The Lake County Commission voted unanimously Tuesday evening to approve a 90-day pause on accepting any applications for large-scale data centers in unincorporated parts of the county.
The ordinance aims to give commissioners time to create new zoning and development regulations. They're considering a possible conditional use permit requirement that would make it clear companies don't have a right to build the massive facilities needed for advances in artificial intelligence.
The large-scale data centers put extraordinary demand on the power grid and can require water for cooling.
Commissioner Sean Parks said a CUP is good "because it's going to say right up front that a data center is not a guaranteed right. … [I]t would be, you know, a pretty extensive process that they have to prove that it's going to be right for us … but it gives us the ability to turn it down.”
Commissioner Leslie Campione said she wants to keep an open mind and doesn't want to send an anti-business message.
"But at the same time," she said, "it's really hard for me to fathom a scenario where one of these would fit within the land masses that we have in Lake County and still be able to protect our water, our electricity and our quality of life."
The ordinance approved Tuesday cites the local authority to create regulations for these facilities in Senate Bill 484. The new law on large-scale data centers in Florida also aims to protect water resources, ensure transparency and prevent companies from shifting the cost of their high energy demand onto consumers.
