Alamance County’s leaders have decided to give themselves a year-long breather from data center proposals in order to draft a set of regulations for these high-tech leviathans outside the county’s cities and towns.
The county’s board of commissioners voted 5-to-0 in favor of this 12-month moratorium on Monday after a protracted public hearing that drew repeated demands from the audience for a “pause” of one to two years in new data centers within unincorporated parts of the county.
Although the county’s rural reaches have yet to attract so much as a whiff of this sort of facility, the proliferation of data centers in other parts of the state has prompted a growing number of jurisdictions to pump the brakes on the construction of large server farms.
Last month, Alamance County’s governing board agreed to consider its own moratorium at the behest of commissioner Pam Thompson, a former Republican who broke with the GOP shortly after her reelection in 2024. During Monday’s proceedings, the now unaffiliated office holder admitted that her own preference would be to prohibit data centers entirely even after the board’s moratorium expires in the summer of 2027.
“I’m going to put it out there; I’m not for data centers. This county is real precious, and we have to be careful to keep it that way.
. . . “They will dangle these in front of your face [she said using an actual carrot as an illustration] to get you to believe what they want.”
– County commissioner Pam Thompson
“I’m going to put it out there; I’m not for data centers,” Thompson informed the rest of the Republican-dominated board. “This county is real precious, and we have to be careful to keep it that way.”
The moratorium which the board ultimately implemented is nevertheless meant to provide county officials with the breathing space to draft a new set of rules for data centers rather than as the precursor to an outright ban.
According to Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens, the commissioners could be setting themselves up for legal reprisals if they used their statutory right to a moratorium as a back door to the prohibition of data center development.
“It is not a pause for the sake of taking a pause. There has to be some action on the county’s part. . . We’re not here tonight necessarily to figure out how to fix the problem. We’re here to decide whether we want to fix the problem and buy ourselves some time to do that.”
– County attorney Rik Stevens
“It is not a pause for the sake of taking a pause,” Stevens told the commissioners. “There has to be some action on the county’s part…We’re not here tonight necessarily to figure out how to fix the problem. We’re here to decide whether we want to fix the problem and buy ourselves some time to do that.”
The county attorney’s admonition was more or less echoed by each of Thompson’s fellow commissioners before Monday’s vote.
“I think if you look across North Carolina, there’s more than 100 data centers already. They’re here with us, and this need is not going to be diminished or go away. But they need to be controlled.”
– County commissioner Sam Powell
“I think if you look across North Carolina, there’s more than 100 data centers already,” commissioner Sam Powell observed during that evening’s proceedings. “They’re here with us, and this need is not going to be diminished or go away. But they need to be controlled.”
“It’s prudent to study both sides of this issue. Data centers provide a lot of good things. But they’ve been ham-handed [in how they’ve been developed] in a lot of parts of the country.”
– County commissioner Ed Priola
“It’s prudent to study both sides of this issue,” concurred commissioner Ed Priola during that evening’s proceedings. “Data centers provide a lot of good things. But they’ve been ham-handed [in how they’ve been developed] in a lot of parts of the country.”
“We’ve all spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about data centers. We want to control them for the protection of our citizens.”
– County commissioner vice chairman Steve Carter
“We’ve all spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about data centers,” added Steve Carter, the vice chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners. “We want to control them for the protection of our citizens.”
“We are moving to make the right decision, and not have it overturned by a court of law.”
– Alamance County commissioner chairman Kelly Allen
“We are moving to make the right decision,” agreed the board’s chairman Kelly Allen, “and not have it overturned by a court of law.”
Prior to Monday night’s hearing, the county attorney had provided the commissioners with a proposed resolution to implement a moratorium on data centers with a 6-month horizon. Stevens noted that his draft of this resolution included benchmarks and deadlines to ensure that the county makes effective use of its timeout from data center development.
A six-month moratorium was nevertheless panned by many of Monday’s public speakers who favored a period of one to two years instead. Carter consequently suggested a year-long interstice, which Priola immediately seconded. Stevens went on to adjust his original timetable to accommodate this change in duration.
In the final draft of the proposed resolution, the county will have 120 days to catalog existing regulations, spell out the “infrastructure considerations,” and enunciate the gap which the county would need to fill to accommodate a new data center. Then, 180 days into the moratorium, the county will need to consult the relevant departments and agencies about factors like “electrical demand, electrical-service and transmission needs, water and wastewater service, road access, emergency response, backup generation, noise [and] stormwater.” After 240 days, the county’s planning staff will need to present regulatory suggestions to the commissioners, who’ll need to decide what, if any, new rules to implement before the moratorium expires on August 17, 2027.
In the end, the commissioners voted 5-to-0 in favor of this particular plan of attack.
In the meantime, Thompson warned her colleagues not to get over-exited by the promises they may hear from data center developers who want to make inroads in this neck of the woods. She went on to flourish an actual raw carrot as a visual metaphor for the tech industry’s potential temptations.
“They will dangle these in front of your face,” the commissioner said, “to get you to believe what they want.”
