Conroe Wrote the Rules Before the Data Centers Arrived

City Council approved a new ordinance for facilities of 75 megawatts or more. No project has filed yet. The city is trying to get ahead of water, power, noise and who pays if one does.

Conroe does not have a data center inside the city limits. What it has, as of Aug. 13, is a rulebook written in the hope that the first one does not arrive as a surprise.

City Council approved an ordinance governing how a data center could be permitted, built, operated and eventually taken down. Community Development Director Brandy Taylor told council there is already “some interest here in Conroe.” She did not name a company or a site.

That is the whole tension. The city is legislating for a building that is not on a map yet, because officials say they currently have no real protection if one appears.

Why Conroe Moved First

Texas cities without zoning have a particular problem with large industrial uses. Conroe is one of them. Taylor said the ordinance is a mechanism to keep infrastructure costs on the developer instead of the taxpayer — water, sewer, streets, drainage, signals and electric capacity included.

Mayor Duke Coon put it more bluntly before the vote. “At this moment, the city has no protection,” he said. The city needed to start, he added, and “work to refine this along the way.”

Staff said a complete application would still take an estimated 120 to 150 days of review after fees are paid, plus a City Council public hearing. Incomplete packets do not move. Council can approve, approve with conditions, deny or send a project back for changes.

What the Ordinance Actually Requires

The ordinance defines a data center as a facility with at least 75 megawatts of designed critical IT electrical load. That is a utility-scale neighbor, not a closet of servers behind a storefront.

Applicants must submit 37 items before permitting can begin, including an ERCOT grid study, an electricity availability letter, noise and vibration assessments, a traffic study, a hazardous-materials plan, an emergency-response plan and a decommissioning plan. Water capacity has to be proven up front. Cooling is supposed to be closed-loop or similar, so the facility is not continuously pulling from the public supply.

On-site emergency generation must keep critical systems running at least 72 hours if the grid drops. Operational noise cannot exceed 5 decibels above ambient at the property line; corrective work is supposed to start at 3.5. A data-center property must sit at least 300 feet from homes, commercial uses, child care, schools, hospitals, parks and other listed uses.

Notice is not an afterthought. Before an application is even filed, the operator has to mail property owners within 2,000 feet and neighborhood associations within 3,000. More notice goes out ahead of the hearing. A sign at the site and newspaper notice are required. Taylor said social media should be used too, so residents can show up and ask questions.

If the city needs an outside consultant to read the technical file, the developer pays for that as well.

A Starting Line, Not a Finish Line

Several residents told council the ordinance was a start and not enough. Montgomery County resident Moniqua' Scott asked what evidence made 300 feet the right buffer for people and children. She also asked the city to make sure private water, wastewater and electric demand does not land on the public. Conroe resident Josh Graff wanted stronger language on light, noise, water, emissions and who pays for utilities.

Council member David Hairel asked staff to keep looking at beneficial-ownership disclosures, generator emissions, what happens if more than one data center lands in the same area, and how decommissioning is actually enforced.

Taylor told council the ordinance can be tightened at a future meeting. “Without moving forward today, we do not have the protection that we need,” she said.

That is the honest shape of the story. Conroe did not invite a data center this month. It wrote a permit path, a public-hearing path and a list of 37 documents a company would have to produce. The next fact that matters is whether anyone files.