With concerns about their impact Kent County adopted restrictions on any proposed data center in its unincorporated areas. Delmarva Public Media's Don Rush talks with Spotlight Delaware freelance reporter Maddy Lauria about the decision. The full interview can be heard on this Friday's Delmarva Today at noon on WSDL and WESM.
Kent County is putting new guardrails in place for future data center development, hoping to avoid the challenges other local communities have faced as demand for large-scale computing facilities continues to grow.
County officials recently approved an ordinance establishing where data centers could be built and what requirements they would have to meet. The move comes before any proposals have been submitted in Kent County.
"They wanted to get ahead of the curve," freelance journalist Maddie Lauria told Delmarva Public Media. As neighboring New Castle County considered projects and updated its own regulations, Kent County leaders decided to establish rules before developers arrived. Lauria added that municipalities, including Harrington, were also looking for county guidance.
Under the ordinance, data centers would only be permitted in two industrial zoning districts. Developers would also have to comply with a series of standards, including 300-foot setbacks from residential properties, six-foot landscaped buffers, a maximum noise level of 55 decibels, lighting restrictions and plans for decommissioning abandoned facilities.
Projects would also need letters of no objection from state agencies, electric utilities and water providers before moving forward.
Despite the new regulations, officials say there are currently no data center proposals in the county.
"I can tell you that there is not a data center that's on the books for Kent County," Lauria said, quoting Linda Parkowski, executive director of the Kent Economic Partnership. Parkowski added that if a project were to come to the area, it would likely be located within a municipality rather than in unincorporated parts of the county.
Lauria said county planners found that, given the zoning restrictions, infrastructure requirements and setback rules, only a handful of properties could realistically accommodate a data center, underscoring the county's effort to prepare now rather than react later.
