Denton Data Center Rules Head to Oct. 13 Council Vote

Denton City Council has a public hearing set for Oct. 13 on rewriting the city’s data center rules so that every new warehouse-style data center would need a specific use permit, with council holding the final say. The proposal, case DCA26-0007, would also triple the required buffer from homes to 300 feet, ban evaporative cooling, and require water, wastewater and grid approvals much earlier in the process.

The Denton data center code changes are the zoning half of a two-track response. A proposed temporary moratorium on new data center development is moving separately, with its next public hearing set for Oct. 27, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported. Never Late News covered the start of those moratorium hearings and Core Scientific’s land search last month. The code amendments are the newer piece, and the staff packet behind them spells out exactly what would change.

What would change in the Denton data center code

The staff report prepared for the Planning and Zoning Commission compares the current rules with the proposal. Here is that comparison in plain terms.

• Where warehouse data centers can go: today they are allowed by right in General Office, Light Industrial, Heavy Industrial and Public Facilities districts, and with a permit in Mixed-Use Regional, Suburban Corridor and Highway Corridor districts. The proposal requires a specific use permit in Light Industrial, Heavy Industrial and Public Facilities, and removes the use entirely from the Mixed-Use Regional, Suburban Corridor, Highway Corridor and General Office districts.
• Distance from homes: the setback for buildings, modular structures, electrical equipment and outdoor storage next to residential zoning or homes rises from 100 feet to 300 feet.
• Lighting: the current rule caps light at 1 footcandle at all property lines. The proposal requires zero footcandles of spillover at a property line next to homes or residential zoning, or no increase where existing light is already above zero.
• Cooling: there is no rule today. The proposal requires closed-loop or free-air cooling and prohibits direct and indirect evaporative cooling, which staff describe as steering projects toward less water-intensive systems.
• Water and wastewater: there is no rule today. The proposal requires studies with the first application covering water demand, needed off-site improvements, wastewater demand, and ongoing environmental monitoring, including prevention of unauthorized chemical discharge.
• Grid approvals: there is no rule today. The proposal requires any needed approvals from the Public Utility Commission of Texas, ERCOT and the transmission service provider before a permit request can be placed on an agenda.

The draft also adds a definition for an “enterprise data center,” meaning server rooms that support a single private organization’s own operations as an accessory use. Those would be excluded from the new data center rules, so an office building’s in-house server space would not trigger a permit. Violations would carry a fine of up to $2,000 per offense, with each day counted separately.

Why the permit requirement matters

The practical effect is that no data center could be built by right anywhere in Denton. Assistant Planning Director Angie Manglaris told the commission that council “has ultimate discretionary approval” under a specific use permit, according to the Record-Chronicle, and that the change would remove any by-right data center in the city.

The energy angle is built into the order of approvals. Under the proposal, a developer would need the state grid sign-offs in hand before council ever sees the request. That matters in a city that runs its own utility. The staff report notes that Denton’s first data center rezoning, approved Aug. 17, 2021, on city-owned land near the Denton Energy Center, came with a ground lease and power purchase agreement between Denton Municipal Electric and a private third party.

How Denton got here

The staff report lays out the timeline:

• Aug. 17, 2021: council rezones city-owned property from Public Facilities to Light Industrial for a proposed data center warehouse
• Sept. 20, 2022: council adopts the code’s first data center uses, modular and warehouse, after a Planning and Zoning recommendation on Aug. 10, 2022
• June 26, 2026: Informal Staff Report 2026-039 issued after a council member’s two-minute pitch in June
• Aug. 4, 2026: council work session on a possible moratorium, where council directed staff to draft code amendments at the same time
• Aug. 24, 2026: the Development Code Review Committee reaches consensus on the amendments
• Sept. 23, 2026: Planning and Zoning public hearing, with staff recommending approval

What the code change will not do

The Denton data center rewrite is about land use, not capacity. Mayor Pro Tem Nick Stevens, who first pitched the moratorium, made that distinction himself, according to the Record-Chronicle: “The development code changes are about planning and zoning … and say nothing about our grid. They say nothing about water supply because that’s a capacity question, not a zoning question.”

That is why the moratorium track continues. Its stated purpose is to study whether infrastructure demand, environmental impacts and financial returns from Denton’s approved data centers are lining up with projections. Some residents at the commission hearing questioned whether 300 feet is enough distance from homes, the newspaper reported.

What we could not confirm yet

The draft ordinance in the commission packet leaves the commission’s recommendation and vote count blank, and the commission’s Sept. 23 minutes were still marked as a draft in the city’s online meeting records when Never Late News checked. We will update this story when the vote is posted.

The council hearing is Oct. 13 at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at City Hall, 215 E. McKinney St., according to a public notice published Sept. 26.

Denton is not alone. Fort Worth has scheduled a Nov. 10 hearing on its own data center moratorium, and the state attorney general has opened an inquiry into data center water reporting in Dallas and Tarrant counties.

How Never Late News reported this

This story is based on the City of Denton’s Planning and Zoning Commission packet for case DCA26-0007, posted on the city’s Legistar meeting system: the agenda information sheet with the background, timeline, side-by-side comparison and staff recommendation; the staff analysis; the proposed code text with the 300-foot setback, cooling, water, lighting and grid approval requirements and the enterprise data center definition; and the draft ordinance with the $2,000 penalty and the blank vote line. The council hearing time and place come from a city public notice published Sept. 26 and reposted on NoticeRegistry. Quotes from Manglaris and Stevens, the Oct. 27 moratorium hearing date and residents’ comments come from the Denton Record-Chronicle’s Sept. 28 report. No interviews were conducted for this report. To report an error, email editor@neverlatenews.com.