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FAYETTEVILLE -- The City Council will look to balance advancing technology with safeguards for residents Tuesday when it considers putting stricter regulations and requirements on data centers.
The city is not anti-technology but must safeguard its residents from the possible negative side effects of data centers, said City Council member Mike Wiederkehr, co-sponsor of proposed amendments to the city's data center ordinance.
Five data center projects have been announced elsewhere in Arkansas.
The city is taking proactive steps to be ready if one is proposed for Fayetteville, said Councilman Scott Berna, the other sponsor of the proposed amendments.
Mayor Molly Rawn first announced the drafted ordinance amendments in a social media post June 4. The current data center ordinance is strong, but the ordinance amendment presented by Berna and Wiederkehr will add protection for utility customers, she said.
The city's Unified Development Code defines a data center as a "facility constructed and operated that is engaged in storage, management, processing and transmission of digital data, including facilities used for cryptocurrency mining, which houses networked computer systems along with supporting equipment such as batteries, back-up power generators, HVAC and cooling systems."
This references the large-scale data centers, not accessory unit centers such as those used by Washington Regional Medical Center or the city, according to Berna.
Blake Pennington, senior assistant city attorney, said during Tuesday's City Council agenda session that while the city cannot outright ban data centers, state law still allows local governments to enact "reasonable regulations to protect the peace, health and safety" of residents.
"This is a significant ordinance change, but I do think it's a significant improvement" to the ordinance, Berna said.
The proposed amendments would make data centers a conditional use in the I-2 general industrial zoning rather than a by-right use, according to the city staff report.
I-2 general industrial currently encompasses only about 2% of the city and is the only zoning where data centers are allowed, according to Pennington.
This shift to a conditional-use permit will allow the Planning Commission more discretion in weighing the potential adverse impacts of data centers, the staff report states. It means the city can also require additional information before approval.
Some of these proposed safeguards include requiring several preapproval reports, such as a description of the center's proposed cooling system, verifying that heat will not extend beyond the property line, an energy management plan and water use projections, according to Pennington.
The city's ordinance regarding data centers is already fairly strong, Berna said. However, the city remains vulnerable to centers outside city limits, but within the city's water district, he added.
"Our potential largest exposure was if they were to go out into the county, buy a piece of property, but that piece of property was within Fayetteville's Water District," Berna said. "That would then expose the city to some potential challenges that would then affect our citizens."
The proposed amendments aim to address this issue by requiring data centers outside the city -- but still within the city's service area for water -- to provide documentation the city is able to supply the water that's needed, in addition to confirmation from the Beaver Water District that "current and future capacity and the needs of the data center will not adversely impact its ability to deliver water to its customers."
The city is not saying no to data centers, but it is requiring them to be good neighbors, Wiederkehr said.
"We're simply saying they need to be in an appropriate zone and they need to be a good neighbor by managing the heat and noise they generate, the waste that they may generate as far as wastewater, and we're simply saying that if you come to Fayetteville, we need you to be a good citizen like everyone else," he said.
Berna said he believes these changes will make it far more difficult for data centers to move into the city.
"Although it doesn't ban data centers, it makes the bar really, really high," he said.
This is likely not the end of the amendments the city will make regarding data centers, Berna said.
"This is such an ever-changing, newer type of development," he said. "I think I would be foolish if I said that this wouldn't be adjusted somewhere down the road."
Berna believes it's likely the City Council would consider a complete ban if able, but it is not worth the risk of breaking the law.
"I would guess that if legislation was brought forward to better define what is in that definition, then I think, obviously, the council can reconsider that, but at this point, I think it's pretty clear -- it's as clear as mud -- what it dictates, so you got to err on the side of caution," he said.
The City Council is scheduled to discuss and vote on the issue at its meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.
STATEWIDE CONVERSATION
Fayetteville is not the only city in Arkansas to start talking recently about regulating data centers.
Two of the five centers proposed for Arkansas are for Pulaski County.
Google is developing a $1 billion data center at the Port of Little Rock, and AVAIO Digital Partners is developing a $6 billion data center near Wrightsville in Pulaski County.
The Pulaski County Quorum Court last month failed to muster the required number of votes to pass a 12-month moratorium banning new data center projects. The issue was discussed again Tuesday, but the vote was postponed.
On June 2, the Little Rock Board of Directors unanimously approved a new set of regulations on data centers.
The Little Rock ordinance classifies data centers into three tiers depending on their size and power demands, with the largest category dubbed "hyperscale."
Per the regulations, hyperscale data centers can be built only in areas of the city zoned for heavy industrial use. The ordinance also adds restrictions and requirements for noise limits, setback standards and water consumption.
The Arkansas state law passed in 2023 prohibiting local governments from banning data centers has also been called into question.
The term "data centers" is in the title. Yet, the text of the Arkansas Data Centers Act of 2023 -- also known as Act 851 -- focuses primarily on crypto mining. That has officials from localities across the state debating just how tightly their hands are tied.
The fear of being sued is common nationwide among local officials considering action to block data centers.
Saline Township in Michigan was sued last year by Related Digital after the locality refused a proposed 250-acre data center. The lawsuit included residents who planned to sell their land to the company.
Within a month the town settled, as municipal attorney Fred Lucas told the website Planet Detroit the decision was the "lesser of two evils."
The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health released a report June 3 titled "Environmental Cost of AI's Energy Use: Carbon, Water and Land Footprints."
The use of artificial intelligence has expanded rapidly over the past few years, the report states.
"After OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, it surpassed one million users in five days and reached 100 million in under two months; by mid-2025, around 700 million people were using it, sending about 18 billion messages each week," the report states.
The infrastructure must expand to match this growth, but there are several environmental implications that come with that infrastructure expansion, according to the report.
Data centers are "resource ravenous," according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a nonprofit think tank based in Cambridge, Mass.
A mid-sized data center consumes as much water as a small town, while larger facilities require up to 5 million gallons of water every day -- as much as used by a city of 50,000 people, according to the institute.
In 2025 data centers consumed an estimated 448 terawatt-hours of electricity, the United Nations University's report states. This would rank data centers 11th globally for use of electricity if they were a country.
"On current trajectories, data center electricity demand could roughly double to 945 TWh by 2030, nearly triple the combined annual electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria, together home to more than 650 million people," the report states.
These findings do not mean AI should no longer be used, but communities should be involved "in siting decisions, with enforceable transparency, consultation and grievance mechanisms," according to the report.
"AI offers remarkable potential, but fulfilling this promise responsibly requires systemic change," the university's report states.
Grace Hurt can be reached by email at ghurt@.
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