LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Urban County Council voted unanimously on June 9 to impose a temporary moratorium on data center development through Oct. 31, while the city examines how to regulate the facilities that have drawn increasing scrutiny across Kentucky.
Council Member Steve Sheehan introduced two resolutions that passed without discussion. The moratorium bars the city from accepting new data center zone change applications, reviewing development plans for data centers, or issuing permits for their operation anywhere in Fayette County. A second resolution directs the Planning Commission to develop zoning ordinance text amendments that would formally define and regulate data centers for the first time.
The action comes as DartPoints, a Dallas-based colocation company, announced the acquisition of a Lexington data center campus in May, and as nearby residents have raised concerns about noise, energy usage and infrastructure impacts from the expansion. The former Lexmark facility on New Circle Road, which DartPoints plans to develop for AI and other computing workloads, is not affected by the moratorium since it was already zoned for data center use.
“The urban county government needs time to examine, review and review the regulation processing and impact of data centers in lexington fayette county,” Sheehan’s motion stated, adding that the council also needs time to “review, consider and amend if necessary any ordinances related to data centers.”
Lexington’s emerging regulations would be among the nation’s most restrictive, proposed to protect the region’s iconic horse farms from noise and other impacts. The draft zoning would limit data centers to 50,000 square feet, prohibit “major” facilities — anything larger — countywide, and require a 1,000-foot buffer between data centers and agricultural land outside the urban service boundary.
The moratorium reflects a broader statewide pattern. Multiple Kentucky counties and cities have enacted moratoriums or advanced zoning regulations in recent weeks as data center developers accelerate projects across the commonwealth. The trend stands in contrast to state incentives offered in 2024 and 2025 that exempt qualified data centers from sales taxes for up to 50 years.
The council’s budget vote earlier in the same meeting allocated substantial funding for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2027, and approved the capital improvement program through 2032. A second reading on two budget-related ordinances also passed unanimously.
This article was generated by AI (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) based on source material from LFUCG Meeting Archive, enriched with 2 web searches. The original source is available at https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6797.
