Those would be subject to a number of conditions and restrictions, a 50,000 square foot limit. They would have to show their energy plan, how they plan to provide the energy on site, what their generator requirements are, how they plan to use water, what type of system. Is it a closed loop system? Is it an open evaporative system? Noise plan and standards, their spacing requirements from sensitive uses and zones, and additional conditions that are required by the Board of Adjustment. All of that plays into the review at a public hearing conducted by the Board of Adjustment that would include public notice and the opportunity for public and community feedback that would evaluate as a whole how these uses would impact the surrounding community. Ultimately, the Board of Adjustment is charged with reviewing that very site-specific look of how this facility, as proposed, with the energy that it's proposing to use, laid out in the way that it does, what impact does this not have on the surrounding community, and is it appropriate there. Once again, that is a public process that allows the communities that are affected to voice their concern, their support, and to weigh in on the proposal. Included within this was an acknowledgment that many, many, many businesses within our communities have facilities or rooms that are dedicated to kind of computing uses, their infrastructure, that are not data centers. These are just sort of underlying assets to that particular business that in order to help them operate their principal use, which is some other things, whether it's a bank, whether it's an office, whether it's a school. This is pretty ubiquitous in our community, and we did not want to over-regulate that aspect. But we needed to create a definition so that these computer-based uses were not being mistakenly lumped in with major data centers and requiring them to go to the Board of Adjustment for approval. So the language for our server rooms, we're designed to kind of address those. These are accessory uses. These are scaled to the size of the overall facility, so they would be either up to 2,000 square feet or up to 10% of the principal use of that location. Once again, these are not intended to be standalone uses. It's intended to be the space that the primary use of that site uses to conduct their business or to operate. Now, one of the things that staff has seen in sort of the conversations with the Planning Commission, with the comment that has come in from the public, was the concept of, are we regulating this kind of in the correct lens? so that we've received comments that these instead should be regulated not by the size of the facility, but rather the energy demand that they kind of produce and have. And so when staff looked at sort of the literature behind this, the existing frameworks that we see currently, the approaches to regulating data center uses vary significantly. There really isn't a standardized threshold or standards. For the most part, however, most ordinances that do regulate the actual size do so with a square footage limitation in mind. There are some that do utilize the power demands. But it really falls back to who regulates the aspect that we're really looking at. So energy demand itself is difficult to track and enforce with the local government level, precisely because we control the land use side, but not the utilities. The utilities are once again operating independently. They then go and are regulated by the state level with the PSC. So the LFU-CEG is not a party to the negotiations between that utility provider and the applicants. Ultimately, once again, they are subject to state jurisdiction. And the demand and usage can vary, and the compliance can be kind of difficult to quickly identify, as opposed to a square footage, which is handled through our existing building process, our development review process. It is variifiable, it is traceable, it is able to fit within our existing system. Staff also notes that it gives the communities an idea of an expectation of size. As we showed earlier with our examples, both within Chicago as well as a more rural context, the same facility operating at the same megawatt capacity could be the difference between one block and 65 acres. So the square footage limitation in staff's view sets a kind of concrete review that can be verified independently, but doesn't preclude there being conditions that relate to the megawatts or the energy used, and that can be used during the review process for the Board of Adjustment. So staff does not necessarily view this as an either-or, but rather one piece that can kind of come together through the Board of Adjustment process to establish a way to view these uses and verify whether or not they are appropriate in our communities. But ultimately, staff is making a recommendation of approval for the text. We find that this text amendment clearly defines data centers and removes outdated language that we have regarding data processing centers from the zoning ordinance and is trying to provide clarity for those land use regulations within Fayette County. This protects local communities by prohibiting major data centers, which are sort of the largest, the most impactful type of these data centers. These uses have a high likelihood of noise emissions, energy and water consumption, and other negative impacts that can detrimentally impact this community. The proposed text amendment creates strict enforceable criteria for us to review these minor data centers and ensures that there are opportunities for public input like this one and participation in the planning process and focuses and directs these types of uses towards the industrial areas, which minimizes the external impacts of the community. Lastly, the proposed text amendment allows for these accessory server rooms, as I mentioned earlier, to operate without requiring additional reviewer approval. So these uses providing sort of on-site support for existing business and industrial uses are not something that we want to over-regulate here, and we want to make sure that while we create these definitions, that they are in scale with the types of uses that we're looking to establish here in Fayette County. So with that, the next steps, we would forward on a recommendation that is, once again, due to the very tight timeline mandated by our processes, has to be arrived at today. That recommendation is forwarded on to council after their summer break. The Urban County Council, however, is not bound by any particular time limit. They have the ability to conduct additional public outreach meetings. They have the ability to hold their own hearings, if they should so choose. But once again, this is an area where they do have the ability to take action as they see fit. Ultimately, whatever is acted on by the Urban County Council is what would be adopted. So just framing this today as a recommendation that then is passed on, along with the record of the comments made at today's hearing, to the Urban County Council itself. So with that, I'd be happy to entertain any questions that you have as staff about the proposed language or how we arrived here. Thank you, Mr. Crum. Mr. Nickel. Thank you very much, Mr. Crum. I appreciate that. And those last comments, I think, are very valuable. What we're doing here is making a recommendation that then goes to council. So what I'd like to do is, Daniel, if you don't mind, can you pull up the first slide from the presentation? I want to illustrate the process that we are all here participating in right now. The initiation process, my understanding is that June 9th, we were given a recommendation to create regulations pertaining to data center uses. This was initiated with no text or framework from council. So our staff had to put this together as quickly as possible under a 60-day timeline rather than a six-month timeline, which is what we normally take to handle issues that are this important. So I wanted everybody to understand that. We are all under time constraints, and that's why we're rushed here to make a recommendation to council. So we appreciate all of you all being here, and we will work towards making a recommendation to council. And I think it's important to note as well that council's moratorium, my understanding, on data center development doesn't expire until October. So there will be time for council to do their job and make a recommendation on how we address this important issue in our community. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nickel. Do we have any other questions for Mr. Crumb at this time? Commissioner Molly Davis. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Daniel. I have a very small question. You referred to in a slide about, let's see, maybe five or six or seven or eight further. It was under the discussion about facility size versus energy demands, why the staff has. What do the words energy cap conditions mean? Let's see. Last bullet, conditional use review. Yes. Yes, so as a part of the Board of Adjustments review, they have the ability to establish kind of a wide array of conditions on the particular operation at any given site for any conditional use. So what they would receive as a part of their application packet would be a plan submitted by whatever developer that would want to create a 50,000 square foot or less development. They would outline their power needs, how they were getting them, basically following the requirements that we lay out in the ordinance. the Board of Adjustment would be able to create a condition that could potentially cap, say, if you are projected to have a facility at this size that needs 20 megawatts, then we will approve a development here with a condition that it not exceed that number. And so they would have the ability to bake that into the condition of approval. Once again, it is a little bit difficult to monitor that, but they can require, as a part of their annual review of any conditional use permit, than to submit documentation to that effect. But there's multiple ways to incorporate essentially an energy cap without that being sort of the very first lens that we go through, which is sort of why staff was looking for the square footage as sort of the initiating piece, and then the Board of Adjustment can hear the kind of qualitative testimony, the kind of feelings from the neighborhood, and make an individualized call for each location rather than deciding blanket that all 20 megawatt facilities would fall in this versus 25 versus 30. So that's sort of where staff's direction was coming from when kind of creating that requirement. Okay, thank you. Mr. Owens had a question. Thank you, Chair. Daniel, thank you and the staff for the work that they've been doing. And I've got to concur with what Commissioner Nichols said as far as a quick timeline and turnaround that we're all under to try and make this happen. Right now, just two or three questions. Clarification more than anything. I've noticed in the staff report and the draft, under some of the zones, I'll use I-2 as an example, it does have minor and major data centers as prohibited. But it doesn't say that in some other zones. Is that just assumed? Well, some of that is based on our existing framework. So the way that we have our zoning ordinance set up, essentially, is that zones carry forward to a certain degree. So things that are allowed in the I-1 carry over to the I-2 and so forth. What is allowed in the I-1 is a conditional use for data centers. And so really the prohibited list is just basically to clean that up. Also, otherwise, if it isn't listed as a permitted use anywhere, it's also prohibited by default. So that was the intention behind that. That's what I was getting at. Okay, thank you. As far as square footage, we're talking about major and minor, 50,000 square foot being the point of cutoff. You showed some examples. We're talking about 50,000 square feet, 40,000 square feet, whatever. As a footprint, you showed some examples of stories. Yes. So this would be the total area of the use. So if this was a data center that was multiple stories, all stories would count against that requirement. 40,000 square feet total? Yes. Okay. Board of Adjustment. You talked about what you used water plan as an example. Closed system or loop or not. Is our draft, our language, will there be a recommendation for one or the other, or is that going to be up to the Board of Adjustment? I mean, ultimately, that'll be something that I'll identify. And we'll have, candidly, the decision whether or not to use that system will have significant impacts on the water and energy that's necessary. Part of the staff's decision to not mandate a closed-loop system came from not wanting to have sort of hyper-specificity with some of the language in the event that something more efficient comes along or those terms become outdated. So this is sort of a recommendation that that be evaluated, would play into the larger discussion on is this facility appropriate in this area if it is going to continually use this intense amount of water, or are they intending to use a system that's going to sort of reduce that amount in some way. So all of that builds into the Board of Adjustments review on if this is appropriate as they are describing it at the location and the context it's in. Okay, so in essence, that's going to be a Board of Adjustments decision. Yes. Okay. Last question right now. As far as server rooms, the language says 2,000 square feet or up to 10%. If we're talking about up to 10%, if that's 4,000, 5,000, is that included in the total number? Or are we talking about 50,000 plus 5,000 for server units? Yes. So if you had, say, an overall facility that was 100,000 square feet, this would allow for 10,000 square feet of server room included within that total. So whatever the amount of total development is, 10% of that total square footage for the development can be a server room. So it's included. It's inclusive. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Wirth? I got three. Okay. We just heard the answer to one. And I was going to ask you about the evaporation versus closed loop. For evaporation, are we monitoring air quality and asking for an air quality plan to go with this? Yeah, so some aspects of the way that these uses operate start to kind of dovetail into sort of areas that are otherwise other jurisdictions. So the state has its own requirements. The federal government has its own requirements. So in the same way that for other industrial uses not mentioned today, say the JIF factory, for example, they don't get to just admit anything that they want, but it's not specified specifically in the text because it's not part of the land use. So anything that would be approved would need to meet all other requirements. The same thing goes with the discharge of water or how that is handled. The text is not meant to sort of overstep into other jurisdictions, but part of the way that the facility is going to be described is they would be providing information on where their generators were located, where these sort of heat exhausts would be located. That would give the Board of Adjustment an idea of how the site was going to function, but ultimately mapping, say, the particulates or the emissions is kind of outside of the local control with that. And this may be one of those overlap questions. in a lot of our new development plans, we require a lighting plan. Are we requiring a lighting plan with this? Yeah, so all development in Lexington is subject to the lighting ordinance. So it wasn't included as an explicit part of this because it applies just blanket. So it's a part of all reviews, so they have to meet the same shielding, lumens per acre, et cetera, that all development in Lexington is bound to. So not specific, but it is being covered. Okay, third question. I did not see, or maybe I overlooked it, a specific decommissioning plan. Do we have a requirement for that? Yes. Some municipalities, depending on the scale that they're operating or they're allowing data centers to operate, may or may not include a decommissioning plan. The Kentucky model ordinance, for example, does include those. I think it speaks more to the size of the facilities that we're allowing in certain contexts. So in the case of the Kentucky model ordinance, that allows or creates a framework that could allow for kind of hyperscale facilities talking tens of thousands of acres or the like. In those size of facilities, a decommissioning plan sort of makes sense based on the scale and scope, very similar to how the discussion went with solar, where you could have acres and acres of development. However, the framework that staff is advancing here, where you have a building more or less the size of a Publix or sort of a grocery store, that did not necessarily, sort of the scope of that informed whether or not a decommissioning plan would be necessary. It could be included as an additional kind of protection, but in staff's view, there's not as much risk to a community on a site that has to be smaller because of the conditions and the framework we set up. Not allowing the hyperscale where you're talking about thousands of acres of infrastructure having to be removed in the case that the use stops operating. Thank you. Commissioner Penn. Daniel, I don't want to assume anything here, so I'll ask this question. Any applicant that comes is going to have to have a development plan for that site. I think it would depend on how the use is set up. It's not a blanket requirement for development plans. You would have to have at the bare minimum a conditional use permit and a site plan associated with that with the Board of Adjustment. But if you're talking about multiple structures on a particular site, then oftentimes that would trigger the case for a development plan. And also if the site had already had a development plan at any point, that carries forward. So not necessarily a blanket because in some of the light industrial zones, you can have development there without necessarily needing a development plan. So the language itself does not specify that that is required. Well, let me follow up on that then. We're under consent decree. Water and sewer. will these plants, these data centers have to apply for capacity? Yes. In order for any development to occur in Fayette County, you have to have adequate sign-offs capacity. They won't issue the building permits and the occupancy permits. All of that factors into the same review that any commercial development. And so what we're seeing here is in addition and on top of all of the normal rules all developers go through. Thank you. Mr. Forrester. Mr. Crum, can you elaborate a little more on the banking side of it? Because just from the banks, banks typically these days are technology companies, receive a lot of data. Everything now is electronically on your phone. So how does that play into the changes that we're looking at now? Yeah, so once again, the language and the framework that we have set up here is really trying to create rules and criteria that apply to a particular location that is serving no other real purpose other than transmitting and broadcasting, storing data. In the case that there is an existing use, say a bank, office facility, etc., that's when we would look at it and then we have facilities that are serving those uses or that organization operating within a structure that has an existing bank or other office use. That's when we would apply the server room use. And we tried to scale that appropriately to make sure that we weren't necessarily handicapping businesses that have been able to operate. but once again trying to scale it so that there wasn't a backdoor way for a data center to come in and say we were just a server room and kind of basically give a judge and a kind of objective criteria for when we really start looking at facilities that are out of scale with what we're claiming to be. So all of that to say it's not intended to sort of impede normal business and if we need to adjust those criteria to kind of make sure that that does not occur because there is, in the literature that staff looked at, some places just specify server room and define it as an accessory use without sort of the dimensional or the space criteria. Some do specify the amount of space that it can occupy, but that can vary wildly. So if there is any concern on sort of the scale and the scope that we're operating at, that most certainly can be adjusted through the recommendation of the Planning Commission or ultimately the council, but we wanted to have some guardrails in place to make sure that we weren't essentially losing anything in the interim. Thank you, Ms. Crump. Mr. Chair, if you mind, we received these copies. Only the odd numbers of the pages were printed off. It was my fault. Not the even numbers. So I got all the odd numbers. I don't know if I'm the only one. No, you're not. The copy I brought, I did not reset my printer for the opposite side. So it would have to be printed from the website. So that was your fault? Yeah, it was my fault. What's the document there? So Ms. Worth brought that and after the meeting started, asked for us to make copies. So we just made copies. And I'm not sure that we're not in a position now that the hearing has started to, well, we're in the midst of a hearing. So the other thing that Ben shared with Molly Davis was another set of comments. So I wanted to make sure the Planning Commission understood that you received comments Friday from the staff that had been received. We sent comments, again, earlier this week. and then there's a third set of comments that were added in your computer Granicus system here that were finished at 10 a.m. this morning. After 10 a.m., we still receive more comments. So we always do our best to ensure that the Planning Commission has all of the information that we have as the staff to evaluate and make the best decision you can. So we've printed those 40 or so additional comments we received from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and that's what you all are being shared. We just have the one copy, though, so I just want to make sure that. And part of my confusion this morning was I tried to clarify whether the council had received this document because some of us had received it. I don't know that the Planning Commission had received this document, which is what I was trying to clarify by calling. Okay. Okay. Alrighty. So just before we move on, Mr. Nickel, do you have the printed copy of the last final comments that were submitted? Oh, okay. Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure they were... Okay. Great. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Okay. Mr. Forrester, do you have anything else? I think that's important to point out. We're getting documents as we are sitting here. And we're getting documents from different organizations as we are here. So once again, this proves the point that we are being rushed to make a recommendation within a 60-day period, and we've got to do something today. So this is going to be difficult but entertaining. Mr. Forrester. I do have just one question. And because we are making a rush, as Mr. Nick will call it, do we have to make an approval of denial? Can we just refer it to the council since they gave it to us in a short period of time? Thankfully, we can still look to our right for one more meeting and see. Last time. Mrs. Jones? I knew it was going to be a big meeting today. So you do not have to make a recommendation. You can just refer it back. I mean, I can't think of an instance in the time I've been here that you've done that. And if you do that, I mean, if you do that, you're taking out any input that you want to give to the council from your point of view as the planning commission. But that is an option if you do that. But you do have to comply with the 60-day rule because it was an initiated text amendment. Okay. Mr. Wilson? I was at a meeting with a council member who made a presentation on this data center. And that question was asked to her specifically, and it is the council's deadline is October 31st. The question was, is that a hard, fast timeline? And her response was, no, it wasn't. But it was a guideline. There's two things going on in that question, I think. One is they did two things on June 9th. They did effectively adopt a moratorium on anything, any filings relating to data centers. So there's no filings being accepted right now until October 31st that relate to data centers, building permits, those kinds of things. And that's a moratorium that they adopted. They also, at the same time, initiated the zoning ordinance text amendment and sent it to you all that operates under the 60-day provision. So when you all send your recommendation back to them, which is due no later than August the 9th, which, you know, that's why you're doing this today, then they will take that and they'll have time to study while the moratorium is still in effect until October 31st. What they do with that is up to them. They can lift the moratorium earlier should they choose to do that. They can also extend the moratorium, and they have done both of those things in the past on different issues that they have placed moratoriums on, which haven't been frequent. So to the moratorium question, it's not necessarily a hard and fast deadline if they choose to change it. To the text initiation, it is a hard deadline of 60 days for the Planning Commission. Mr. Chairman, just for clarification. The applicant is the urban county council, correct? Yes. If they gave us permission to go beyond the 30 days, would that be permissible? No, because the text initiation for zoning ordinance text amendment is defined in the Kentucky revised statutes that give you all the power to operate, and we have to follow that. Okay, thank you. Okay. Mr. Jonathan Davis. Thank you. And thank you, Daniel, and thank you to the staff for, I guess, doing a fantastic job considering how little time you guys had to put this framework together. But I have a couple of questions that, I guess, speak to what the worst-case scenario might look like. And my first question is, you know, let's say that the center's built and they're using more power and water than we as a community are comfortable with. Are there any guardrails or can any guardrails be put in place that would allow us to bring them in or say, hey, we need to take a look at, you know, what you guys are doing because using too much water, using too much power. Is that possible? What type of language up there? Yeah, so getting to kind of the Board of Adjustment piece, because the text right now does not explicitly cap the water usage or the electricity usage, ultimately because, once again, those are sort of these opaque processes that the utilities are involved with, but we do not actually locally legislate. What the Board of Adjustment has the ability to do is place certain conditions on the operation of the use. I'm fairly confident that a power cap or being able to verify that aspect, they would review the water plan and can make a determination as a part of their approval that what they were seeing was or was not in agreement. But ultimately, if there are conditions that are placed on the application, conditional uses are reviewed on a yearly basis, or if there was a complaint that there was an issue with that operation, and if they were found in violation of those, they could have their ability to operate revoked. So there are teeth to conditional use permits in a greater sense than other sort of more nuisance activities like a neighbor is being allowed. We have a defined process for that. Where we start to get a little fuzzy is things like sort of water usage and the like that can maybe vary. But ultimately, that information is going to be in front of the Board of Adjustment as they make a review. And if they say yes, it's going to have conditions that would be enforceable. Thank you for that. My second question goes back to a question that Commissioner Worth asked earlier, and that's regarding decommissioning. Whether these centers fall in favor in two years or is there for 50 years, at some point the property would need to be redeveloped. Is there any way we could put language in the proposal that would put the cost and the illness responsibility back on the developer and so that the community would not have to absorb the cost associated with this? Because theoretically they could do this and then decide five years from now, hey, you know what? We don't want to be in this business anymore. We filed for bankruptcy. Is there anything we can do to put handcuffs on this to make this their baby from birth to death and not be born by the citizens of this community? Yeah, yeah. We absolutely, the Kentucky Resource Council language does include language pertaining to decommissioning where some aspects, for instance, where they are negotiating with utilities with that aforementioned issue of asking the utilities for approval to build certain facilities, and then they end up not falling or the project falls through and they're not there for the expected timeline. The negotiations on that side of things are going to be the utilities and the PSC, but we can put decommissioning language in. Those do exist in other places that could help protect against some of those costs. Once again, being a little bit of a different scale when you're talking 40,000 versus a development spanning hundreds or thousands of acres. But yes, that could be included with little to no issue for the ability for them to operate. Okay, Mr. Forge. Mr. Davis, I was reading something on what Ms. Wirth sent to us on the even pages that she didn't send to us. It's online. It's online. Okay. One option, you can do a performance bond or letter of credit to help with that. Like you would on a development, they have to have a letter of credit or performance bond to finish that. Okay. Mr. Owens. Thank you. Follow up with what Commissioner Forrester just offered and Daniel just recognized. somehow I think we need to get these even number of pages to us at some point in time, if at all possible. So I think it's relevant information. Okay. Do we have any other questions for Daniel at this time? Daniel, I had one question. Sure. And sorry, I'm trying to do three things at once. So there is a buffer. There is buffer language for, I believe, residential and agricultural zones. Is it 1,000 feet? Let me grab my language real quick. Okay. Okay. All right, so you can continue on to the question. 14, and then we have a buffer of 1,000 feet for school, daycare, center, or other child care services. My question is, we have residential zones, but then we also have in some of our zones residential uses in zones that may not be residential themselves, but they permit a residential use. Is there a way to revise that language to say within 1,000 feet of a residential use? That is a change that could be made. I think regardless of if the language is incorporated as stated, part of staff's review of any particular development for the conditional use permit would identify, hey, we have a business zone nearby, but that actually has, with the extent that residential is permitted, in a vast number of zones. However, the B4 and the I1, the two places that this could be incorporated, are by far the most limited. So if you would like to change that from a zone to a use, that's a change that could be made as well. Okay. Thank you. Yes, Commissioner Molly Davis. Daniel, the more I think about this, I'm just kind of wondering, how does the Board of Adjustment have the experience, the knowledge, the know-how to be able to compare one person's conditional use permit versus another? And how is it all going to work when it all depends upon a conditional permit going through the Board of Adjustment? Yeah, so these are really, once again, with the conditional use, you're looking at a review that is sort of site-specific. The language that we give them or is specified in the text for the B4, it basically tells the applicant the burden of proof that they have to meet. So things like our Board of Adjustment members are not by trained folks with backgrounds in electricity, water usage, data centers, et cetera, but the applications that they provide and they need to show, they will say that for the descriptions of the plans and what's required for them the plan shall demonstrate that water usage will not significantly strain Lexington Fayette County's water supply. So they would basically, the applicant would have the ability to put that information out. They would have to demonstrate that and make that case plainly and clearly to the Board of Adjustment and then we have enforceable limits for conditions. So in much a way that the Board of Adjustment isn't necessarily an expert on any of the particular uses, they would get a staff report from our staff that lays out the applicant's argument, what the statutory requirements are for a particular plan, staff's review of that item, and if it's something that engineering or our other divisions need to weigh in on, they can do so as well. All of that expert testimony is then sort of leveraged during the Board of Adjustment hearing as they sort of process that information. But it does cover a number of aspects, to be sure. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Penn. Daniel, I don't want to plow this ground again, but that's the very issue that I want to address about a development plan. Normally, the Board of Adjustment doesn't go through a development plan. And anything of this consequence and this size, for the previous thing that I talked about, for other things also, there needs to be a development plan. And that's our process. And for whatever reason, that's not the process of the Board of Adjustment. Commissioner Nichol. Yes, I just have a comment before we get to the rest of the proceeding. What we've been delivered up here is a proposed new definitions list, which is very important for us to understand as we are making the decisions today. So we have defined in this packet a major data center. And the major data center, we'll go through the definition, I think that's something that needs to be flushed out. But as you all will see coming up, the major data centers are prohibited across the board in the recommendation from our staff in the limited amount of time that they had to review the documents. So one thing to hopefully bring everybody a little bit of comfort, we're not sitting here looking at the possibility of adding 12, 200,000 square foot, 2.2 gigawatt data centers on a 1,200 acre piece of property. I think we all are here because we love our community and we want to protect the resources, the natural resources we have, which are our farmland. And we've just entered in 2,800 more acres specifically to grow employment and housing for our community. We're not a community that's going to be interested in taking 1,200 of those square feet and building a major data center. So I just wanted to put that out there. That's not going to be something that I believe our community would be interested in. And it's not something that our staff has discussed. discussed. Where we're going to run into some real decisions that need to be made on these definitions is the size of a major data center, number one, and then the definition of a minor data center and where we want to place those, and then an understanding of server room, which in my opinion should be excluded from the conversation. So I just wanted to frame it up. We are not in a situation where we could end up with a 1,200-acre data center facility in our community. I just wanted to make sure everyone is aware of that, that that's not the recommendation of staff. And being in this position for many years and listening to our community, I don't think that that's something our community wants. So I would like everybody to understand that that's not what we are going to be discussing, but I think we're unanimously considering prohibiting those types of facilities. So I just wanted to make sure everybody understands that that's where we're all kind of on the same page in that situation. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any more questions from Mr. Crum? Commissioner Worth? I think I'd like to go ahead and put this on the table as well, reading a number of the letters that have come through. Some people are reflecting the point about behind the wall and in front of the wall where the power gets generated. Can you address that question in terms of what our state law says about requiring an organization to generate their own power, whether that's an option or not? I would say that as we're currently construed, the operation or the generation of merchant power is sort of separate from our general view. So you're talking about PSC and other review on that. Yeah, I don't know if we've... That is something that could become possible and would reduce potentially the demand for a particular facility. But I'm not an expert on the framework of how that exists and how that could move forward. So it's certainly an emerging topic, especially as we start looking at the use of renewable resources, et cetera. Clearly things like a rooftop-mounted solar, we have a framework existing to allow for things like that in. But as to whether or not they could operate their own other more formalized power generation on site is, I think, a larger question that would involve the state's oversight. Are we in a position, as opposed to PSC negotiating with the utility company and the developer, are we in a position to say we require renewable in this site? Don't believe so. I don't know. I don't know if that's ever been tested, so I'll make Tracy earn her last day. I'm sorry. I didn't hear the whole question because I think there was a fan blowing in my ear. But anyway. Some of the correspondence that's come through has talked about a stacked use of energy generation that requires renewable. and what I'm asking is the first part is who gets to deal with the company about generation of energy and where they're going to get their energy. Second is if we are in a position, if they're constructing a site, to require that they use solar or renewable in that process, or would that be up to the PSC, would that be up to the utility company? Where does that conversation take place? I'm not sure at the local level we have very much latitude to direct or regulate the way the energy is going to get used or being produced. This is to make sure we're all on the same page about who has control over what is the reason I'm asking that question. Okay. Do we have any more questions for Mr. Crumb? Seeing none. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you all. Okay. I have a list of folks who have signed up to speak today. And actually first on that list is legal counsel, Mr. John Woodall. If you'd like, you're welcome to address the Planning Commission at this time. Thank you all. What's going to be the procedure here, Zach? How much time do you think you need, Mr. Wardle? Well, we've got a lot of folks. I think there's folks outside and downstairs. Five minutes would be okay? Five minutes is fine. All right. I'll do as quick as I can. Thank you all for hearing us today, and what a community we have. I've set it up here before, and we've got 1.30 in the afternoon on a Thursday. Room full of people here. Outside's full. Downstairs is full. This is an important issue for our community, and it's my honor to be here today on behalf of Dark Points. McBrayer has the honor and privilege of representing Dark Points, who owns the property at 745 West New Circle Road, which is the former Lexmark IBM property. They purchased that property recently, and as many of you all probably have read in the press or otherwise, It's served as a data center site for about the last 30 years. Just a little bit about who DartPoints is. DartPoints operates secure local data centers that help organizations like Lexington, Fayetteville County Government and others store and process their data, back up critical systems for disasters, and essentially run server-based computing. Who do they serve other than governments? Well, hospitals, and Mr. Forrester referenced banks, other government agencies, universities, manufacturers, logistical companies, energy providers, and so forth. And we do all this by allowing these folks to keep their essential technology running close to where they work. Now, here's what's really important. Who's here? This is who we're not. And this, I think, is what caused the council to push the moratorium initially. And as Commissioner Nickel just mentioned, what we're concerned about in this community is hyperscale data centers. That's not what this is going to be, folks. It's not intended to be that whatsoever. We intend to, this particular facility is about 83,000 square feet. That's what it's been. We intend to operate a minor data center at that area and do just the things that I just described. We project over time, hopefully to be able to scale up, and this is important, to about 50,000 megawatts. That would be the top. It would start lower than that. And this is an important point. The focus of the ZODA at current appears to be on square footage. But, and our folks will be prepared to talk about this in the coming weeks, but technology is moving so quickly in this area. We may get to a point in the next year to a decade, whatever it takes, where a hyperscale data center can be constructed in a 50,000 square foot facility. I don't know what that looks like. I'm not a technological person. I've learned more about data centers and all this stuff in the last several months than I ever probably wanted to know. So our position is what we really need to be focused is on the power side of this thing. Because if you look at these hyperscale data centers, whether it's in Indiana or Louisiana or now announced today in Paducah at the old gaseous diffusion plant that are 2 million square feet, You know, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of megawatts or gigs of power. That's not what we have here. That's not what we want to be. But we need to be thinking about that as a restriction in this zoning ordinance, this text amendment, so that we can keep that out of our community. Because I agree with B, 110%. We don't want that here. We're not set up for that. It's just not that kind of a community. It's not the community that we want. We've submitted written comments for you to observe. The type of folks or entities that we will serve create the kind of jobs that we want in this community. And how many of us are on our phones while we're in here? This is important. I had a conversation with somebody at the University of Kentucky not long ago, and we were talking about AI and whatnot, and how computing is gonna work in the future, it's gonna require a lot. And so those big data centers may be necessary somewhere, but they're not necessary here. But this one is. And it's been that way for a number of years. Like I said, going back about 30 years, we've been operating, we operated at that facility. So what DarkPoints wants here, or would like for the Planning Commission to consider is that whatever ZODA that's adopted, and I know you all are in a heck of a position right here, and I commend staff like everybody has for having to run around in 60 days with every other thing we have going on in this community and that they have to deal with with zone changes and student housing and everything else to try to get this together. I'll rush it up here. I know you all are in a tricky position, but we're going to have to come up with something. So what we'd like is, we would like the ZODA to recognize the continued operation, modernization, and reasonable phased expansion of this existing data center campus, and allow the site to scale up to a maximum of 50 megawatts of power on our current footprint. Our future growth, and this is another important point that I wanna make sure it's clear for the record, it will be limited to the existing data center building footprint and current on-site structures. We don't anticipate a new campus or new construction outside of what we're going to rehab on-site. Noise. I believe the projected or the ZODA is currently drafted. We're looking at maximum decimals of 65 from 8 to 6 p.m. and 55 from 6 to 8. Well, we're projected on our site to be no more than 50. So we're well inside that wheelhouse. Water system, to Ms. Worth's question, this will be a closed-loop cooling system on this particular site. So after the cooling system is completely charged, if you think of a small residential swimming pool, that'd be about what it would take per year to top it off or every few months, whatever it is. but it is not a continual process of taxing our water supply. Power, another very important point. We already have an existing substation on this site, so we're not talking about having to build a new elaborate power system that would tax our grid. We have existing infrastructure on site as well, and when we renovate all this along with KU, it will also help power adjacent properties that are commercial and industrial. So I'll close up here, but we thought it was important to come here today and if for no other reason, to let you know how excited about Dark Points is to be in our community and be a good corporate citizen. This is a necessary thing. I mean, they don't like necessarily being in this procedure because they bought a property that's currently Zone P1, and data centers are currently allowed in that zone. But we've got to figure this out, but we want to be a part of that in terms of coming up with what the ultimate language is here. And I know we're down to the wire on it, but with that, I'll take any questions you have. Okay, thank you, Mr. Woodall. Do we have any questions? Mr. Davis. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Woodall. I have a quick question for you, and that is regarding, again, just like you, I'm no expert on AI or data centers, and this is all very new to all of us, but I have done a little bit of reading, and I understand that there are less expensive ways, I'm sorry, there are more expensive ways, but probably less cost-effective ways of cooling other than using water. Has your project, have they looked at alternative ways of cooling this other than using our drinking water? I believe that Dark Points is first in class in terms of this size particular data center. And as far as what is the most efficient way to do to cool the project here that they envision, this closed loop system is state of the art. Okay. Do we have any other questions for Mr. Woodall at this time? I see none. Thank you. All right. Okay. At this time, we'll move on to public comment. And I have been given a list. Anyone who would like to speak today certainly is welcome to. It is the policy of the Planning Commission that everyone is entitled to three minutes of time. There is no borrowing or lending of time at the Planning Commission. I'll call a few names in order, and if we could just form a line of maybe two or three individuals at a time just for fire safety, but we will begin and work our way through this list. The first names that I have are Francine Gordon, John Marshall, and Nathaniel Hintz. If you would please just approach the podium and state your name. And again, everyone has three minutes. Hi, my name is Francine Gordon. Thank you for your time today. So as the representative from Dark Points just mentioned, we're at the beginning stages of this. and whether it's an issue of the size of it or the megawatts, I think we need to be very careful here because we don't know exactly how fast these are going to develop, how much they're going to need. And as he stated, just because it's 50,000 square feet does not mean that they can't turn it into a hyperscale data center down the road when technology gets better. I have personally given a lot of research on Engage, and I also sent you all an email about it. So I think that I know that you're limited, but because you have until August 9th, maybe you could take a little bit more time before you pass what's currently been proposed. And take a look at what other people in other counties are experiencing right now. I would hate to see us not have enough regulation on these sites that they are allowed to do more in the future. And even 50 decibels is too much. That is not safe for the horses that are close to that community. It's not safe for the seedlings of plants that are close to that community. There are just so many aspects of this that need more research. And so I think the stricter we are now, then the less we have to worry about down the road. And I just would ask you to do everything in your power. And I can hear from your comments and your questions that there is concern by you as well as from us. And because this is new, again, I just can't stress enough, it's very concerning to see what's happening all over the country. You know, cows with stillborns. There has not been time to have enough research done to see exactly what the effects of this are going to be long term. And so I know that Lexington has a lot of, and I won't get into it, you all are, I'm sure, more aware of what's going on than I am. But there's just major concerns in this community. And as a resident that's only been here five years, but that was born in Winchester, lived all over the place, and then came back here, the reason that I'm settling here is because it's a safe community. It's a nice-sized town, and I just don't want to see that ruined, and I don't want to see us be in a place where we have to go through all these lawsuits. And like I said, and just the concern of our kids that are in that area, daycare, there's just so much. It's kind of overwhelming and mind-blowing, but please do everything in your power to help keep this at bay so that we can maintain the community that we have currently. Thank you. Thank you. If we could please minimize that because it will help the hearing run more efficiently, and that way the Planning Commission can hear from as many people as we can. Thank you. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. I'm John Marshall. I'm at 3387 Winthrop Drive. I have been a resident of Lexington all my life. I am kind of on the fence about this whole thing. I have worked at the Toyota site for a contractor. I just recently retired. And I understand how a big site like that can, or any kind of big project like that, can affect negatively or positively to a community. But I think we need to really approach this with protection against the community because of what it can be and what we've seen. And I'm sure everybody has seen quite a few things online as far as how it's affected a lot of communities negatively. And I think that's why you have the turnout that we're having today. One of the things that I've heard people talk about is the decommissioning. We need to require a decommissioning bond on all these projects. And I think we need to require decommissioning bonds on not just data centers, but large projects like this that come to Lexington and Fayette County. I think we need to have decommissioning bonds. Another thing is I would hope that there's no NDAs being signed by people in Fayette County government. And if there are, we need to make sure that they're not being done and that we're getting total accountability from you all as far as anything, as far as texting. any communications that you've received from data centers or anybody or any developers, anybody. We need accountability and we need transparency with our government here. And I appreciate your time today. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Hi, my name's Nathan Hintz. I want to thank everyone for being here. And I understand why many people have concerns about the new data centers, especially when we hear about the enormous amounts of energy and water they usually require, plus the low-frequency infrasound that can travel for miles, causing negative effects on life even when we can't hear it. These are legitimate concerns, but AI is not going away. The question is not whether data centers should exist. The real question is, can we build them responsibly? Right now, traditional data centers consume tremendous amounts of energy, all of which becomes heat, released into our neighborhood while the community provides the electricity and water needed. But we have a solution. At thermasonic.org, you'll learn about our significant improvements in thermoacoustics and existing tech already proven to convert heat into electricity. By placing our silent heat powered energy system between the data center and the cooling system, we use the natural temperature difference to generate renewable energy, dramatically reducing the amount of cooling since the energy is actually turned into electricity. So this significantly reduces the pressure on the grid and makes these facilities more sustainable and far quieter. So we've also designed optimized cooling systems that we can just drill holes into the earth instead of drilling tunnels to use the earth to condense the water, recycling the same water indefinitely, which is significantly less expensive, perhaps than what's being considered. And plus the electrical generation can be done simply with burning the diesel instead of combusting it in big, noisy, low-frequency engines. Using this system, we're using heat, so the diesel can actually run more efficiently, perhaps, running these large infrasonic systems where we insulate the entire system in a vacuum. So no sound, no infrasound is getting out. In fact, we can tune the system to cancel out any infrasound from the existing combined fans that tend to create these infrasound disturbances. The future of AI infrastructure does not have to be a choice between economic growth and protecting our environment. We can have both. Lexington has the opportunity to lead by requiring innovations that respects the people who live here. Before approving the next generation of data centers, let's ask developers to invest in these technologies that reduce waste, protect our resources, and lead with a model other communities will follow. Lexington can be known as a place where technology and environmental responsibility came together. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Forster, did you have any clarification? Did you? Okay, all right. Okay, the next items I have on the list are, or I'm sorry, the next individuals. J.P. Always, Lauren Higdon, Latonya Jones, Regina Harris, Stephen Harris. And there is a slight delay on the feed in the lobby, so they may be present. We'll give them a second. If there's an individual here in the chambers today who would like to speak who is not on the list, please approach the podium, and you're welcome to do so now. Hi. I'm not cutting in line. There was a problem with the list and the QR code. Yes, you're perfectly fine. Good afternoon. My name is Maria E. District 1. The attorney took half of what I was going to say. He's totally on point. So I'll just do this from a personal perspective. of I'm embarrassed by how Lexington is treating dark points who could have went anywhere, but they chose Lexington, and we should be treating them better. Again, getting back to the attorneys, the logic of it, they're just repurposing the IBM center. It's fully zoned. uniquely infrastructure. The water is closed loop. To my knowledge, they're not going to have to upgrade any plumbing or anything like a multifamily high-density development would cause. They see Lexington as a strategic investment market and have outlined a plan to invest over $1 billion of private capital ready to deploy on a site already built exactly for this purpose. They just want to reactivate it. Okay, so you got all that. Just to that, God. What disturbs me is that the city, and I'm not holding this council necessarily responsible, but the city approves at alarming rates and rubber stamps LITCH tax credits, taxpayers' money being funneled into low-income, subsidized housing rezonings based on developer commission studies, whose portfolios are the ones that continue to increase. Well, their tax bill decreases. My concern is, is really should anybody in this room be surprised when a private billion dollar industrial capital that did not come through their preferred channels gets blocked in seconds? I'm asking, what is the real issue here? I'm requesting at this time for the commission to reject the blanket moratorium prohibition for dark points at the IBM campus, notwithstanding established reasonable standards addressing the noise in utilities and setting buffers. Is that three minutes? If you just need a second to finish your thoughts, that's perfectly right. One more second. Respectfully, Lexington should actively be encouraging independent private industrial projects which deliver pure economic benefit to the community with zero taxpayer liability. So let's welcome dark points at the IBM campus. A self-sustaining private industrial investment that fully funds their own infrastructure operations, protecting taxpayers, yada yada, because 10 years from now, when Lexington is still approving subsidized housing developments, someone's going to ask why the billion dollar private investments are going someplace else. Do you really want the answer to be this commission? Maria E. Thank you. Hi. My name is JP Always. Community members need houses. We don't need a data center. I'm concerned that the data centers across this country are boondoggle. Once the investment bankers get their money out of it, there's not going to be anything behind it. And they'll crumble. and then our agricultural land will have been polluted, destroyed. I also wonder why companies need to store all of our data for infinity. In order to get a job, I have to give my data. To be respectful to the speaker, please allow her to speak freely. Not only to the company I'm applying to, but all of their subsidiaries that work for them to provide services. And I don't have a list of those companies, and I don't have addresses, and it's a lot of work and a lot of money to write them all and say, please delete my data. It's ridiculous that in order to volunteer at some places in town, I have to give my information to a third party who has other parties in order to do something, and I don't know what. So I question whether these data centers are a good idea. I think Kentucky should skip them, let other states dip their toe in there, and possibly lose their funding in their farmland to unnecessary data centers. Thank you. Thank you very much. Go on to the next. You're welcome to. Hello, commissioners. My name is Latonya Jones. I live in the 1st District. I'm also an organizer with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, our Central Kentucky chapter, right here in Lexington. I usually don't speak. Part of my role is to provide the research, provide the resources for our members to be able to practice using their voices. You'll hear from some of them today. I'm here today in the role as an organizer, but also as a member of this community. And I'm a member of this community who is tired of being imposed upon. I'm tired of seeing the resources that are so precious to Kentucky be exploited. We do this and call it economic gain, and yet we show up constantly, lowest, on all kinds of information about how our state runs, education. We could go on and on. So I don't know that these, what we call these economic advances, this economic boom, actually touches the people. I find that it actually is harmful. I don't want to be in a community where I can't go to sleep at night. Sleep affects our quality of life. I don't want to go to live in a community where I can't trust the water. We need water for sustenance, for life. We have sold ourselves out. And if we continue on that, what is left? What will we say in a few years when you've got people coming here, standing right here at this microphone, telling you, I can't sleep at night. The water, there's sludge in my water. My children don't feel safe. We can't trust our environment. I don't think that's who we are at our heart. This is still something that is in the works. We don't have to be at the forefront of what we know now with the evidence that's available to us now. We don't have to be at the forefront of destruction. We can take our time. You can take your time. There's not enough information for us to move like this. I feel like this opens up a door to more and more extraction. and very little is given back, especially when this is weighted on the backs of predominantly black and brown and other marginalized individuals right here that we say we care about, but so easily pushed to the side when we're talking about a billion dollars. Is that worth it? When we cannot trust our natural resources? when we give up what makes us special, what makes a home. Let's not give up our home. Let's not do that. I say a ban. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We can have whoever would like to speak next. You're welcome to please approach the podium. I just want to be abundantly clear that the only way for this to be functional is not to move forward at all. I really wish I could walk around. I'm going to attempt to address everyone as I speak. Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Could you please state your name? Stephen Harris. Thank you. Apologies. In any case, I want to start with an example. Just a story. I had an aunt, Paris, Kentucky, passed away from cancer. And then, 32 years to the day, I had a cousin passed away from the same cancer and had been living in the same area. It's a morbidly poetic story. Okay? Now, no one since has been affected by that who lived in that area. Not that I know of. But what I'm giving you is the opportunity to look at, on the micro scale, what presents itself as the potential for something to have happened in that area that specifically affected that demographic. These are two African American women. No one else has been affected by this since in that area. Okay? It's a micro example. Now, if you could expand just for a second to a macro example. We have rapid data center building all over the place, everywhere. The individuals who spoke before me gave you a plethora of examples how this is affecting not only individuals, but livestock. Right? Plants. Soil. So, you are and with me are now in the seat that my aunt and cousin were in. You're the test bed. Okay? Be clear. Let's just think about that. Now, I noticed, unless I received bad information, that most of the proposed areas that these centers can be built are, to my knowledge, disproportionately favoring communities that have been targeted for other experimental buildings otherwise. So let me just as I leave, I don't want to get long winded. I'm expressing discontent for that as well. Just like we express discontent for overpopulation in those areas. Just like we express discontent for gentlemen's clubs being allowed to be built on top of one another in those same areas. And it's the same sentiment of discontent that we'd expressed for clinics and other things that address opioid addiction that are subsequently surrounded by individuals who need more substantial help, just like we expressed that same discontent. I'm expressing that discontent not only for my community, but for Kentucky at large. So that's my two cents. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. All right, could the next speaker please approach and just state your name. Hello, Commission. My name is Regina Harris, and I am with KFTC as well, and as well as a resident, and I'm a mom, and I'm a neighbor, and I'm a TTA mom, and I am in the Northside District. Some things have been expressed already, and one of the things have been, how does this come into a community where we care about each other? How do we allow ourselves to co-sign something that could harm our next generation? What are we teaching our children? Are we teaching them to be fair? Are we teaching them to think about the future? It's already hopeless with the amount of money that we choose each day for housing, food, and gas. So I hope that we know that data centers are threatening. They're harmful to what makes us Kentuckians. They're also harmful for affordability, health, environmental cost, including heavy water usage, including our communities that will suffer. We reject these developments, these massive entities. I'm on the north end of town where we were in the planning commission for the development of more housing over there. So we are looking for ways to improve our community, but not to take away from our community. And this is one of these energy parasites that will take away from us and take away from Kentucky and what we're known for, the bluegrass, right? So in evidence, there's not enough evidence for us to show that this is good for our community long term. Not short term, but long term. And that's another thing that Lexitonians, I feel that we are really keeping a feeling of pains of higher things when we look back on the past, how we wipe out certain black and brown communities and then look later like it's too late. It's way too late. So don't let this high energy bills, utilities, inviting larger data centers to continue to make it difficult for people who are already in the Commonwealth. Let's make this a final cannot ignore, not come back and say we shoulda, coulda, woulda when we have the opportunity now to say no. These large developments, I don't think they understand that we are a small town, heart-wise, because we care about each other. There's no way you can say someone's name and not know each other in Lexington. So let's keep our neighborhoods and communities and working class folks important here, especially our Lexington folks who are black and brown and our farmers. Because these are the people who we will always need, the farmlands, the working people. We need these resources because we cannot go forward with AI if we don't have all these sustainable things. So I put together some time in my last 18 seconds to say I encourage you to look at this not only logically, but also with your heart, and thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Again, please, if we could just hear speakers consistently, it will help the Planning Commission get through this efficiently, which I know everybody wants. We previously received a request from Brandy Collins to speak. Is Brandy in the room or close? Okay. You had requested 15 minutes. If you would just state your name and who you were speaking on behalf of today, please. Yes. Thank you, Chair. My name is Patrick Mason. I'm with the Environmental Commission. All right, so good afternoon. Thank you, Chair Davis, as well as members of the commission and the planning staff. My name is Patrick Mason. I am presenting today on behalf of the Environmental Commission. and while our primary position as a commission remains that stand-alone commercial data centers are ill-suited for Fayette County's limited land mass inside the urban service boundary especially. We recognize that there is a slightly different proposal today. If our local zoning ordinance is going to permit data centers, the text amendment must be built on objective, measurable, and strictly enforceable performance standards. So today I'll walk you through our evidence-based policy recommendations drawn directly from our white paper, which you all should have received among many of the other public comments beforehand. and it's designed to safeguard our power grid, water supply, farmland, and public health while keeping Lexington on track for its 2050 net zero goals. So our 25-member advisory body works across all 12 districts to provide research, back guidance, and on sustainability for the urban county government and its citizens. Data centers represent a fundamentally different category of development than typical warehouses or factories due to their 24-7 continuous energy draw, liquid cooling demands, and operational noise. The main focus of our feedback relies on two regulatory standards. Vague or permissive guidelines won't work. We need clear, enforceable performance metrics. Furthermore, evaluating technical impacts such as acoustic frequencies, electrical grid stress and water draw. It really does exceed any of the City's regular review resources. We've mentioned that earlier. Therefore, we recommend requiring applicant-funded, neutral, third-party expert reviews as part of any conditional use permit application. This ensures our planning bodies have access to independent technical expertise at zero cost to taxpayers or a burden to our city staff. So to understand why strict standards are necessary, I think you've heard several already, we must look at our land scarcity, especially within the urban service area. Looking at our industrial zoning, there are about 1,300 vacant acres inside the urban service area and 1.15 million square feet of industrial space. The urban service area's industrial land is a precious economic asset, and that should be reserved for high employment and high impact benefit sectors. Data centers create a severe land use disproportion. They consume massive geographic footprints, draw a vast amount of continuous electricity and cooling water and require extensive utility capital, yet generate very few on-site jobs once built. That gap between heavy resource consumption and low job creation is why every acre dedicated to data centers must be strictly regulated. So, our recommendations as the Environmental Commission were not developed in a vacuum. Much like the planning staff, we looked at several state, regional, and national policy models. Data centers alongside regional guidance from the Southern Economic Law Center and county-level infrastructure frameworks from the National Association of Counties. These best practices offer proven, legally sound standards that protect host communities while offering clear expectations to developers. So our recommendations are in line with Kentucky Resources Council, NACO, as well as Southern Environmental Law Center. First, we urge strict zoning prohibitions. Several are already included, but we'd like a few more. Data centers of any scale should be prohibited across all agricultural, residential, and mixed-use zones, as well as areas designated for future residential rezoning. Second, where data centers are permitted, we must expand the definition of sensitive uses. The current draft focuses primarily on residences and schools, but we recommend broadening that definition to include daycares, hospitals, nursing homes, public parks, environmental areas, and agricultural land. Expanding this definition ensures our buffers protect vulnerable populations and open spaces from industrial encroachment. Ultimately, expanding prohibitions and setback areas prevents severe land use friction and protects vulnerable populations and open space. Currently, the draft ordinance classifies minor and major data centers based solely on building square footage. But physical footprint doesn't drive a facility's primary impact. Electrical demand does. A modern definition for considering the size and scale of a minor versus major data center classifications must consider megawatt electrical demand rather than building square footage alone. We recommend for the minor data center definitions that we lower the threshold to 40,000 square feet and establish a hard maximum capacity of 25 megawatts to prevent unreviewed grid impacts. Additionally, considering mandatory performance standards, data centers must have several standards that we do not enforce elsewhere. First, we must mandate a power utilization efficiency target between 1.1 and 1.3. As a quick definition, that's the total facility energy divided by IT equipment energy. An ideal PUE score is 1.0, meaning all power goes directly to IT equipment rather than cooling or lighting overhead. Facilities should be required to have LEED certification. LEED actually has a data center silver certification. Having that standard or higher is a ready-made and publicly reliable definition standard that can and should be met if we allow them in Lexington. This minimizes excess energy usage beyond base operational necessities. We talked a bit about water availability. Sorry about that. I think I moved ahead. If I could get back to the water management slide. Thank you. So we've talked about water availability, and it's a critical long-term consideration. So rather than using permissive language that merely suggests closed-loop systems, the ordinance must mandate additional protections. I keep going back to this. So we must protect our groundwater by explicitly banning private wells for liquid cooling and forbidding facilities within designated wellhead protection planning areas. Finally, we recommend requiring a comprehensive water management plan that includes long-term monitoring and mandatory curtailment triggers during regional drought conditions. proper location setbacks are vital crucially all setbacks must be measured from the outer property line not just the building footprint to prevent future expansions from eroding buffer distances. We recommend a 1,500 foot setback for structures from sensitive uses, a 2,000 foot setback for generator exhaust stacks, and a minimum 500 foot buffer from all adjacent parcel boundaries. Regarding noise, unlike typical industrial facilities, data centers generate continuous 24-7 sound from cooling banks and generators. The ordinance should require pre-construction acoustical studies under worst case conditions and mandate post-construction verification within six months. Backup diesel generators pose serious air quality concerns due to fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions. We recommend prioritizing battery storage as the primary backup power source and requiring use of U.S. EPA Tier 4 standards for any diesel generators. Given that utilities, including KU, are citing data centers as the reason to build expensive new gas generation plants across the Commonwealth that threaten public health, climate, and energy bills, we feel it is important that new data centers have a renewable energy requirement for their primary energy source, including some behind the meter clean energy. To support Lexington's climate goals, facilities should follow a staggered transition to renewable power. I have that in front of you here. Lastly, we recommend requiring a binding 15-year community benefits plan that includes a developer community fund to help low-income Fayette County households with weatherization and energy bill relief alongside local workforce hiring priorities. To conclude, establishing objective enforceable performance standards ensures that any data center development in Lexington respects our power grid, water supply, farmland, and neighborhood quality of life. These recommendations provide our planning bodies and developers with clear, predictable expectations while safeguarding Fayette County's sustainable future. Thank you for your time and leadership, and I'm happy to answer any questions from the commission. Thank you, Mr. Mason. Do we have any questions? Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you could, on the setbacks, clarify for me, you offered up 1,500 foot setback and And then 500 from adjacent perimeter property. Define that for me. Yes. So that is a measure directly from the building to the next property line. From the data center building? Yes. Are you talking about 1,500 feet or 500 feet? That would be 1,500 feet for structures from sensitive uses specifically. And then the 500 feet from adjacent perimeter property buffer? From the boundaries, yes. From the boundary to where? From the boundary to the building. And that part of the 1,500 feet? The 1,500 feet is specific to sensitive uses. Like schools and hospitals? Schools, hospitals, nurseries, parks. Okay. I'll keep working on it. Thank you. Commissioner Wirth. In regard to your noise recommendations, you talk about how it should be measured and when it should be measured. Did you propose a particular standard on level of noise? I believe we did set a standard on that. And the main thing, though, about our argument is that there should be a continuous measurement, not just at the beginning, but throughout the development as well as after, because we want them to fulfill their promises to their community. And not just looking at the ambient noise, but also some of those high-frequency noises that we know cause what some people realize as headaches and other health issues. Mr. Wilson. Just for clarification, you indicated something about 40,000 square feet as opposed to 50,000? Yes. Why the 40,000? What's the magic number there? Yeah, so that's in line with other communities across the country. So trying to level set with them. Okay. Okay, do we have any other questions for Mr. Mason at this time? If not, thank you very much. Thank you. everyone who has been on the list to speak has spoken. If there is anyone else in the room, everyone who is on the list that I have in front of me has spoken. So if we have a process, if I could please explain it again, as I said, anyone who would like to speak is welcome to, if you would please just form a line of two or three people at a time, that's for fire safety and just two or three at a time. Okay. Before we can move forward, I can only have a line of two or three people at a time per our fire marshal. And again, we will hear from anyone who wants to speak. If you would, just state your name, and everyone gets three minutes. Thank you. You ready? My name is Pete Lynch, and I teach politics at the University of Kentucky. I'm also a candidate for U.S. Congress with the Kentucky Party here in the 6th District, and I support a national moratorium on all AI data center development. Here in Lexington, the opposition to data centers is widespread and growing. In case it isn't clear to the Planning Commission that we don't want AI data centers, I'm going to make it clear by polling the audience. Raise your hand if you don't want any AI data centers in Lexington. Is it clear now? The people of Lexington do not want AI data centers. The county council has imposed a moratorium on data centers through October 31st. That's better than nothing, but it is not nearly enough time to pass the rules needed to protect the community. moratorium should be extended as long as legally possible. The Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment you're considering would allow AI data centers of up to 50,000 square feet, and it doesn't seriously address the public's concerns about data center energy use, water use, environmental damage, or the sounds that data centers will create. Instead of going point by point to illustrate how inadequate the zoning ordinance is, I will outline the regulations you and the County Council should pass to effectively block all AI data center development in Lexington. One, require a 1,500-foot buffer zone separating data centers from all homes, schools, and horse farms. Two, cap commercial data buildings at 10,000 square feet or 10 megawatts drained from the grid. Three, force tech developers to prepay 100% of all grid, water, and other infrastructure upgrade costs through a strict public permit process. Four, require air cooling combined with a strict 45-decibel nighttime noise limit. Forcing companies to use air fans to save our drinking water while keeping the fans quiet enough for neighbors to sleep creates a technical trap that AI infrastructure cannot survive. And five, ban the use of continuous on-site generators and gas turbines to destroy the AI data center business model. When put together, these regulations would make it impossible for AI data centers to be built in Lexington. If you would like to discuss the regulations we'll need to prevent AI data centers from coming to Lexington, please reach out to me at info at PeteLynchForKentucky.com. Thank you. Thank you. All right, if we can hear from our next speaker, please. Please, yes, please. Good afternoon. My name is Don Amant. I'm an Lexington resident for 56 years. And I'd have to say it's been very interesting these past few months starting to look into all this data center stuff, hasn't it? The first thing I realize is that I have not had nearly enough time to do an adequate dive into all the info, and I think we're learning that maybe you all haven't either, especially with this 60-day rush job. I've read the staff recommendations in the ZODA, and I'm just a regular citizen trying to keep up. But I will say there is one issue in the ZODA that I was able to dig into. It's been mentioned here slightly, and that is the 1,000-foot recommended buffer zone distance that would surround these facilities in Fayette County. And what I wanted to get at was what is a real-world answer to is 1,000 feet enough. We're hearing all kinds of numbers here today. Well, I googled up a satellite map of Lexington, to which I would like to say thank you, Internet. And I would also like to make it clear that I could have done that 15 years ago, way before we had data centers. And the only difference is now I'm being data harvested when I do it. But I found a place that makes 1,000 feet very real, and it's the racetrack out at Keeneland. If you go out to Keeneland in the early morning during the spring or fall meets, you can lean right on the rail and watch all the action during those morning workouts. One thing you will definitely see and more importantly hear is the sound of a horse galloping around that track because somebody's going to be wanting to find out what kind of a horse they've got. So the trainers get their lap times on a stopwatch. You and I get the most magical and incredible sound of that horse galloping around the track. Well, on that satellite image that I mentioned, you can measure the distance between you standing at the rail and that horse galloping just kind of right over there on the back stretch. It's about 950 feet. So we'll say that's pretty close to 1,000, which is the recommended number in the ZODA as written as a buffer zone. And I was going to say that I can't imagine that being enough, but actually I decided I can imagine what it would sound like if that horse was replaced the same distance away by the screaming sounds of a big old data center operating 24-7, 365. And I can imagine those sounds. It gives me the answer to my question that no, 1,000 feet is not enough distance for the buffer zone, and I don't know how much it is. And I honestly don't see how you can send any of this over to council with the brush job that's going through here. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Erin Petrie, and I'm a proud Lexingtonian. For background, I've spent over a decade working in renewable energy and corporate sustainability. My last role was with Amazon Web Services, the largest operator of hyperscale data centers in the world. So I have had a lot of time to think about and study this issue from the inside. So I know a thing or two about the largest hyperscaler and how they think about sustainability, how we can improve their impact on the environment and local communities, and what kind of information I can provide to communities such as right here in Fayette County to empower them to make better decisions. See, in tech, you move fast and break things, but that is not the role of government. So though I am sensitive to the deadline, it's more important to do things right, Commissioner Nickel, than to shove things through, even though they might need a bit of time. Because expediency shouldn't be prioritized over adequacy, let alone excellence. The data center conversation is a unique gift to citizens and communities like Lexington. because not only does it allow us the opportunity to have conversations around what responsible growth looks like, but it also raises environmental regulation to the top of the daily noise, especially at a time when environmental protections and measures to combat climate change are being eliminated from the highest levels. Though data centers are the topic of today's session, I urge this body to more broadly review and strengthen the rules around what responsible and environmentally sustainable community-focused growth looks like in a growing city like Lexington. These conversations around setbacks, emissions, community impacts should be extended to all types of heavy industry and development, not just data centers. I fully co-sign the recommendations from the Environmental Commission, but I also suggest adding in water use effectiveness, which is similar to PUE, power use effectiveness, as an effective measure of resources. But I have three specific comments on the proposed draft. Number one is on redefining how data center sizes are viewed. The current ordinance indicates that no data centers over 50,000 square feet will be allowed, but as we've heard many times today, that doesn't adequately show their impact. Square footage does not dictate that impact, rather capacity does. For example, a 50,000 square foot compute data center can use 10 to 20 megawatts of power, whereas one focused on AI or gen AI loads will take four to five times that. Now just because it's hard doesn't mean it isn't worth the effort. And if I, many community members, and even the representative from DartPoints agree that capacities better measure, I think that says something. The second thing is extending the setback. I agree that 1,500 square feet should be that minimum. Currently it's 1,000 feet for any other type of heavy industry, but I think that that is something that should be looked at more broadly. Finally, I believe we should add mandatory emissions reporting, especially in order to track generator usage and associated air quality impacts. I just have one more sentence. Quality regulation is best supported by data and transparency and allows us to move forward on updating zoning and regulation based on real data. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. What Aaron said. My name is Sarah Katzenmeyer. First part of my statement is from the Northside Neighborhood Association. They are all working today and couldn't be here, and I said I would say this statement. Northside Neighborhood Association, which is District 1 of the amazing Tyler Morton, is in opposition of AI data centers within the boundaries of our neighborhood community. We are concerned about the lack of regulation surrounding data centers in Lexington and the neighborhoods surrounding our neighborhood. AI data centers are- water, energy, produce noise, air, all the stuff you've heard. Basically, we are against all of the main reasons that other neighborhood associations are going to be against having them in their backyard. Inside, we also would like to include something about community benefits, funding for helping low-income community members that are within the area pay their electric bills. We encourage you to consider this moving forward in any hearings and to also allow more time for people to attend public hearings and at better time of the day. respectfully the Northside Neighborhood President Rachel Norton and the entire Northside Neighborhood Board. Alright the rest of my time as Sarah Katzenmeier having worked at IBM. I worked at IBM for 42 years and I have lived less than a mile from the LexSmart campus for my entire life. I know that IBM was a good example. We had over 8,000 employees in Lexington at one time that's why IBM is still the icon, that's why it's still called the campus. IBM was a good community member. They were good citizens. Because we had so many employees here, we made sure that IBM was a good citizen. The same with Lexmark, they carried on that tradition and they really took care of the area and the people around it. The jury is still out on Dart Point. How many jobs will they bring in? I bet it's not 8,000. Will they be a member of the community like IBM? We'll see. What have they done to build trust so far? Will they be good neighbors? Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon Chair and Commissioners. My name is Patty Drouse and I live in Joyland and I am representing the Joyland Neighborhood Association board and I'm a director on it. Joyland Neighborhood Association believes the ZODA regulating data centers should be very stringent and should limit them to one data center within a three mile radius, especially when near residences and sensitive agricultural land due to noise and emissions. Number one, data centers do not belong in the B4 zone, which quote, should act as a buffer between more intense and less intense land uses, nor light industrial zone, which have quote, uses not involving a potential nuisance in terms of smoke, noise, odor, vibration, et cetera. They belong in heavy industrial zone, which quote, uses involve potential nuisance factors, which necessitates adequate buffering and separation from lower intensity land uses. We believe this should be corrected. Also, in all other zones, please state explicitly that major and minor data centers are prohibited. Number two, whichever zones are used under conditional uses, A, applications. Number one through five, all these questions on utility use are for the PSC and utility companies. The applicant must have documentation from them ensuring Lexington Utility Services will not be jeopardized. The Planning Commission or the BOA should not be responsible for making this determination. Under B, noise standards, the decibel levels are set too high. There are also additional noise criteria recommendations from the KRC that we should include in this category. These criteria and a decibel chart are in your packet. To live near an average of 65 decibels will be very stressful and have health impacts unless you're deaf. Average 55 decibels at night is as loud as people talking, which is also inappropriate. I would remove the word average at a minimum and reduce the decibel levels. C, within 1,000 feet of any residential zone should also include extended care facilities, hospitals, rehab centers. F, the last sentence, interruptions, specify how long a generator can run if there is an interruption. The article in your packet states that generators are running for longer periods after an interruption at current locations. And H, number one, change the word odor to excessive diesel particulate matter emissions from generators. Number three, diesel generators for data centers can be the size of shipping containers, and centers use many generators to fully replace electricity needs and send up plumes of smoke fouling the air. We should require the latest technology and generators such as Tier 4 or better. 2.5 micron particulate matter from burning fossil fuels are so small they bypass normal respiratory airway filtration. They enter the lungs and are able to pass into the bloodstream where they lead to heart attack and stroke as well as causing respiratory diseases. Diesel emissions should be regulated. Please pay close attention to this. The recommendation from KRC regarding generators is in your packet. We should have restrictive requirements in this ZODA, especially related to emissions and noise. Data centers are a threat to our community and our lives. This ZODA is very important. Thank you very much for considering your call. Thank you. We'll move on to the next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Suzanne McIntosh, and I'm a resident of the First District. I am also a long-time homeowner who lives one mile from the proposed AI data center development at the former Lexmark site on New Circle Road. I oppose the development for a number of reasons. The noise levels produced by these types of data centers are dangerous to people and animals, especially children and broodmares, causing miscarriages and stillborn births. The power used by these centers threatens the power supply of the surrounding community and raises rates for those in its vicinity. The air pollution produced is also dangerous for people, especially children, and the water use and resultant pollution threatens a limited and valuable resource. Since this proposed development is within the City of Lexington, multiple neighborhoods and businesses on the north side will be negatively affected. Large AI data centers like the development being produced have been shown to be detrimental to communities, people, and animals across the U.S. Let's not jeopardize our community, the future of our children, or the horse industry by by approving the development of this center. I have noticed in the ZODA that even though the Planning Commission has placed limits on water use, energy use, and noise levels of data centers in Section 5 of the Zoning Ordinance, the penalties for violation don't prevent the damage once these limits have been exceeded. And once data center is up and running, no matter what damage to the environment and quality of life of the people, animals, and businesses in its proximity, it's going to be difficult to stop or get rid of them. Prevention of harm is always the better alternative. My name is Jay Bowman and I'm running for Congress in the 6th District as an independent. I thought I was doing something difficult, but I think this planning commission is doing something more difficult. The time frame that you have is impossible. I wrote earlier, submitted a plan by email, and I hope you had time to take a look at it. I asked for four things. 100% off-site solar power for small data centers. Battery storage, no fossil backup. Closed loop cooling, zero water waste. Offer fast track permitting to people that agree to these requirements. This is a race, and there's an opportunity here for us to take advantage of this, but it has to have safeguards. The main thing I'm saying is demand clean innovation or just say no. One thing that's being missed, I have several AI patents in machine learning, and the main water usage in these data centers is not for cooling, it's for the power generation. So basing your decisions on square footage, even though it's a normal planning situation to do that, is wrong. It's got to be based on power usage. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Kathy Turk. I live in District 1. Thank you for hearing me. I appreciate this moratorium. Depending on your actions, this pause will either work to protect Lexingtonians or leave us exposed. I bought my forever home four years ago in the lovely neighborhood of Elkhorn Park, close to my daughter and son-in-law, downtown and UK for my health care. I volunteer with hospice and Habitat for Humanity, have a little free library and a wildflower garden for the bees. I thought I had my retirement plan. What I didn't plan on was an AI hyperscale data center moving a mile from my home. Like many of my neighbors, I'm scared. Along with added costs, we fear for the major health risks disposed by the operation of these facilities and losing the value and peaceful enjoyment of our homes and our neighborhoods. Diesel backup generators pollute our air causing respiratory and cardiovascular issues. Your plans require generators to be contained in opaque walls which will be unable to stop the pollution. Then there's the noise. We would hear the relentless sound of humming and droning. The World Health Organization found that sounds over 55 decibels during the day and 40 at night cause cardiovascular, cognitive, and mental health issues. Your proposed regulations are higher. Data centers also have the issue of infrasound, vibration that passes through and around building materials. It is impossible to contain. Like the higher pitched sounds, these vibrations also cause cardiovascular, cognitive, and mental health issues. the consequences are experienced as a range of 3 to 10 miles. My neighborhood will be affected, along with Kenwick, Ashland Park, Masterson Station, and Chevy Chase. Clearly, 1,001 feet is not far enough. We can't compare 1980s data processing centers to today's AI hyperscale facilities any more than we can compare Lexmark to DartPoints. DartPoints has no intention of being a major employer. They will not sponsor baseball teams or school scholarships. They're here to pillage our resources for billionaire greed. A government's most basic obligation is to protect its citizens. I'm imploring Fayette County and the City of Lexington to muster the courage to do that now. ban these hyperscale data centers from coming into our city limits. Protect our health, resources, and property values. Protect our bees, horses, and birds. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, Brittany Rothmeier on behalf of Fade Alliance. And as someone who frequents this podium... That was the quickest I've ever been up here. We'll give you a little more time. That never happens. As someone who, do I need to restate everything for the record? Sure, just go ahead. Brittany Rothmeier on behalf of Fayette Alliance. And as someone who frequents this podium, I just want to commend everyone in the room and all the people in the overflow areas who have come out to speak today about something that they feel so passionate. And also commend all of you for considering this issue with such care, as you always do, because it's so vital to our community. It's vital for Lexington-Fate County to support business and economic development to ensure that we continue to grow thoughtfully and thrive. It's also vital, as we know, to protect what makes us unique and ensure that where and how we permit land uses reflects that very balance. We must protect and support our irreplaceable resources, our land, our water, our environment, our quality of life, and more importantly, all of our people. AI and technology are critical parts of growing and thriving communities. Where and how they're permitted to locate and develop is the key question. Minimizing the negative impacts of AI on the community while also accommodating it in an appropriate, responsible, and sustainable way is top of mind and is what Fade Alliance hopes comes out of this meeting and this SOTA. Fade Alliance supports the permitting of data centers at an appropriate scale, specifically in industrial zones, and thanks the planning staff for their thoughtful evaluation of this issue. Allowing industrial zones to house an industrial use which advances economic development is key to building a world-class city. Doing it responsibly and thoughtfully, however, is where the devil is in the details. We support protections outlined by planning staff, and we also ask for consideration of additional ones that you've heard more about today. Those include increasing setbacks and buffers from all residential, agricultural, and other mixed-use properties, which is absolutely necessary to protecting our community members from the recommended 1,000 feet to at least 2,000 feet. Consider reducing the square footage maximum of a minor data center. Fate Alliance appreciates the thoughtful recommendation of the Environmental Commission and the work and the research that they did to support the 40,000 square foot recommendation. Verifying there's a capacity insurance aspect incorporated into the ordinance for water quality. Identifying aspects critical to enforcing the regulations that are outlined in any past ZOTA for those developments who are out of compliance. Adding appropriate decommissioning requirements pursuant to the best practices recommended by organizations like the Kentucky Resources Council. Encouraging Council to implement a review of the real impacts of these developments after these regulations are adopted so that we can continue to strengthen them and prevent long-term harm. As Fayette Alliance has always believed, the question is never if we grow, it's how. It's similar in this case. AI is a part of our economy and our future, and we must consider as a community how to regulate it in a way that supports us while also preventing harms to one of our most important resources, our people. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. If we can, we'll hear from one more speaker at this time. We've had a request since we're going on a little over two hours, and we probably have significant additional public comment to hear. that after this, after you speak, ma'am, the Planning Commission is going to adjourn for a 10-minute recess, and then we will come right back to public comment. Please go ahead. Great. Hi, my name is Katie Mullen. Ma'am, ma'am, I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you. Ma'am, if you can't stay, we can hear from you, and then we will break. Okay, sorry to interrupt you. That's okay. I'm Katie Mullen. I'm sure I speak for most of us when I say that we are grateful for the moratorium and to the planning staff for the effort that they have put into this issue. I know we're here to discuss regulations, but I would like to use my time to bring the commissioner's attention to a question that isn't being asked. What are these data centers being used for? Whether these data centers are classified as minor or not, these data centers are proliferating around the country at lightning speed. We are experiencing a terrifyingly fast rollout of AI technology facilitated by data centers that AI companies' own founders and CEOs say will result in a bleak future for humanity, if we're lucky to have that future at all. AI and data centers aren't creating jobs. They aren't making us safer. They are extracting our resources, our land, our ideas, our art, our hard work, and funneling profits to the top. Are we really willing to risk so much so a few tech billionaires and a handful of developers can put more money in their pockets? I understand that considering the implications that these data centers will have, not just on our local community, but on humanity as a whole, is probably outside of your job description. But I'm asking you to zoom out. Across the country, local governments, council members, planning commissioners are the only barrier we have between the people and the irreversible effects these data centers will have, not just on our lives, but on the lives of future generations. So far, I have not seen enough willingness from local government to consider what allowing data centers actually means for the future of humanity. for our children and our grandchildren. What kind of world do we want to leave them? And can you live with the regret of not digging deeper? Our community is looking to you to protect us from these harms. You have the opportunity to be our champion. For commissioners, that looks like the strongest regulation possible. For city council members, that looks like a much longer, if not permanent halt on data center development. The decisions you make now will be your legacy. Thank you. Thank you very much. Folks, hey, to everyone in the room, anytime you interrupt, we cannot hear what the speaker is attempting to say, and that's not only disrespectful to the speaker, it hampers our ability to do what we're trying to do, which is listen. Please go ahead. I think since how much you guys have been up there, Please, please, we listened from one speaker to one speaker. Zina Merkin, 5th District. She said more eloquently than I can what my concerns are. I appreciate the Environmental Commission's analysis for much stricter regulations. I think we should extend the moratorium. But the broader question is, what is it really gaining for us as a community to have these data centers? The profits all go elsewhere. The jobs do not arrive. The impacts are local, and the benefits are somewhere else. So let's put the brakes on. It's a sales propaganda technique to tell people, you have to do it now. The sale's going to end, or this is the only opportunity. You have to get your foot in the door now. That's propaganda. It's not real. Let's put the brakes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, well, at this time, the Planning Commission is going to take a 10-minute recess, so we will reconvene roughly at 3.58 p.m. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to make a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little Thank you. I'm so excited. Thank you. 10 minutes. So if we could please come back to order and the Planning Commission will reconvene. Okay. And we can, as we all find our seats, we can continue public comment. Please, please go ahead. Hi there. Thank you all very much for having us. First of all, I'm having a hard time following up because there have been so many wonderful speakers who are much more eloquent than I am. But my name is Robin Atwell. I'm a longtime resident of Lexington. I'm a rare breed. I was born here, moved away for a few years, and came back, and I've been here ever since. I feel very blessed to live in this lovely community, and I hope that we can keep it as lovely as it is. First and foremost, I want to say we have to think. They say think globally, act locally. We have to think globally, and I want you to think about globally what's happening. The world is on fire right now. There are fires raging all over this globe. Our resources are finite. Our water is finite. It is a finite resource that we cannot take for granted. Our air is finite. When we pollute the water and we pollute the soil and we pollute the air, it comes back in droves to haunt us. And if you look at the cancer rates globally and the disease rates globally, that proves it. This is a horrible decision for Lexington. We do not need it. The country does not need it. The world does not need it. We talk about jobs. Well, what does AI do? It doesn't create jobs. It takes away our jobs. It's not creating an environment that's going to help our communities and help our economy. It's going to distract from it. I'm adamantly opposed. I'm sorry I'm not as eloquent as other speakers. I don't have anything written. But the bottom line is this. We have to protect our finite resources, our water, our air, our soil, our wildlife, and ourselves. That's the bottom line. One more thing I'd like to request. I really appreciate that you had this meeting today at 1.30. However, most people are at work at 1.30. They can't make it to these meetings. So I'm going to request from this point forward if you could please make accommodations for working people who are the people that will be affected by all of this and have these meetings at times that people can come. I'm really proud of the turnout. I think it was great, but a lot of people had to take off of work. A lot of people couldn't get off of work. I think if you have these meetings and really want to represent us like you say you do, then you should have these meetings at times when people can be here. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Hi, I'm Warren Byram. I'm a resident of the Northside. live about a mile from the proposed Dark Point facility. And I just want to thank the staff and the Planning Commission and the council and the mayor. And I want to address something that I think one of the council members, Nichols, said earlier, that the process seems to be rushed through. Two months is not enough time to really figure out a new zoning arrangement for these data centers. And I would like to propose maybe, what, like three years, five years? Would that be a good 10 years? I mean, this is, in all seriousness, these data centers are a potentially catastrophic, I mean, AI itself. potentially catastrophic to humanity, according to the CEOs, right? I mean, wouldn't it be prudent? And I know I'm talking like big picture here. Like, you know, this is stuff that should be regulated on the federal level, the state level. And right now, that's not possible, as we all know. But you guys have the power to regulate this. So that's what we're asking you to do. You know, take the time. Take more than two months. I know the moratorium goes to October 31st, but that could be extended. You guys work with each other. There's been a lot of good information. I really appreciate the Lexington Environmental Council, whoever spoke earlier, for 15 minutes. I think those recommendations seem more in line with what would be good for the community. I mean, you know, when you think of, you know, we read about what these hyperscale data centers are about and the energy consumption, the water consumption, it is staggering. And I know this, like nobody here, one of the council people said earlier, well, we're going to make sure there's no hyperscale. I don't think anybody here is under the assumption there's going to be hyperscale data centers in Fayette County. But the ones that are here, I mean, what was the city's, I think it was Crum who said, what was it, 100 megawatt. I think the first data center you put up on the screen, that was like 70,000, enough to power 70,000 homes. Well, you know, DarkPoint said they're looking at 50 megawatt. I think in the paper it said 70 megawatt was what they were really going for. And we don't have the ability to monitor the energy usage. You know, so you guys are the last line of defense. You know, in terms of square footage, some of the other regulations. And anyway, thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thank you very much. Hey, thanks for taking some time. My name is Andrew Russell English. I live in the 1st District and I farm in the 13th. As a farmer and a person who eats, I love this part of the world we call Fayette County because things just want to grow here. It's why people have chosen to be here for thousands of years. As a partner of the land and the landscape, I believe the last thing this place or any place needs is a data center. It's the antithesis of what we love about Lexington. It's abundant plant and tree cover that improve and generate the air we breathe. It's creeks, both visible and invisible, like veins across the county. It's limestone that helps to filter our water before it evaporates into clouds and rains back down. Many of us have become more disconnected from what our survival depends on, even as we feel steamrolled by newer and newer tech that's marketed to feel inevitable. These new devices and developments remind me of our historical practice of importing plants from other continents to fix the harms humans leave behind in the name of progress. Kudzu, bush honeysuckle, I'm sure you all have seen or have a relationship with those, they're introduced to solve a problem and then become exponentially larger problems themselves. The data center developers, like the company, Darkpoint, are banking on their marketing and lobbying being just good enough to get let in to Lexington. And then good luck putting that cat back in the bag. If you think people in your community are going to be excited or even neutral about this or any data center, you've got another thing coming. will inherit generations of environmental decline in terms of air, water, and soil, not to mention a new one to Lexington, noise pollution. And I'm familiar with that because I live right next to Legend Stadium, so, you know, the whole year, 10 o'clock at night, my kid's waking up. But, you know, I digress. I'm grateful for your continued efforts. I've always been grateful. I've never told you, but I've been grateful for your efforts to guide our city's development. because you prioritize the resources that we still have over irreversible development of land. I encourage the members of the commission to implement the technical comment submitted by NoAI and KY, supported by this broad coalition and many more people who couldn't make it, and draft the most restrictive ZODA possible to keep Lexington as healthy and resilient as we can in the midst of so many other challenges. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Raylan Robertson. Please forgive me. I came here unprepared. I was just planning to sit and watch, but I can't sit and watch when something like subsidized housing is getting compared to data centers. Real quick, anyone that themselves or have had loved ones have had to use subsidized housing, please raise your hand. me personally my life was saved by housing like this data centers did not do that does anyone know anyone that's had their life saved by a data center me that is all i have to say and i also want to point out one more thing i will not be walking out here with a security guard wrapped on my arm thank you for your time thank you I need to wait for it to reset. My name is Alicia Guitar and I live in District 11. Lexington has an opportunity to get this right before making a decision that could affect our community for generations. We already know data centers can create significant impacts through massive electricity demand, water consumption and pollution, diesel emissions from backup generators, and industrial heat, and continuously low frequency noises. Our current 1K foot buffer does not adequately protect any of our neighborhoods that these would be, or any of the communities that this would be affected by. Air pollution, heat, and industrial noise does not stop at a property line. In fact, it can go over two miles. The proposed LexSmart site sits within under two miles of Hollow Creek, a predominantly minority neighborhood, the Hope Center, which is a homeless shelter, Bluegrass Technical and Community College, and the Health Department. These communities should not become the testing grounds for an industry whose long-term impacts are still being studied. Before the moratorium is lifted, we ask that you require closed loop cooling systems to protect our water resources. That you require developers to fund equivalent renewable energy infrastructures in Kentucky to offset their projected electrical demand. That you require all generators to meet EPA tier 4 final emissions standard and advanced particulate filtration. That you require an independent environmental and public health impact study selected by the city and funded by the developer. That you require continuous monitoring of noise, air quality, water use equality, and energy consumption with that data being made publicly available but also paid by the developers. That you require the developers to post financial assurance bonds to cover future environmental mitigation, infrastructure impacts, and site restoration. If a company cannot meet these basic protections, it is not the right company or the right project for Lexington. Data centers could be built in many places. Once they are built, the surrounding communities cannot just move away from the noise, the emissions, and the other impact. Sure, folks could move out of the community, but the community will forever be plagued by these issues. Please choose Lexington. If these developers want to put one of these in their backyard maybe i would i wouldn't even trust them then we don't want these thank you good afternoon my name is herbert lynn and i am not here today as a city council candidate but as a concerned citizen of the seventh district today i would like to talk about something a little different than the rest of the folks i would like to talk about the finance side of data centers. So these glut of data centers, they're popping up around the country in order to fuel the AI boom that we're seeing. Now these AI companies, they rely on cloud computing services and web service companies like Amazon, Google, CoreWeave, Oracle. Now these companies are also some of the largest institutional investors in these AI companies. And these AI companies in turn are some of these web service companies' largest customers. That is a circle of investment. Another piece of this puzzle is that there are very few large chip manufacturers, GPU manufacturers, that cater to and specialize in AI infrastructure. The largest and most prolific one, NVIDIA. Now, NVIDIA supplies the chips to Amazon Web Services to Google, all of these data servicers that then supply the services to the AI companies. NVIDIA is also one of the largest institutional investors in AI companies. Let's see here, they've invested, let's see here, $40 billion is what they've got in direct equity in AI companies and over $750 billion in AI-related investments in future production. So what you're talking about is circular investment where the AI companies buy chips from NVIDIA and then these AI companies invest in Amazon Web Services, these online supporters, excuse me, these computing power companies. And I have lost my place. I apologize. A little bit nervous up here. So the problem with all this as well is that these web servicing companies are not just buying chips because the chips don't exist yet. There is a current backlog in chip manufacturing. So our web service companies are buying contracts for future production of computer chips and GPUs, which means they are also selling computing power that does not exist to these AI companies, which have a product that currently doesn't live up to what it's supposed to be. So there's a lot of money going around, billions of dollars going around. And in order to get a return on investment, we're looking at a lot of AI companies having to double or triple their returns, their revenues, in the next few years. For example, AI, one of the oldest AI companies out there, posted revenue of $3.7 billion in 2004 at a loss of $8.8 billion. In 2025, their losses were $20.9 billion. So what I'm saying is that all of these AI data centers are built on promises that cannot be fulfilled, and what Lexington will be left with is stranded assets, half-finished projects, and workers going home without their paychecks. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Tyler Piles, and I'm a lifelong resident of Lexington's 6th District and current candidate for that council office as well. I'm thankful for the ability to be here to provide public comment, and thankful for all of you who have put in hard work on this committee and staff under such a short timeline. I wanted to come here today to address a couple things that I believe have been somewhat overlooked in this process. However, luckily enough, many people before me have brought one of these up. First, minor data centers being allowed under conditional use in Zone B4 and I1 inevitably means that there will be future proposals for zoning changes to accommodate this. Should these proposals be next to or near agricultural zones, I think it is important to understand what those agricultural zones are currently operating and the impacts that it could have, that the data centers could have. There have been many studies that are now ongoing and many reports around the U.S. of livestock being affected by the low decibel humming of these facilities and the effects that it's having on grazing and breeding patterns of that livestock. Should Lexington see even a 10% decline in our annual full crop, the economic impact would be devastating for many industries and would create a domino effect across the city. This would impact jobs and tax revenue from the horse industry in terms of breeding, sales, racing, and operations, and would then play an impact on our tourism and the economic impact that racing and tourism brings to Lexington every year. Secondly, these types of developments are often sold to the public as a large dollar amount investment or job investment. However, most of these jobs and a lot of those dollars come from the initial construction of these facilities itself, resulting in temporary construction jobs. I would urge this committee and council as a whole to consider additional language regarding future construction of these facilities to require any new construction of facilities be conducted by local contractors, local laborers, and supplied by local wholesalers, unless there are none available for a specific scope of work or material needed to provide. This would allow us to keep as much of that investment as possible right here locally instead of seeing some of our largest projects in the city, which we currently see being done by out-of-state contractors and out-of-state suppliers. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Colin Harris. I'm a resident of Lexington's District 1. So the threat of a large data center potentially being built just a couple miles from my house legitimately kept me up at night. I'm very thankful that I live in a city where, unlike so many others, even in this state, our city government has responded to the near-unanimous backlash to data centers by passing a moratorium and quickly considering very strict regulations on data centers. But considering how strong that backlash has been and how many people have come out to speak at this meeting that is at 1.30 p.m. on a Thursday, I think I can speak for just about everyone in saying the current ZODA should go farther. We've all heard testimony from people all across the country about what these large data centers do, especially the AI ones. They spring up almost overnight despite hundreds of locals doing everything they can to stop them. They double our power bills. They poison our water. They make a horrific ringing sound all day every day that can be heard for miles. Only a couple years into this scramble to build all these data centers, we're already starting to see evidence of all the problems these data centers cause, all the negative health effects on all the people who live nearby. And a lot of those people can't just move because who would want to buy your house that's subject to this horrible ringing all day, every day? In exchange for this, they provide nearly no value to their community. A few dozen jobs while they're being built. The average data center employs only about 70 people per 100 megawatts during peak construction time and only about 15 people per 100 megawatts once the construction is done. All that in exchange for a gaping crater in our city where no one wants to live, work, or build within several miles of. I'm thankful that we're supporting a ban on major data centers, but I think the definition of a major data center and the ZODA is far too lenient. Frankly I agree with all of Mr. Pete Lynch's suggestions on what kind of regulations we should do to make AI data centers completely untenable in Lexington. They should be defined as 10,000 square feet or at the very least far lower than the proposed 50,000 square feet. I don't think we should ignore the power usage in our definitions as this is arguably a better metric to measure their impact even if it is more difficult to quantify. I think 25 to 30 megawatts peak usage is a good threshold to define a major data center. that would already be enough power for thousands of homes. I also believe that the thousand foot buffer from a residential zone is far too small, especially with the proposed 50,000 square foot definition. A 40,000 square foot data center a quarter mile from my house would be life ruining. I think at least a thousand foot buffer per 10,000 square foot is a lot more appropriate, so 3,000 feet for a 30,000 square foot data center, and only so residents don't have to hear that infamous ringing. Lastly, I'm pleading that the Council not approve the Dark Points Data Center. We saw from the testimony from their representative today that even as we deliberate reasonable regulations, they are already pushing the absolute boundaries of our already overly lenient rules and I have zero doubt that they would continue to push their luck as long as we let them. Thank you. My name is Deborah Winslow. I live in the 3rd Council District. For those listening, I'm a short white woman with gray hair, and I'm wearing a gray top and a white 3M Aura N95 respirator. I'm here to urge a complete ban on new data center development in Lexington. My vision for Lexington includes clean air, being a city where you can still see the stars at night, and available clean water. These will be compromised because data centers threaten to bring more air pollution, light pollution, and they plunder water resources. I've read some of the proposed regulations the Planning Commission has created to try to limit and regulate data centers in Fayette County. This is a noble effort. However, given the current political climate, I've seen how corporations are using brute force and unlimited money to find loopholes or completely ignore local, state, and federal regulations. Indeed, the current administration in D.C. is gutting EPA regulations as we speak. This month, the EPA announced islanded power plants that only serve data centers do not have to be part of the Clean Air Act's acid rain program. I'm going to say that again. Acid rain program. How are regulations in a mid-sized city going to hold with the seemingly unlimited resources of data centers? And as Mr. Crum has pointed out today, there are things out of the city's control. The planet is burning and data centers are throwing more kindling on the fire. I urge council to continue the moratorium on all new data center construction in Fayette County and that the zoning committee and planning commission recommendations to council remove minor data centers as conditional uses in the light industrial and wholesale and warehouse zones and make both major and minor data centers a prohibited use in all zones. Thank you. Thank you. Dean Pulsfer, District 10. Businesses have been using computers since the 1950s. Saying no data centers is saying no to businesses like banks, UK, Altec, Bloodhorse, and Keeneland. The question is how to set appropriate limits. So I'm going to try and keep my discussion focused on the ZODA and not the other side issues. The current proposal sets a threshold at 50,000. I originally thought that was a good proposal, but I had a qualifier that said we need to look at existing data centers. The IBM data center has been here for 30 years, and it's 83,000 square feet. We know what the impacts are, and we shouldn't make an existing building and business illegal with this regulation. We want to allow for new entrepreneurial businesses to help Lexington grow, and we should have requirements regarding power and water usage and noise limits. I don't know the best way, whether it's a conditional use or not. I am curious why I2 and P2 are not acceptable for this. You would think that the higher level density stuff would be a better place to put a data center, so that's something I think you should consider. and we should not limit what's running on a data center. Who knows what's going to be running on a data center in 10 years? We're conflating AI with data centers. A business runs regular compute work and AI compute work on the computers. It's a mix. It's not one or the other. To summarize, I think the staff has done a great job. You've got a time limit. What has come out is very good. I can see a few tweaks to come into it, and that's for the commission to work on. We need to allow regulations that allow businesses to thrive in Lexington. I do think we need to preserve the aura of Lexington, and I think you've done a good job by saying no major data centers. I agree with that. I guess that's it. I mean, if you've had a tough job, just keep going and come up with something that lets businesses work and keeps our countryside safe. Thank you. Hi. My name is Rachel. I'm a young adult. I've chosen to build my life here in Lexington, and I am worried about this current zoning ordinance. So right now, there are more than 1,200 data centers operating in this country, and that number is set to double. Lexington is next on the list. Hopefully not. I know that the current draft will block the bigger data centers countywide, but that still leaves the door open for smaller ones to be built in historically black and lower income neighborhoods. To me, that's not a compromise. That is a sacrifice. I think about what that means for people who already live there. noise at all hours, air and light pollution, water and electricity bills going up when the promised jobs never really materialize. That is a burden we are handing to people who did not ask for it and who cannot easily leave. I ask myself, is this who we want to be as a city? Do we look out for our most vulnerable neighbors or do we just kind of stay silent and let it happen because it's easier or because you feel rushed? I am asking Mayor Gorton, the council, the planning staff, the commission to please slow down. This is a process that is moving way too fast to study what these facilities do to a neighborhood and too fast to write zoning that truly protects people. We have a choice that most cities do not get. We can say no before the damage is done. We can focus on jobs and infrastructure that actually make life better here and not projects that hand a few corporations short-term profit and leave the rest of us in this community with long-term problems. Banning data centers in Fayette County isn't just fair, it is smart. Please build a Lexington that works for the people who live here, not for tech billionaires who will not be the ones breathing our air and paying our water bill. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hello, my name is Elyshin, and I am a renter in downtown Lexington, and I'm here today as a concerned citizen and community member. First and foremost, the proposed data centers raise significant concern to our local natural resources. the plentiful, abundant, beautiful, life-sustaining forces of central Kentucky, our rich farmland, and clean waterways are put directly in danger by this proposal. It has been shown and proven that these data centers and their runoff pollution are at this very minute affecting the nearby water supply of towns with active data centers, both in naturally occurring bodies and what is being pumped into the homes of people living close to the centers. I've seen numerous videos taken inside of people's homes located miles away from the centers. The noise produced from them is constant and extremely disruptive, a loud droning industrial hum. It's been said very plainly by residents living in proximity that the noise has been stress-inducing, has caused lack of sleep, and even suicidal ideation. The water coming out of their taps is brown mere days after the construction's completion. Is the mental and physical well-being of Lexington citizens a concern to you, Council? If so, I urge you to use your power to vote against the data center proposal. Thank you to all of my fellow constituents for making it out today and expressing such powerful testimonies. We have gone throughout all of time as a species and as an earth without these data centers. I do not think that they are necessary. And they, in fact, might be our downfall and our demise. So you as our elected and respected elders and officials, please consider our health and well-being. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Mary Hodgins, and I'm in the 10th district. And forgive me, my glasses are not, they can't focus as quick as I can read. I'm a fifth generation at least Kentuckian and I was born and raised in Lexington and after living in the countryside in another county for 25 years I recently was able to move back to Lexington a couple months ago I'm very much not someone who likes public speaking but I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone not just for myself but for the members of my community who cannot more easily take time off work to be here today One of the main reasons I wanted to move back to Lexington was because I craved community after being isolated for so long. So I'm both heartened to see the community come together in the bipartisan sense of opposing data centers and also saddened to see the threat of data centers coming so close to home. I know this meeting is focused on ZODA regulations, so I will focus on that as well. But before I do so, I want to say unequivocally that I oppose any and all data center construction in Lexington. They bring no benefit to the average citizen or Kentucky resident, and any small benefit they might bring will be vastly outweighed by the negative effects it will have on the community. That being said, at bare minimum, I would like the following added to the proposed ZODA regulations. Noise standards should be 40 decibels or less, 24-7. As someone who has worn hearing aids for decades, I have a great appreciation for hearing the little things that we often take for granted. We should be hearing children playing, people chatting while they walk their dogs, birds chirping, and the wind rustling through the trees. Not a constant hum of technology that drives you crazy and drowns out the sounds of life. We also need to be strict about where these data centers are allowed to be built. They should not be allowed within 1,500 feet of hospitals or long-term care centers, community centers, schools, public parks, racetracks, animal shelters, or farms. We also cannot allow them to be built in historically black neighborhoods, low-income neighborhoods, or neighborhoods composed of majority non-white residents. Too often, our controversial facilities or practices are hidden away in areas that are less likely for the people to have the time, money, and resources to push back against them. The long-term effect these data centers will have on us is largely unknown, but we have heard horror stories from around the country of the negative effects they are already having on the people, animals, and ecosystems that have the misfortune of being near them. We must ensure that we are preserving, protecting... Dang it. You could take a few seconds to finish your thought. Oh, thank you. I only have two paragraphs. That's more. Yeah. Anyway, with that being said, the strictest of regulations mean absolutely nothing if the penalty for violating it is a fine. The companies that propose these data centers view these fines as a cost of doing business. Therefore, they are not a satisfactory deterrent. If they violate the established regulations, they should be shut down and dismantled at their own expense. I will end with this. We do not need these data centers or AI to live and thrive as a community. You know what we do need? Water. The ability to afford our energy bills. Investment in the well-being of the people who live here. Lexington, the sense of community is so strong. It's one of our bragging points. Let's build a Lexington that is for the people of Lexington and not for those out-of-state tech and investment companies. Thank you. Thank you. I'm blonde as well as deaf. Hi, my name is Leah Dick and like others before you, I'm a little nervous so please just listen to the content of what I'm saying and maybe not if my voice shakes while saying it. I live in District 6 in the Bryan Station area. I was born and raised here and moved back to the area four years ago after living in a couple of large metropolitan areas because this is my home. I'm a public health professional in my day job, which I did have to ask time off for to come here, and I have some suggestions for the ZODA. The World Health Organization, or the WHO, recommends less than 40 decibels of annual average night noise outside of bedrooms to prevent adverse health effects. Since data centers are not the only sources of noise pollution in the institutionally neglected and exploited areas they seem to magically land in. That was a joke, it's not a coincidence. I would advise a limit of 30 decibels with continuous and spontaneous monitoring from an objective third party. I'm glad that DartPoints has updated their estimated energy usage and plans to a cap of 50 megawatts. In the announcement of their purchase, a rep from the Dallas-based company stated that the campus has a long-term expansion potential of up to 70 megawatts. To give context, a 20 megawatt center, the difference between those figures, annually uses the same amount of electricity as 16,500 U.S. households. I'm glad that data center developers are hearing the response from the public and adjusting accordingly, but this speaks to the need for our governance to quantify standards concretely. And if those figures have to be updated down the road because we don't know what will happen in five or ten years, then so be it. We're fully capable of doing so. Lexington has experienced increasingly more and more severe weather events in the past few years and it's safe to assume that these will only continue to worsen due to climate change. What safeguards can be put in place to ensure that residents and health and safety institutions like hospitals have priority for power usage over data centers in these circumstances. The buffer area should also include other public good organizations such as hospitals, long-term care facilities, parks and trails, bus stops, and marginalized and exploited communities and neighborhoods. The health, privacy, and happiness of our neighbors, all of our neighbors, not just the ones who can afford to be here today, like myself, are not for sale to anyone. We protect each other. And I'll go off script here to say that this level of urgency is not a coincidence. We are being made to rush into believing that we need these data centers, we need to do these things, we have to do them quickly, when in reality, these data centers need us. They need our land, they need our resources, and it's mind-blowing to me to hear it compared to, in this instance, subsidized housing or... Thank you. You're welcome to finish your thought if you'd like. I can, but I was just starting to rant. I will add very, very quickly that I want to thank you all for doing this. This guidance and the moratorium are already setting precedents for other counties and cities in Kentucky to have the same courage to develop their own. So thank you all for doing this. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Tractor. I'm from District 11, moved to Lexington for college, been here for a while now. I want to start by saying, first off, I am against the construction of any new data centers here in town. But barring that, there is a lot that the ZODA could do to be more restrictive, to be more helpful. We could look at, like a lot of people have talked about today, ongoing monitoring of water usage and electricity usage to ensure that places aren't unduly affected. We could look at signing something up like the NAACP's Community Benefits Guide, which would ensure accountability for some of these areas that tend to be affected inequitably when it comes to new development. We could look at continuous monitoring of sound levels. We could look at the fact that sometimes these data centers have less than 25 to 150 permanent jobs and that most of the jobs that we claim it would provide would come from construction. These are all things that we could do to help make sure that we are minimizing the risks wherever possible when we build data centers. But at the same time, I don't think that's the conversation that we should be having. We can sit here and needle and work out every possible way to minimize every possible risk to its incredible water usage, its incredible power consumption, its damaging effects on everybody who lives around it. But is that the conversation we should be having when instead we should be asking ourselves who benefits? We've spent hours here today hearing from many other people that tells you it benefits no one. There's no one in this room except for maybe that lawyer from earlier who stands to benefit from these conditional use permits. We're asking ourselves how we can minimize a risk that we shouldn't be taking. And that's the thought I'd like to leave counsel with today. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have the technical comment from No AI and KY for y'all also. Thank you. Hello, my name is Claude Kelly. I'm a resident in District 1. I'm here with No AI and KY to express my opposition to any new data centers. I support the technical comment that was sent in by No AI and KY, which we emailed to you also. I agree with all these wonderful, eloquent people who listed the dangers of data centers. My comment is mostly about the dangers of supporting the AI industry. These data centers that operate for AI companies, they suck. They suck up all the water, they suck up all the energy, and AI is actually truly sucking out the human spirit. These data centers bring nothing meaningful or positive. The jobs that are promised are temporary and few, and they're built for a purpose that we should be actively trying to get away from. I am terrified by what these data centers are doing. Training AI models to track our routines, our spending habits, our schedules, all our favorite things, who our friends are, anything that they can get to surveil us and make us spend more money. AI is turning human beings into soulless money machines. This is not a conspiracy. This is obvious, and it's in our faces. These companies that market themselves as making our lives easier by predicting what we need from the grocery store, what our emails should say, what would my living room look like with this couch, it's all to sell our data to advertising, and it's weakening our cognitive and creative ability. We are the product. And honestly, that's AI at its most inoffensive. The push for AI by our government and the corporations that bribe our government is all about surveillance. The flock cameras are one example. They use AI to track our faces, our cars, our front yards, and outside of playgrounds. My location being tracked is against my civil liberties, and that is what data centers are doing. That is what training AI models means. It also means, as we have seen, it also, as we have seen, can mean instructing young or mentally unwell people on how to hurt themselves and others. It's isolating people. It's teaching our kids for us. It's creating psychosis. It's giving wrong answers to simple questions. I've seen your ZODA, and respectfully, I don't believe that it's enough. I don't think many of us do believe that it's enough, or really any of us, actually. it's irresponsible to do anything but make restrictions on data centers' construction so strong that they cannot be built in Lexington. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Emma Curtis. I'm proud to serve as the Councilwoman for Lexington's 4th District, representing about 28,000 folks on the south side of Lexington. and first off I would like to thank the planning department for all of the work that they put in on this ZODA and it is a tall task and they have delivered something for us that is a solid starting point. I would like to address some of the remarks that the commission made earlier regarding the timeline. First of all, nothing should have been given to you just today. This draft ZODA was publicly shared over a month ago on June 25th. Additionally, the Planning Commission also held a prior work session on this issue, so this is not the first time that you should be seeing any of these documents, nor is it the first opportunity for there to be questions asked in a government forum about the document. I would like to remind you all that at the end of the day, whether we're on Council, Planning Commission, we serve the public. We do not serve private corporations. Corporations are not people. Dark Points has obviously taken a great interest in this to the point where they sent a representative to speak here today on their behalf. I can tell they're in damage control mode after we said loud and clearly that we don't want them here. And so I would like to remind the representative from Dark Points and please do take this back to your folks. I don't think that we have been harsh enough on you. We do not want you here, period. Kindly get the hell out of Lexington. Please, if all remarks could please be directed to the Planning Commission. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. I will just say this to close. I don't think that our current ZOTA, while it was thorough and intentional, I don't think it goes far enough. everybody here that has spoken very eloquently has brought some wonderful ideas to the table. I want to remind all of those folks and y'all, our moratorium can be extended past the October 31st deadline if we do not have stringent enough guidelines in place. And if you all do not send us more stringent guidelines in the current ZODA, I will work to make them more stringent. And if we do not have more stringent guidelines in place by October 31st when the moratorium ends, I will bust my ass to make sure that we extend that moratorium. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name is Natalie Warren. I've been living in Lexington for a couple years now, but I grew up in the area and I'm here as part of the No AI and KY coalition but I'm also here as a member of the Lexington Friends Meeting so this is personal to me for all the reasons that everybody else has said I live here and all the reasons that AI data centers are harmful for the environment and for the people of Lexington I agree but I also am here because I believe that there's an element of I think that it's my religious and spiritual duty to advocate for this issue. So as a member of Lexington Friends Meeting, that's why I'm here. And I'd like to just add my voice to the chorus of support for the technical comments submitted by NoAI and KY. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Lauren Watson. And so I was sitting out there for two hours with y'all just going back and forth. And the older I get, the less patience I have for proxy arguments. So just we're all adults here. So when we hear y'all talking about the exact decibel or the distance or what actually constitutes a small versus large data center, we hear what you're saying, which is that you're going to do it anyway. Could you please speak into the microphone? Yes, thank you. We hear that you're just going to do it anyway. So I just want to be perfectly clear. We understand. We see what's happening in other counties. We know that people show up and they do it anyway. So also to be perfectly clear, what everybody is here to say to data centers is to piss off. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, y'all. My name's Kara. I live in the First District. I've lived in Lexington for over a decade. I really appreciate this opportunity. I work in energy advocacy, and so I go to a lot of public meetings, and the quality, the caliber of the comments that we've heard today, amazing. the number of comments that we've heard. I'm not going to reiterate everything everybody's said, but I will say that I'm thankful that I live in Lexington, where we have an opportunity, and it seems like we're trying to take this issue seriously. I think most of us all here agree that there are still too many unanswered questions for something that is so important to get right. If there's not enough time to get it right, I'll remind people that no is a complete sentence. I'm a mother of two little kids. I want you all to think about the little people in your life and what they would want you to do today. I want to remind you that the decisions you make today are decisions that you're making for the kind of future that our children will inherit. When I teach my children about consent, I teach them that they're no matters. Lexington does not consent to data centers. And your no matters too. We need a full ban on new data centers. There's no good or safe way to build a data center. The people of Lexington do not want data centers, major, minor, or otherwise. In my day job, I coordinate a coalition called Kentuckians for Energy Democracy. I'm very familiar with the way that our investor-owned utilities operate. Our utilities are salivating to build new fossil fuel and nuclear power plants that will make their shareholders richer. In fact, everyone in this room is already paying for multiple new power plants for data center development that hasn't even materialized yet. While the price of everything continues to go up and the minimum wage stays the same, our friends, families, and neighbors are struggling to pay to keep their power on. And I can promise you that our bills will just keep going up. There is no good or safe way to build a data center. We have the opportunity to hit the brakes by making it impossible to build these projects in Lexington. In the 17 years that I've worked on energy issues, I've never seen an issue that has more people united. We never wanted AI. We never wanted data centers. Shouldn't we get a say in what kind of development we get? No new data centers. But at least no data centers that are bigger than 10,000 square feet. No data centers that use more than 10 megawatts. a limit to the number of permits that are allowed to be issued. Because a minor data center is not a helpful distinction if we're allowed to build 10, if we're allowed to build 20, if we're allowed to build 100. No behind-the-meter generation unless it's renewable. In the absence of a full ban on new data center development, we need the strongest regulations possible. I appreciate your time on this opportunity. You've heard from many, many very articulate people with lots of good ideas, and I think you know what needs to happen next. So I look forward to seeing the next much more stringent draft to ZODA. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Sykirthi Naidoo. I've lived in Lexington my whole life. I'm very honored to lend my voice to this issue and be here with everyone to say that I am against new data centers being built. We've talked about water. We've talked about air and soil pollution. We've talked about not becoming a playground for billionaires to extract resources from us. we've also talked about data centers being disproportionately built in marginalized communities and negatively impacting them at greater rates. All I can ask now is that you listen to us and also bearing in mind that because this was during business hours, there's actually so many more people that would have liked to share their opinion and share their voice that were not able to come today. And so I do hope that there will be an opportunity for them to also speak out. Yeah, so just I'm really pleading that you listen to the voices of Lexingtonians and not corporate interests that come from outside that want to use our resources and take away what we want to use for ourselves. Thank you. Thank you. Almost last. Hi, I'm Sherry Mullin. I've lived in Lexington for 20 years and I love it here. I want to say thank you to the Planning Commission and the Council for their efforts in creating these tangible and very important mechanisms that can slow down and restrict data center development and protect the citizens of Fayette County. It sounds like there's still a number of issues that are a little fuzzy in the ZODA, like how to determine exactly how much energy and water consumption that will be permitted for each use case. I think that needs to be tightened up. How to ensure that the companies themselves will bear the cost of infrastructure upgrades and their own consumption, and also the deconditioning of large facilities. I wonder if the energy caps will include any on-site energy generation that the companies themselves provide. These are things that need to be talked about. Outside of that, and outside of your scope, I know, but I understand there are state-level tax credits that could impact how, I don't know what, that could impact our economics here in Fayette County, so I would urge you to take those into consideration as well. But beyond that, the zoning regulations cannot address some of the foundational issues that are expected to impact society as a result of AI technology being implemented so quickly. Hyperscale data centers don't exist in isolation. They are being built for tech companies that want to scale AI as quickly as possible. And I just don't understand why leadership at every level is not talking about important things like the expected widespread job loss, how to handle malicious uses of AI that we expect to occur, like sophisticated scams and hacking. And important to many people and becoming more important is the idea of mass surveillance and data capture and what we can do about this. Did any of you ever opt in to facial recognition? Anybody here opt into that? Ma'am, if you would just please direct your remarks to the Planning Commission. No, we didn't opt into that. Thank you. We didn't ever give approval for our data to be scraped and aggregated and sold to data brokers to then be sold to companies to relentlessly market to us or maybe to our insurance companies to justify raising our rates. Anyway, serious discussions need to be had at every level of government. government. And I know that the Planning Commission can't deal with all of those, but it's something for all of us to keep in mind. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Robin Kunkel. I lived in Fayette County for about 10 years, but for the last few years have lived in neighboring Clark County. I'm here to show my support for the technical comment that was submitted by NoAI in Kentucky, and I support the strictest regulations possible on all hyperscale data centers, on all data centers. The upfront cost for these new power plants and the grid infrastructure to serve them can exceed billions of dollars. They rely on diesel generators and keep unsustainable and destructive fossil-fueled power plants running, disrupting our transition to clean energy sources. Utilities may see these projects as lucrative opportunity, but the ones paying the price will not be them, nor will it only be Fayette County consumers. All KU customers will be sharing these costs. Though there aren't many people like me from the surrounding counties who are able to be at this midday hearing, know that we will also be impacted by the recommendations that you make to council. If utility companies increase wholesale electricity prices or shift the cost of a discounted rate for a data center onto customers, we are forced to reduce our standard of living to subsidize their destructive choices. So I'm asking you to please use this opportunity to set a healthy, safe, and affordable standard of living for all 77 counties that get their electricity through Kentucky Utilities. Thank you. Thank you. Hi there. My name is Sean Howard. I'm a resident of District 7. Now, I'm not going to lie, I had a whole bunch of notes written down on things that I wanted to say here today, but that's already been conveyed by folks who have already spoken. And I respect y'all's time, so I'm not going to repeat them. But I think it's been made very clear by the folks who have spoken here today that there are profound concerns on the impact of data centers in Lexington. And the current ZODA in its current form does not adequately address those concerns. So I am asking the Planning Commission not to make a recommendation on this ZODA to the Urban County Council. that will send a clear message that more work needs to be done and the moratorium should be extended to allow more time for us to get this right because it is very important for the future of our city. If we don't get it right, we're going to regret it later on. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. My name is Reva Russell English. I live in the 1st District. Thank you to the Planning Commission and planning staff for all of your service to Lexington. I know that this is a very contentious issue, and I'm grateful to you for hanging in there with us. I would like for you to think about what it is that we all know that Lexington needs. We need more affordable housing. We need safer streets for pedestrians and cyclists. We need education and training for our youth. We need continued efforts to address entrenched racial disparities. Nowhere in our comprehensive plan or in daily conversation has anybody said, you know what would really help Lexington? Data centers. I hate that this issue is treated like it's complex. Data centers don't give us affordable housing or safe streets or education or training, and they'll probably worsen racial disparities judging by the conditional use map. Data centers don't even bring very many jobs except for the developers who will make money on them and any temporary work for construction crews who build them, who are not guaranteed to be local anyway. It's hard to note what data centers would bring to our county at all that is positive. They will pollute. They will use a massive amount of our water in a time of water scarcity. I know our water is not scarce here, not yet, but the Colorado River is running dry. So is Lake Mead. And the Ogallala Aquifer, which runs beneath most of the Plains states, is running dry too. I've met people who moved here from Texas because we have water. Why would we give our water over to developers and machines. Data centers will also give us heat islands, raising temperatures as much as 16 degrees at them and around them. Do you want to be around that? I don't want to be around that. It's already getting too hot and it's going to keep getting hotter. I want to make a comment about some of the energy and even the language used by some of our younger people at this meeting as they give their public comment. I'm almost 50 years old. I've got some time left here on the planet. No offense judging by the looks of you, but you're at least in my category are doing a little better. A lot of these young folks have at least 50 years left in this place. They're counting on you to protect their futures. Their future is different than your future. They have a lot more of it to spend here. We need you to do good by them. A question that one of these younger people asked me out in the hallway was they wondered about the definition of data center from the Lexmark site that Dark Point has purchased. Were they even born yet when that definition was included about what a data center is? I don't think that they were. I support the technical comment that's submitted by No AI and KY. In fact, I'm actually here with them and with KFTC. The regulations and restrictions that that technical comment has included are necessary to keep Fayette County residents safe, free from noise, pollution, and the devastation of our water resources. Please add them to this ZODA. Anything else is too little. The ZODA as it is cannot stand. It will not keep us safe. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. Okay. Is there anyone else from the public who would like to speak to this ZODA today? Okay. Seeing none, we will close public comment for the time being. Where do we begin? Do we have any commissioner comment, questions? Yes, sir. Contrary to the last speaker, I'm not on my last leg. You almost are. But I will tell you that to have served on the Planning Commission as long as I've had, it is really refreshing to see young people come down here and care about their community. that's not something that happens real often but i also want to tell you that it doesn't matter whether we want an extension or not the council gave us two things to do in 60 days one was solar and one was data centers don't blame us blame the council they're the ones to send it to us. And I will tell you that if you're going to get the results you want to get, because we've had to do this as fast as we've had to do it, you're going to have to show up at the council like you did at this one. You're going to talk to your elected representatives. We could have done a better job. I'm not putting this on the staff. But just remember, we've been through two. We only usually get one like this a year. And we've been through two of them. Now the council can make, subsidize, change the rules, kick it on down the road. We don't have that. So we're going to do the best effort we can today to send them what we think you want. But the answer is not going to be no. So as we start down this road, we're going to talk about what is the best we can do given the circumstances we're in. And I admire the courage of the council lady that came here and talked to us today. And I want you to realize we didn't see any of the others. We saw people that were running for council. So I congratulate her on her courage, but I also tell her that you could have cut us a break, and you didn't. So we're going to do the best we can with what we got to work with here today. and I want you to walk out of here just as committed to go to the council and talk to them. Now let's get started. Okay, thank you, Mr. Penn. And if we could please, again, let the commission, we've done a lot of listening, please let us do our work and hopefully we can get an answer as efficiently as we can for everyone. Do we have any other commissioner contributions? I'll say one thing. Yes, Commissioner. We should also acknowledge that Council Member Morton is back there. so two council members thank you there's two now thank you thank you Mr. Chair I'm going to concur with what Frank Penn just had to say pretty much 100% I am glad to hear from council person Curtis and and her wishes for restrictiveness on this. Frank Penn's been here longer than I have. However, I have not seen this sort of outpouring as far as citizen interest in anything in the 15 years I've been here. I think I saw 3,000 visitors to the Engage Lexington site over we've we've had over 300 emails most of them came through the planning staff i don't know how but some of them some of them got to commission members privately i could say we don't want that but probably if i was in your shoes i'd find some way to do that as well so i'm not going to fuss we have a lot here we've had the staff has done wonderful work to get this started and talking to some of them they kind of feel like it is a starting point no one knows where this is going Mr. Woodall himself said that and I agree that the technology of all of this is way ahead of us, way ahead of us. What we see today is going to be obsolete tomorrow for the most part. We've had, through the staff, we've had two different reports sent to us from Kentucky Research Council and the Resource, and then the Lexington-Fayden-Orban County Environmental Commission. I think he was here today. very good information, very detailed information. And in general comments, what I read from that, it's even more restrictive than what we're looking at here today. I've got some thoughts as to specifics, but I'll save them for a moment later. Thank you, Mr. Owens. Do we have any other commissioner comment or any questions? Commissioner Wirth? I'll start with your last statement, Mr. Owens, that it's not restrictive enough, but in terms of data centers, I think the horse has left the barn, folks. We already have data centers here in Lexington. I didn't know we had one at IBM. I understand we have one at the UK Medical Center. I suspect we have them in various places around town. And, you know, I live in a world where when I go to my doctor, my patient's records are stored in a data center someplace. My bank records are stored in a data center someplace. My utility bills are stored in a data center someplace. I don't think I can live at this point without having some touch in my life with data centers. And I think we've gotten a little confused between data centers and AI. I am not a fan of AI. I've got lots of friends that are musicians and artists, and I don't want to see them out of work. But data centers and AI, although AI requires data centers, they're not the only things in our lives that require data centers. And some of those things that we require, we're really dependent on. So I think, although I'm going to upset some people here. I think we're at the point where we have to figure out how can we get what we need and do it in a way that does not destroy what we value about the community we live in. And that to me means more restrictive than what we've got here and absolutely no hyperscale data centers. That's all I got for now. Thank you, Commissioner Worth. Do we have any other commissioner comment? I have a question. Yes, sir, Mr. Owens. Thank you. Question as far as the staff. Where are we on P2 zoning? As kind of mentioned earlier, we are not recommending small or large-scale data centers within the P2 zone. Is there a little logic behind that? It's all that. I'm just wondering what kind of logic is behind that. And most of P2 Coldstream? Yeah. All of them. Yes, all of them. Yeah. I think it gets down to sort of the intent behind the zone. The P2 talks about these businesses, their offices and research, not so much of kind of providing this almost utility-scale service, which you're looking at with the data center. So anything that the University of Kentucky does within their own umbrella, once again is not subject to our zoning. So this is really looking at what is supposed to be, once again, jobs producing or sort of this innovation-focused piece, kind of preserving that intent with this language. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I guess I have to follow up on that because if we read the ZODA on page 16, and it talks about, am I correct, that's P2 right there, page 16? So currently a principal use is computer and data processing center. So I'm just to follow your comment, Daniel. What is to entertain Mr. Owens if, say, a minor data center wanted to go in P2, you could have put a computer and a data processing center there. You could put one there today. but we're saying no that's that's that was not the intent of the zone even though that's been in the zone i'm guessing since it was finalized yeah so just to be clear the moratorium you wouldn't be able to put it in today period but that notwithstanding uh the whole purpose i think behind the the zoning ordinance tax amendment process we have today is because that's outsized or sort of there's a disconnect between historically where we allow the same language in our professional office zones, which oftentimes are sort of a buffer between residential and, say, other commercial uses. So once again, this is sort of reckoning with the new entity that has now become these larger scale data center uses are not really fitting in with the same capacity. And so we've created the definition of server rooms, which would allow for sort of those same type of you have a larger research center, you have a larger office installation, you have any type of sort of productive use, principal use in that zone. you're able to then leverage that to use your data, these accessories, server room capacities. So we were trying to right-size that and once again try to focus on sort of limiting this to the B4 and the I1 zones. Okay. That makes more sense. Okay. I guess I previously asked about residential zone, agricultural zone. what does the commission think about maybe changing that to read residential use since i mean because we can have residential uses in other zones that are not residential and i think that would be one simple way to upgrade the protection within this by changing it from residential zone to residential use but is this the vehicle to do it Is this the vehicle to do that? Well, I mean, it's in the draft soda, correct? Yes, and there also is also the option of doing or. There are instances where a separation from the zone would be a greater protection from the actual dwelling unit. So incorporating either would be whatever is the most restrictive. Right, okay. I understand. Yes, sir, Mr. Nickel. I appreciate everything that was said today. There's been a lot of information that has been presented to us that may or may not, we may or may not have seen it for the first time. We also have had documents passed in front of us while we've been in the meeting. I'm saying that to let you all know that with only 60 days to put together a zoning ordinance text amendment, it has been, in my opinion, not enough time. The staff has done a fabulous job. They have done a very good job with the time that they were allotted. But in my opinion, in its current state, there are some real problems. And just to read one side that we probably haven't heard from today, which is the Kentucky Bankers Association. I'm going to read one of their sentences to talk about some unintended consequences. So this is from the Kentucky Bankers Association. Our concerns are centered on ensuring that the ordinance does not unintentionally reach the information technology centers that Kentucky banks operate to prevent fraud and to keep their customers' financial data secure. I think this is a very good way to illustrate some unintended consequences. I think that we maybe need some more time in order to understand how data centers are being used in our community now and how we can create an ordinance that doesn't leave us with non-conforming businesses that have been operating our community for years. That would be a negative unintended consequence. Another negative unintended consequence would be limiting our local technology businesses, limiting their access to compute and their ability to grow their business. Thirdly, we are positioned as a community to do great things in automated manufacturing. We have a wonderful manufacturing base here in central Kentucky with highly educated workers. So we have the ability to promote those assets, but what we are going to see is we may have a 10,000 square foot manufacturing facility now that in one or two years may have 3,000 square feet of server room that is then working with humans and automated manufacturing to produce a product. We don't want to limit their ability to grow what could be one of our strong assets, which is advanced manufacturing. So to state it again, I think that staff has done a fabulous job. I appreciate the community's input, but in its current state, there are some problems that I see. I think that we need some more time with this. And my understanding is we have the ability to vote no on the proposed text from staff. We have the ability to vote yes. We have the ability to make changes and make a vote yes or no. And we also have the ability to refer with no recommendation. And I know that that could be problematic, but when the time comes, I'm going to make a recommendation to refer with no recommendation. So those are my thoughts. We'll see how we go, and I can make a motion if there is a point in time when we'd like to do that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Nickel. Oh, sorry, yes, Commissioner Davis. No. Thank the public for coming in and sharing your thoughts with us. Many times, very often actually, we'll hold these hearings and there'll be no one from the public sitting out there. So we have to operate in a vacuum and actually have to guess what the public wants us to do. But today, you left no doubt as to what you feel like is best for our community. And we appreciate you coming out and sharing with us your concerns and also giving us good feedback about things that we have concerns about, too, because we also are citizens in this community. So we have the same concerns you do as to how projects such as this will impact the lives of our children and grandchildren moving forward. And to that end, earlier in the conversation, it was brought up square footage versus power usage. and I understood that the square footage was the easiest way to go about doing it, but the more I listen and the more I kick this idea around in my head, power usage probably is more prudent and probably would be a better indicator of how it impacts us negatively versus square footage when we're talking about limiting the ability for a center like this to operate. So I'd like to at some point, if not today, but moving forward as we talk about this, to revisit the idea behind figuring out how we can use power usage as a measure of whether or not this proposed center will negatively impact our community. Mr. Wilson. I would also echo the fact that when you all were talking today and giving us input, I started to jump up and say, and this is what democracy looks like, because this is what we're all about. And it's been a long day, but thank you for your participation. I'd also like to congratulate the staff. I think you all have done a good job with this, and I know it's a difficult decision. I have to say, though, that I think as a body we deserve to give something to the council. We can't just sit here and say, pass the can down. We need to pass it with something. And I understand, too, and I agree that this needs to be tightened up. There's lots of things that we need to do here. But I don't believe in sitting around and giving the council nothing to work with. Let's exercise our responsibility here as council members and do something. Now, it may not be the right thing, the wrong thing, or whatever the case may be. But we understand your sentiment. And quite frankly, I think we all agree with it. The question is that, as my colleague to the right said, it's up to the council to make that final decision. But they gave it to us, and I'm not willing to walk away from that. I'm going to let them know, at least with my vote, how I feel and what I think. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Commissioner Wirth? Did you? So I've been making a list. I listened to you all. I listened to the recommendations that came from the various groups who spoke in front of us today. So let me start by saying this is like a very small shopping list. I would say to the council, it needs to be tightened up. It needs to look at what the Kentucky Resources Council, what the Environmental Commission, these other groups that are presented today, their specific recommendations. But at a minimum, here would be my list. Add a specific provision that says any water usage has to comply with our consent decree. That we require decreasing noise levels to 30 decibels. That we reduce square footage to 40,000 and add the capacity volume to 25 maximum. That we require ongoing environmental quality monitoring of water, power, sound, so that we know baseline and what's going on. to require a water use quality measure to be added in addition to the other quality measures that have been discussed, and that we require a community benefits plan, I think, as requested by the Environmental Commission. That's my short list. Judy, could you just repeat what you said about the noise? I couldn't quite understand you. Do you want me to be with the whole thing? Yes. 30 decibels. 30? 30 decibels. Did you include ongoing monitoring? Absolutely. Ongoing noise, all of it, all the environmental, the water, the power, the noise. On mic. Mic. Ike. It's pressed. Get close to it. There we go. There we go. Okay. Ongoing water, noise, and power usage. So with baseline measures and ongoing and periodic assessments. Did you also limit the number of minor data centers in the county? I did not address that. Thank you. Commissioner Owens. Yeah, thank you. Ms. Worth, did I hear anything as far as a setback? No, I should. 1,500? Yeah, setbacks. Setbacks, 1,500. 1,500 feet from residential or ag zone and then also schools and sensitive areas and everything else. Maybe one correction as far as your capacity. I think you just said 25. The correction would be 25 megawatts. Okay. Okay. Could be a difference between megawatts and kilowatts. So megawatts, okay. Okay. In addition. Is that a motion? Not yet. Okay. I don't think we're there yet. It's out for this. I can make it. Okay. Here's a few that I had written down that I thought were important from what we heard today. Discussion perhaps on a bond for any future decommissioning. And I did have decommissioning. Okay. I think it was the Mr. Mason's presentation had a prohibition on wells in or around the site. And then again, just changing the joining residential zone to residential use. Same for ag. Mr. Forrester, did you have? Yeah, Mr. Penn, I'll go before him. Go ahead. We need to include these three items from the KBA, from the bank information. Okay. Would you just read them? They're already on the paper. Do I need to read them? They're already here. Which is for... Y'all got a copy? No, you can't. Okay, that's fine. That's the only copy of that letter. Really, whether the proposed definition properly distinguished data centers from information technology and operations centers supporting local businesses, whether bank-operated information technology facilities currently in use in Lexington will satisfy the proposed serving room thresholds, or will instead be reclassified. If such facilities were reclassified, whether they would become non-conforming use and whether they could continue to be maintained, updated, and expanded as the banking technology and fraud prevention requirements evolve. The question I have on this is, I do know we're going a little bit faster than the norm, but everybody in here uses AI if they have an iPhone because they have used Siri. We've got Hey, we got This is, if you're in banking That's my concern From the banking perspective Because the banking now is done on your cell phone And your data goes to a data center somewhere It doesn't go in the cloud like in the sky It actually goes to a data center That's holding this information Everybody up here on this panel Has been on their cell phone since I've been on this meeting Not me So That ain't too many I don't see any flip phones. I see all smartphones. I don't see. I thought you had a jitterbug one time. But just I think this is kind of key. And I do want to echo again, staff, you did a wonderful job in such a short period of time. Mr. Duncan, Tracy, your team, thank you. You did as much as you could based on the time that was given to us. So if we're going to give something back to council, let's give them something to work on. Mr. Penn. I'm still concerned about the consent decree and about the development plan for one of these operations. And I don't see how you can have a conditional use when you don't take in consideration of our consent decree and you don't have a development plan. And whatever the council wants to do with this, but I think we need to recommend that data centers have a development plan, whether it goes before the planning commission or whether it goes before the BOA. They need to have a development plan, and the consent degree has to be included. Okay, Commissioner Mulligan. I'll ask a couple of questions on my list. Is the mandatory closed loop for water, not just preferred, but mandatory closed loop for water on your list, Judy? That's what I heard. It's something to consider. and the noise, the continuous measurement, that was what I heard, which would include generators, I assume. The other thing is the dedicated fund for low-income weatherization and residential energy efficiency. I'm not sure that was in the Environmental Commission's recommendations. It's in their recommendations. I didn't specifically put it in the list. I did sort of an umbrella look at what they recommended. There you go. There you go. Thank you. I think the uses should be agriculture, period, so it could be both any kind of agriculture. And the list of sensitive areas would be daycare centers, nursing homes, schools, hospitals, rehab centers, parks, natural areas, racetracks, and historically black communities. I believe there was someone else who talked about how fines are not a deterrent. Therefore, I think that would be something to look at to see if someone doesn't follow through. What is the recourse for them? And I think that's my list. Okay. Well, we've... We've mentioned a lot of areas where we think it could be strengthened perhaps a little. If we don't have any further comment at this time, just a housekeeping question for maybe staff or Mrs. Jones. Do we want to take some time to perhaps do some writing? Or what would be the most efficient and best way to achieve what the Planning Commission wants to achieve after hearing what we've heard today? I'm a little, I mean, I'm not sure, to be honest with you. I mean, I know we've got to figure it out. But first off, there's not a motion on the floor. There's like this comment, this comment, this comment, this comment, this list, that I'm not even sure we got down, to be honest. So I feel like, and I'm not sure, maybe you all are all in agreement on every list that was just rattled off. But, you know, if you're not, before we spend time trying to draft official amendments to this ordinance right now, which we're going to have to do, I mean, it would be best, I think, to have a fair assessment that you all as a body agree on where you want to go with those. Or at least some kind of consensus that everyone's in agreement as to these are the things we want to amend. then I definitely do think we're going to have to take some time to articulate some of those as part of a text amendment that you want to send forward. And there may be some legal concerns, depending on what, as a matter of consensus, you all decide on, because there's a couple of things I've heard that are giving me a little bit of heartburn. Okay. All right. Mr. Nickel has indicated that he's prepared to make a motion. to refer to council. I don't know if this motion will carry or not, but this is a good place to start. Once again, we have the ability to work here this afternoon and figure out what recommendations we would like to provide to councils so that they can get to work on this, or we can just vote straight no, or we can vote to refer with no recommendation. I am proposing a motion because of the time constraints that we were put under to make a motion to refer with no recommendations PLN ZODA 26-0008 data center regulations back to council so they will have time to work on the ZODA themselves. And if they would like our help, we are here to help. That is my motion. Okay. So Mr. Nickel made a motion to refer the text as it's written to the council with no recommendation from the Planning Commission. That has a second from Commissioner Molly Davis. Is there any discussion? Yes, sir. Mr. Forrester. Mr. Nickel, you sure you want to make one with no recommendation, given all the recommendations we just gave? I'm just asking. No, I understand what you're saying. This is more of a statement on the situation that we've been placed in, and I don't think we have enough time to put together a list of recommendations that we can all vote on to get approval to send up the line. So in my opinion, what I would like to do is to keep it, to refer it with no recommendations, and we'll see if that passes. If not, we can work towards putting together a list of recommendations on the fly. Okay, thank you, Mr. Nickel. Mr. Duncan? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to clarify for your benefit and for ours that what Mr. Nickel is recommending or has moved is to take the text that you have before you and send that to the council without any changes to this text. Is that what Mr. Nickel is moving? Well, but you're essentially making a recommendation because the council did not give you a text to respond to. So you're saying what the staff developed is what you're sending to council and recommending that they proceed with. And, of course, council can do what they choose to do with this. But we wanted to make sure that you're not referring without recommendation means you're sending nothing, or are you sending the text that the staff provided you? And that's what we just want to clarify. And let me add to that because it's an unusual circumstance, and I know we've been here a long time, but we have to get this right, and I'm not going out of here with it wrong today. I mean, it may not be the end result, but I'm not going to do this the wrong way is the last thing I do. So, you know, I'm just not doing that. So I want to say that there's two things that Mr. Duncan's trying to say. One is we were trying to think, and we cannot specifically recall a time when we have received, but we may very well have, a text initiation from the council with no text. But in the event that we have, and we just don't remember, we have then done what the staff's done here and provided text, and then you all have voted on that and sent that forward as your recommendation. We have not, in the past, had no text in a text amendment or a text initiation and then sent them nothing back. So we just want to be sure that you understand what exactly you're going to do. You can send what the staff recommended to you back to them without comment any further. and put on the record you would like for them to consider these things, but that gives them no clear direction, you know, or are you saying you're going to send no recommendation back, which means effectively they're going to get nothing back because you're not acting on anything and they didn't send you anything. So we just want to make sure that there's a difference there and everybody's on the same page because this circumstance is a little unusual. What I would like to do is they sent us a request with no text. Staff has done a very nice job preparing a document. I believe that the document has some real problems. But I don't think we have, in my opinion, we have the ability to solve all the problems right now in this body at this moment. We have received an incredible amount of information as of today, and it's going to take some time to digest that. My motivation is to refer the staff's document with no recommendation and let them work with our community and have as many meetings as they can with our citizens and make a decision. They have until October 31st for their moratorium. They can get to work. They can listen to the concerns of the citizens and make recommendations and pass something that's good for our community. I don't know if this motion is going to pass, but I would like to vote it if possible. Okay. Well, we have a motion on the floor with a second. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Worth. Let's go ahead and put that to a vote. Mr. Forge? Okay. That motion fails. Yes, sir, Mr. Wilson. I'd like to make an option. I'm sorry? You can vote no, even if you did second it. Yeah, right. Okay. Mr. Wilson. This is going to be a little fuzzy here, but I make a motion. I move that we approve the staff's recommendations and accompany that recommendation with the recommendations that have been made by my colleagues here. Second. Okay. So here's a question, though. Yeah. Ms. Jones, would it be acceptable for maybe the Planning Commission to have a little bit of a straw poll rather than an official vote so that we can see what the interest in supporting that motion would be so that if, well, obviously things will need to be written that we know it's not a waste of time? I think that that motion is not probably specific enough. I don't – to send forward the staff with just the recommendations of what has just been listed off here is probably not going to meet the standards. So I don't – I mean, you can talk about it. You can't take a vote without taking a vote. So I don't want you to do that. But, you know, if generally you feel like you want to talk about making some of that recommendations more specific and we proceed that way, we can. But I think that motion, it's probably not specific enough for us to produce something to go back to them. Okay. Let me ask you this then, if it's possible. Can we vote on the motion, the first part of that motion, simply saying that we approve the staff's text to this vote? And then send along with that the other issues that we have that we can agree upon. Is that possible? We don't make it a part of the official motion, but we do send that along and say, council people, we got problems here. We want discussion. We've sat for four or five hours. We've heard some good comments. Here are some things that we picked up. Can we do it that way? I think there's a way to do that. I think you can vote to send the staff recommendation forward, the staff text forward. And then if you all do that, then you can also vote to either specifically amend certain provisions of it, and that would then amend what you're sending forward, or then have a discussion about what specifically you would like to, I think we can do this, attach or send with that to the council for them to consider as part of their deliberations when it goes back to them. either way. I just think we need to be very specific either by amending the text itself or by very specifically with motions telling them we considered and heard these things and we would like for you to look at them. We're referring to you for further consideration with what we're sending as the recommended text. I agree. Could I throw a little parliamentary term on this? Oh, Mr. Wilson. The first part would be simple. We'll either vote that up or vote that down. As it relates to the recommendations, the question was posed, did we all agree with the recommendations? We could list all the recommendations, and then we can vote by seroton. That's a Latin term, meaning by paragraph. In other words, if we don't all agree on all of them, then we don't put that in. But if we all agree on the different elements, then we can submit that as a part of the letter. Okay. Okay. From what I'm hearing, I think there's significant buy-in on the changes that have been mentioned. I can't speak for anyone, but that's just what I'm hearing. Mr. Owens has a handful of changes that he would like to make as well. So if that is the cleanest way, Ms. Jones, for the Planning Commission to vote, to send the text as it is written forward first, and then as a group we discuss, like Mr. Wilson said, point by point, yes, as a group, We support this, this, this, and then send that as an attachment to the staff text. Is that what I'm hearing is the cleanest, most efficient way? Yeah, I mean, the cleanest, most straightforward, direct way is to amend the text, which may require you to go item by item because I don't know that you, like, I don't know that the body has buy-in on everything. It's where I was going before. Like, I don't know that every single person or a majority of you agree with Ms. Worth or a majority of you agree with Mr. Owens. So the cleanest thing is to amend the text item by item, get the votes to do that, and then as you amend it, send the whole thing forward. I understand you all are a little concerned about doing that. That's the cleanest way. It's going to take a little time, but that also gives a very clear directive on what you want the council to consider. But if you want to do it in the manner Mr. Wilson described, you can do that. And either way, the council is going to, when they get this back, I think, I mean, I'm pretty sure, consider all of it. So, you know, if you amend something specifically in the text, they probably will still consider it if they want to change it or alter it. But if they agree with it, they'll leave it. So if you don't amend the text and you just send them the recommendation, it's not as clean, but it's possible, if that makes sense. Mr. Wilson, you have a motion on the floor with a second. Do you want to proceed with that? I'm sorry, I thought we did have a second. I will take my motion off the floor then. In other words, I'll take advice. This is her last day. We want to make it as easy as we can and to make it as clean as possible. Maybe we could discuss the different amendments and then add that to the text and then we'll go from there. Okay, so do you wish to withdraw your motion? Yeah, I would withdraw my motion. Thank you. All right, so at this point, Mr. Wilson has withdrawn his motion. do we want to begin discussing these line items now or do we need to take some time what's best i think there should be a motion on the floor that seconded that allows us to we can to go we can do that regardless we don't have to mr owens mr chair if i may uh listening to what Mrs. Worth had to say. I'm kind of in line with her thoughts. And going, having gone through the draft that our staff has put together that we're seriously thinking about, one, two, three, four, five pages that needs nine changes. May I run through them? Sure. Okay. Does everybody have that so we can follow? Do you need us? The ZODA 26-8 data center that's got black and red print to it, okay? Page 1, under definitions, change paragraph 2 and paragraph 3 under major and minor to the fact of a major would be more than 40,000 square feet, A miner would be less than 40,000 square feet with a maximum capacity of 25 megawatts. That would be changes one and two. If you go to page 10, I think that's the next spot, which is down at the bottom of page under B2. change that language to on the first line sounds that exceed an average of 30 decibels. And I would include in that 24 hours a day. That's page 10. At the bottom under number B2 the last paragraph 30 decibels for a maximum of for 24 hours a day and it does have in their um residential zone so i would put residential use as our chairman zone or use as daniel said zone zone or use okay So include zone or use there. Oh, you forgot this one, 55. Everything in that should be 30 decibels. 24-7. 24-7. 30 decibels, 24-7. To clarify, then, you're basically deleting the second sentence because there's like this half between these hours and then another one between these hours. Yes, yes. So 24 hours a day, 30 decibels. Average of 30 decibels. Yes, ma'am. Okay. You go to page 11, under paragraph C, on the third line, we're changing 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet of a residential zone or use. And then on number D, paragraph D, changing that from 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet. Hospital, hospital, school. Mike, are you also changing the other uses that will be listed there like hospitals, et cetera? Yes, ma'am. Hospitals, schools. Do we want to say health care? I need you to be specific. Hospital, healthcare, do I have to say nursing homes? Yes. Nursing homes. Page 11. Page 11, paragraph D. Hospitals, healthcare, and nursing homes. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And rehabilitation centers. So we move on. Let's hear it. No. Wait a second. We go to paragraph. No, we got that. We got C&D. We got C&D. We go to page 13. At the bottom, B, paragraph 2, the last paragraph, changing the decibels from 65 to 30 decibels 24 hours a day. Again, deleting, I believe, that last sentence. Yeah, this is a duplicate. We'll just repeat that. Okay. Those same changes would apply in the zone. I'm just trying to cover it. Page 14, is that the same thing? Yes. Okay, thank you. Yes, ma'am? Data centers are a residential zone or a residential zone where parks are natural. Okay, page 14. under paragraph C we've got no data center building air handlers et cetera shall be located within 1500 feet not 1000 of a residential zone or use all the same okay Okay. You have to do parks and natural areas ever. Somebody's asking for parks and natural resource areas too. So parks are fairly delineated. Environmental sensitive areas are not, are they're dispersed all over the county. So that could be a floodplain, that could be a sinkhole, that could be pretty much, yeah, steep slopes. You were saying I'm going too far? Yeah. I think my professional recommendation would be not to include that. Okay. The park is a delineated parcel versus a greenway. Delete that. How about that? Okay. That's my recommendation. I know Molly doesn't agree. That would be something, if the conditional use remains in place, that would be considered site-specific. In other words, as the site comes forward, they should see on the site plan, because there might be ones that aren't in an environmentally or near an environmentally sensitive area, but there would be others that would be clearly delineated on the site plan, and then they would have the opportunity to address that with a condition if they chose to, since they're harder to define than like a park. Are parks kept in or kept out? She's good with parks. Parks are okay. Parks are okay. Let me mention one other thing, if I may. One, this is not a motion yet. It can be. But in regards to what Commissioner Forrester is asking, what I heard from the banking community was more of general statements and recommendations, not necessarily a specific request. I would say offer that as a specific recommendation going forward that the council pays attention to. That's fine, yeah. Okay. Yeah, there's more information. I've got a specific request that may help with that. My intention is not to have unintended consequences that limit our existing businesses, and I think we have a real potential for that as we look at our proposed new definitions. The new definitions that are being proposed are data center, data center major, data center minor, and server room. My recommendation is to eliminate server room as a proposed new definition and all proposed land use regulation that goes with or accompanies server room. So server room, I would like to have eliminated as a proposed new definition and eliminated from the language in this document, which is on page 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 17, 18, and 19. I can appreciate that. I think the staff work doing a lot included server rooms for a reason. They may want to address that. I would appreciate that too. If I were talking about the technology department, they want the server room piece deleted as well. So, yeah, just to clarify, you know, there's a couple different. You could theoretically remove that entirely, or you could remove the portion that specifies what the extent of that is. Essentially, staff found it useful to have a bubble that would capture, once again, things that are incidental to our normal businesses, just to avoid any miscommunication or miscategorization of some of these uses. Other ordinances just specify that several rooms are accessory, and they leave that up for their planning staff to interpret. So if it's heartburn about the specific square footage or the percentages thereof, that's been handled kind of a number of ways. But staff does think that the server room language is important to kind of just help clarify and set the boundaries of what we're looking at. And my intent is to not set boundaries and not legislate server rooms in any way. So if you, here's my question and maybe Daniel can, if you take out the, what he was talking about in terms of the limitations on the size and the percentage, you would just be defining what server room, and server room is listed as an accessory use. Would that work, Larry? I mean, just to be clear, that's what Daniel's talking about. We didn't have a technology person involved in this process. The technology person I talked to at my employment said it should be removed because it would hinder us. So for me, I needed it removed. I'm just being honest. Okay. Maybe it would help Mr. Forrester if you said who me is. I mean, it's going to go constantly, but I don't have too much time on that. But just banking needs in general is what you're doing. Okay. Okay. If we leave the definition in, it will be legislated. Yes. You mean legislated? If we define the server room, there will be restrictions put on the server room if we define it at this moment. I would rather leave server rooms out of the conversation of the data center regulations. Okay. That's one of those items that maybe we just put to a line item vote when it comes as far as what the commission would like to recommend. I think we do need to discuss Mr. Penn's thoughts of concerns about the consent degree and the development plan and whether or not We got more. That's just not the only one. Oh yes, yes. No, we have others. I was just trying to take one at a time. And then whether or not the planning commission or the board of adjustment hears plans. Doesn't matter. We can do it now. Let's get to it. You want to do mine? I'm just hung up on the fact that there's not going to be a development plan for a new data center. I just think that if it doesn't have a development plan and you don't have to go through the water quality issue or the water ability issue, the consent decree thing, If you don't have to meet that test, I think it's wrong because we're under consent decree to meet that test. So I think a site plan going to the Board of Adjustment is a lesser requirement than a development plan. But it does get reviewed by the same divisions. and we can ensure that if you want to add a requirement that there be a stormwater management plan associated with everyone, then that ensures it. Whatever it takes to see if we've banked enough reserve for this data center. Right, so there's stormwater and then the sewer, right? So both of those things need to be reviewed. We typically see that as a development plan. With the Board of Adjustments, you don't have to have a development plan. True, but you still have to have a site plan, and it still does get reviewed by those same divisions when a building permit is issued. So there are levels of review. I agree when it comes to a development plan, those reviews are built into our technical review committee, and it's much more codified that way. 443 changed a lot of things, but we weren't looking at status centers. It might be okay to make it just a site plan, but require that they have a stormwater management plan and ensure sewer capacity is available for the use. However you want to do that, but it needs to be required because it's not... Part of their... Yeah, border adjustment. It'll be able to flip through the cracks if you don't put it in there. Unintended consequences. That's an unintended consequence. Okay. Do you have anything else on that front, Mr. Penn? So I would suggest on page 10, and this can get repeated, under minor data centers, applications shall provide the following. if we go down past number five, a new number six, that a stormwater management plan that complies with division of water quality requirements and a sewer capacity assurance permit be issued by the division of water quality. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Judy, you said you had a few other things. Yeah. one of them is to add a decommissioning plan and i'm not going into all the specifics they're recommended in the i think the i can't remember environmental commission report or they're included in the Kentucky Resources Council, but there are specifics there for how to do that. Also, that we require that these facilities be built to certain industry objective standards, using power utilization efficiency with set targets, meeting the LED data center standards, silver 11 or higher that's can you tell us what you're reading from judy okay that's from the environmental commission's recommendations page three and adding one that came up today was also a similar uh water quality use effectiveness water effective effect use effectiveness measure so they don't have that in there but there is something and we need to include that And with that, baseline measurements, ongoing measurements, evaluation of whether they're meeting those standards. And let's see, one other that we add, the community benefits plan. That was recommended by the Environmental Protection. It's not in our text. I think that's my list. Okay. Molly may have some more. Mr. Chair. Yes. I'm sorry. Which document are you reading from? From the Environmental Commission. Okay. Do we have that? I got you. You all sent that out to us yesterday afternoon. It was the first page of Packet 2. Again, Commissioner, what page was this? Were you reading from? This is on page 3. and if you're just above the water consumption and quality, there's a section there that deals with standards for power utilization efficiency, and then that one that came up today in terms of water consumption and quality using water use effectiveness quality measures. They don't have that in their document, but it was recommended today. All of that is in that paragraph that you just said? Except the water quality one. Okay. Commissioner Jonathan Davis. Yes. Did they not? No. Yes, one of the speakers earlier, one of the environmental people that spoke earlier made a suggestion that we give preference to projects that use renewable energy sources. Is that something we can recommend to the council to take a look at? We can certainly include it in our recommendations. Yeah, that's what you do with that. It's not in here. Okay. Okay. We don't, because the staff don't know how to function. I've been corrected now. Okay. Tell me about it. Yeah. Yeah. Get out of here. I don't know. We're ready. What's the name? Mr. Jones? I was just going to ask Mr. Benkenner. Mr. Chair. Ms. Jones? Hold on. Do you all want to vote on where you are? because this particular line of stuff is getting, this is where I have heartburn. Let me just put it that way. Because I'm questioning whether or not we have the ability to either one enforce it, whether we have the ability to measure it. I just, and those paragraphs are pretty broad and pretty, you know, I'm not sure they're zoning ordinance types of language. So I don't know if you all want to vote on where you are to this point. and then add additional amendments and do them one by one because there's some confusion over here, and it seems like there might be some over there. Ms. Jones, are you offering that we could go with my initial changes and then add to that? Yes, I am. I mean, you can, so for those of you who weren't privy to what Mr. Duncan and I just did, we took that text for the standards out of the Environmental Resource Commission's recommendations on page three and the one that came up and put them in the application process so they have to demonstrate that they're going to do those things. As they apply. As they apply. Okay. I agree with Ms. Jones. Why don't we, just to get some stability to this, let's maybe go ahead and floor entertain a motion to see. What I was going to, well, on the things that we agree, if there's no disagreement on it, then I move that we approve these changes on amendments by consensus. Okay. Do we know that there's no disagreement? Well, I don't. That's the whole point. If it's not, then we have to vote the other way. We almost have to vote one by one. Or we can say, I move that we have a consensus vote on it, and then it can even go up and down. Okay, Mr. Wilson or Mr. Penn? Are you making the motion for consensus? No, I was just saying. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. And I'm going to second. Okay, so Mr. Wilson, can you please repeat your motion? I move that all the changes that have been recommended, all the texts for the Zota, be adapted by consensus. Second. And will Mr. Penn have seconded that? Okay. Yeah. Is that just a voice vote? Yeah. Okay. Sorry. So then you all have to vote. You all have to agree when you vote, right? Is that what you're saying? Well, we can. You want it on here? What I'm asking is you're asking by consensus, so when you vote, you all be in agreement. Is that what you're saying? That's what I was asking my colleagues ahead of time. If someone had a problem with it, I would not put a consensus on it. I simply say, let's have a vote. So I'm saying consensus because I didn't hear my colleagues say anything. But if they do say something, I'm going to come back with another motion. Okay, well, I know that Mr. Nickel and Mr. Forrester have concern about these. He's not in agreement with it. He says he's not in agreement with it. So I'll just simply suggest that I move that we have a motion to adapt to the amendments as opposed by the ZOTA with the changes that we've presented by the ZOTA. And I'll second that. And Mr. Penn seconded that. So that's just the text changes that we have made thus far, suggested mostly by Mr. Owens and Ms. Worth? Right. Okay. And then any other further text we can... You can make further amendments. Amendments and supplements. Okay. Is survey room in this discussion or the next discussion? As Mr. Wilson made the motion, server room is in. It should be in. Okay, thank you. Okay, so let's go ahead and put a vote to that question if there's no other discussion. The room to take out, right? This is the server room. No, this is the server room. Currently, server room is in. But it's accessory use. Was that? All right. I thought I voted. And did you all intend to include Ms. Worth's language about energy efficient design that demonstrates compliance with recognized energy efficient metrics? Yes. Okay. And the water quality measure as well. Down below that. See in red? The water quality effectiveness measure and quantity measures. Well, that's the stormwater management plan today in the room. That was a Kentucky Resources Council recommendation from the mic. It was not specifically in this paper, but I added it because it's consistent with the other two. And you feel like that's a separate requirement of an application. So we would now have a seven, which deals with energy efficient design and an 8, which deals with water effectiveness quality measures. Water use effectiveness quality measure. Yes, and then that would be repeated on page 13, I think. Is everybody nodding? Ms. Wade, with water quality storm management, does that include Frank's consent decree? Yes, I included that as number six under application information that must be provided. So effectively on page 10, what you're talking about, Mr. Penn's concern would be a new number six, and Ms. Wurst's concerns about energy efficiency in the other water would be seven and eight. Right. Okay. Okay. And then that motion, of course, again, included all of the text changes that Mr. Owens, that we went through previously. Okay. All right. So that carries 7-2. And so at this point, would it be a good time to take a break and work on kind of listing the other items that have been mentioned, and we can either work on some draft text or... It's my understanding that that might be a good idea in addition to the fact that you might need a break. I don't think it has to be that long, but it seems like the other items are items that are not... It might require an entirely new section, so... Right, right. Okay, Ms. Jones, in your best estimate, how much of a recess would be best? That depends on how much you're talking about. that depends on how much uh we're talking about should we go by dinner i'm gonna come back no no no it's like a jury you don't get to leave until you're done ms jones would would 6 30 be enough time right about 20 minutes yeah i think that'd be fine okay i trust your judgment um without objection let's let's adjourn for until roughly 6 30 if we think we can get that done sooner we will come back into session out of respect for everyone's time Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Again, thank you for your patience. It's a few minutes after 6.30, and we are going to reconvene our Zota hearing. Legal and staff have had time to work on some of the possible changes that the commission has been discussing over the last couple of hours. Judy, would you like to begin with that? Yes, if I can find the draft text. Anybody know what page? What page are we looking at there? I'm looking at page 10. Page 10, okay. Page 10, this is, that's not right. We're talking about application. It's page 10 under applications. You already added number 6 and number 7 and number 8. And so I think it would be number 9. I don't think I have a copy of that document. Where are they? Where are they? This is the red line. Step before. No. Page 10. It's section 12 of the cares. My page 10 does not have application process. See application? This is looking, show me, is it smart? Up in here. Got it, okay, not done. Sorry, I'm looking at the wrong end of the page. All right. This is an application process. Now I get back to where we were. Okay, we are adding, this is, yeah, I'm trying to, are we missing some things? Because this gets number five, what I'm looking at has, ends with number five noise plan. So in the amendments you all approved before the break, you added a number six and number seven. Okay, that's how we get number nine. Got it. Okay, so we have adding to that number nine, these are provisions coming from the Kentucky Resources Council. A decommissioning plan prepared, or shall include, a decommissioning plan prepared by a registered professional engineer containing the following. The estimated decommissioning time frame and cost of removal of all structures, foundations, conduit, equipment, and interconnection facilities and roads, that's A. B, the salvage value of any equipment and current dollars in the calculations supporting the decommissioning estimate. The estimated salvage value of the material including current publicly available material indices and or firm quotes from a decommissioning or recycling company experienced in the decommissioning of data centers shall be provided. C, the manner in which the data center will be decommissioned, including provision and a timetable for the removal of all structures, foundations, conduit, equipment, and interconnection facilities, and for the revegetation and restoration of the property to its original condition or preparation of the site in a condition compatible with the prior zoning of the parcels. Then we're adding a piece that says, if a conditional use permit is granted, the applicant shall submit a performance bond, letter of credit, or other financial assurance payable to LFUCG, sufficient to assure that the decommissioning of the site can be achieved by a third party in the event that the applicant defaults in that obligation, which financial assurance shall be provided prior to the commencement of construction. That got it? And I'm guessing that last, very last part, is that essentially a bond? Okay. I just wanted to make sure. All right. Okay. So I think the cleanest way to do this with these final amendments that the commission wants to vote on is, you know, Judy essentially presented that one. Maybe we have discussion, excuse me, on just that one. and then maybe to follow Mr. Wilson's suggestion, have a vote on them individually. Okay. Okay. Do we have any comments on what Judy just... I have a question. Where does the thing that I wanted to add about a closed loop or... That will come. We're doing one thing at a time. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Just to keep us on track. Okay. Is there any discussion to what Judy mentioned that she would like to have included? If not, we can entertain a motion to vote on that. It's all motion. Suggestion. Thank you, Mr. Penn. Second for Mr. Wilson. Any discussion? Okay. Would it be easy to put that to a hand vote, Ben? Does it matter? If you're in favor, raise your right hand. Okay, that's unanimous. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Oh, yeah, sure, sure, sure. Okay. All right. There we go. All right. Judy, thank you. Okay, that carries unanimously. Judy, do you have a subsequent item, or were there other... Okay. Those guys. All right, now Commissioner Molly Davis. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to add on page 11, in addition to section 8-21, comma, D8, the letter I. All data centers shall be cooled using a closed loop water system or other available cooling system, excluding any that are evaporation based. And you might want to, it's no water evaporation based. It's closed loop. Say that again? I don't think that's, I don't, I don't think we quite got it there at the end, did we? All data senders shall be cooled using a closed loop water system or other available cooling system, excluding any that are evaporation based. Yeah, that works. Is it clear that evaporation based is water? Okay. And I recall when that came up earlier, staff had a thought on it. There was a sense of maybe we don't want to restrict certain technologies just because we don't know how quickly it's going to change, or is staff comfortable with that? You all have the prerogative to absolutely implement whatever particular type of systems. Staff just acknowledges that sometimes there's a fine line on getting hyper-specific with some of the technologies in the event that things change, but I believe that they've tried to work that into the motion of the sentiment there. Okay, all right. Excluding evaporation does that. All right. Is there any discussion to that suggested amendment? If not, Molly, would you just make a motion to that effect? Can I make a motion to that effect? Yes, I do. Second. Second from Commissioner Jonathan Davis. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will put that amendment to a vote. Okay, that carries unanimously as well. All right. Server rooms, do we discuss that? Oh, yes. We had discussed removing the restriction on server rooms on page one, meaning just essentially leaving the first part of that sentence but taking out the restriction of the square footage or percentage of principal use. Is this on page one? Page one, the one, two, three, fourth. Bottom of the paragraph. Yes. So it would end where now? It would end, yes, own use period. So striking everything after the word use. Is there any support for that? Larry's not here to make that motion. So any discussion or a motion? May I ask a question? Server room is the definition then. Server room means one or more designated areas dot, dot, dot. Related to digital data operations for its own use period. And then everything after that is stricken. Thank you. Is the suggestion. Okay. Any discussion to that amendment? Floor is open for a motion. Okay. I'll make a motion to change the definition of server room to mean one or more designated areas within a principal use, except a data center, housing, computer and network equipment, systems, servers, appliances, and other associated hardware components related to digital data operations for its own use, period. And striking the language following. And striking the language following. Okay. Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? Second. Thank you, Commissioner Worth. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will put that amendment to a vote. Great. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Okay. So just to clarify where it's on actually. I don't turn it off. To clarify what we're doing here, we're sending this to the council with the text and the changes that we, but also with a recommendation that there may be other places that need tightening up and we're leaving it to the council. Well, I mean, what we're doing now is we made text changes. No, I'm saying recognizing that this ain't all. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I only expect the council to do what they want to do with this, but if you want to tell them, give them direction, you need to do it in the ordinance. Yeah. No, I'm not wanting to give them direction. What I'm wanting to do is to recognize we don't think this is finished work. like a cover letter or something we know it's not finished work because it's not finished work until they act on it. Okay. So do you want to adopt the whole thing as amended? Well we did that already and now we're making amendments to the amendment amended ZODA. Okay. I'm just going through my list. Can we recommend that they have a meeting? No. No. Let me finish. A forum so that people don't have to come at 1.30. We've gotten so many comments about that. They have the ability to watch this for those that weren't here. and they can do whatever they want to do with it, but you all can't direct them to how to do their legislative process. You're making this recommendation. You can't say, hey, I mean, they're going to see that, and they're going to get this record of this. They're going to see all the stuff and all the comments that people said. And I will tell you, they are already aware that people are uncomfortable at some of the times of our meetings, whether they're work sessions or before this day ever happened but it's you know that's something that that's within their purview to decide how they want to handle it and and tracy correct me if i'm wrong but there will be public comment at their meetings which are after 5 p.m well it depends on what they do yeah i see you know i don't know how they're going to handle this when they get it back because they're not under the same deadlines you all are yeah no our job is really to do our job and do as much as we can tonight and send it to them and balls in their court at that point. Okay. All right. I'm just going through my list that I was keeping. Do we have any other changes, any other amendments to this text? I don't think so. Okay. Did you all take the vote on the server room amendment? Oh, okay. Yes. Yeah, we did. Okay. All right. So if we have nothing else on the, I almost said solar, on the data center, Zoda, thank you everyone for your work. To the public, thank you for your presence and your comments. It does make a difference. The Planning Commission does want to hear you, and we appreciate your presence and your thoughts. Again, it is going to be hard to look to the right and not see Tracy Jones looking at me, sometimes not happy with something, sometimes very confused. But hopefully she's smiling tonight, and you certainly are entitled to a long and very enjoyable retirement, and we will miss you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Are there any other commission items before we adjourn? If not, Mr. Duncan, anything? Nothing? Okay. All righty. That's of course. Well, thank you all. Good evening. We appreciate you, and we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. All right.