ROCHELLE – The Rochelle City Council passed an ordinance to amend the city’s zoning regulations to allow data centers in certain industrial zones. The amendments would add data centers as a permissible use in I-1 light industry, I-2 general industry, and I-3 heavy industry zoning districts. Michelle Pease explained that the zoning laws weren’t exactly clear.
“So currently in section 110 of our district classification use, it lists warehousing but it doesn’t specifically list data warehousing,” she said. “And then the other thing that we’re doing here is we are defining data centers as physical facilities whose primary use is to store, process and distribute data and applications to ensure adequate infrastructure.”
Data centers would need to be located within half a mile of an electrical substation or another location approved by the City Manager. The Planning and Zoning Commission approved the text amendments by a vote of 7-0 on March 3rd.
