Montgomery County Council President Natali Fani-González made the following statement on County Executive Marc Elrich’s signing of an Executive Order pausing data center development for six months.
Below is Council President Fani-González’s full statement:
“I welcome the six month moratorium announced today by the County Executive, which gives Montgomery County the room we need to chart a responsible and competitive path forward on data centers. These facilities power many of the tools residents and businesses rely on every day, but they also raise serious questions related to energy use, water resources, and community and environmental impacts.
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“With the moratorium in place, we now have the space to finish up working on the Data Center Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 26-01. Furthermore, I look forward to continue working closely with the state and regional infrastructure partners who manage energy distribution, water systems, and other cross‑jurisdictional infrastructure — areas where Montgomery County alone does not have authority.
“Here at the County level, we are doing our part. If you were to try to launch a data center today, you could site it anywhere in Montgomery County as a conditional or permitted use, because it is currently considered to be a Cable Communications System under the Zoning Code by our Department of Permitting Services. I worked with Council Vice President Marilyn Balcombe and Councilmember Laurie-Anne Sayles to put forward ZTA 26‑01 to change that.
“ZTA 26-01 establishes clear definitions and limits data centers to industrial zones under conditional‑use review, with strong standards around siting, noise, environmental protections, and community safeguards. After the public hearing, we committed to strengthen the proposal even further with requirements for 100% clean energy, non‑potable cooling systems, expanded setbacks, security and backup‑power standards, and retroactive applicability for any project without a building permit.
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“Planning Department analysis shows that under these new standards only one or two locations in the entire County could accommodate a hyperscale facility (for reference, Virginia claims to have over 150 hyperscale data centers) — ensuring that if such a project ever moves forward, it will do so under strict, community and environmental‑driven rules.”
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Read the original article at mccouncil