Dallas may become the next Texas city to write rules for data centers, and the process started with a memo.
Five City Council members, Chad West, Paul Ridley, Zarin Gracey, Gay Donnell Willis and Laura Cadena, signed a memorandum Tuesday requesting an agenda item within 30 calendar days to authorize a public hearing on amending the Dallas Development Code, as reported by KERA.
What would change
The hearing, if the council authorizes it, would consider amending Chapters 51 and 51A of the development code in one of two ways: revising the provisions covering communications exchange facilities, the category data centers currently fall under, or creating a new "data center" land use with its own regulations.
The gap that fix targets is blunt. "Currently, data centers are allowed by-right in many non-residential areas with little oversight," West said in a social media post. "I am hopeful we can amend the code to give Dallas residents and council more say on if and how data centers are to be built in our city."
A regional turn, in one week
Dallas is not moving in isolation. The same week the memo circulated, Keller's council voted unanimously to retain legal counsel over a data center its neighbor Westlake approved on the towns' shared border, with Keller's mayor pledging to "explore every legal option available."
Fort Worth's council has already passed a temporary moratorium of its own, and in Prosper, a proposed data center known as Project Tomahawk goes before the Planning and Zoning Commission next week.
