Mesa City Council approves new data center zoning rules

The city of Mesa adopted new zoning rules for data centers and their operations in a City Council vote last week.

Fifteen data centers have been constructed, approved or proposed in Mesa within the past six years. The city historically treated these developments as Indoor Warehousing and Storage, because they primarily house equipment for data storage and processing.

But unlike other storage facilities, data centers have additional infrastructure demands and environmental impacts. City staff say the proliferation of these facilities resulted in the need for regulations.

Mary Kopaskie-Brown is Mesa’s planning director.

“That's actually the purpose of these regulations is to make sure that as they come into the city that we're minimizing the impacts aesthetically and to those sensitive receptors such as residential uses,” she said.

Mesa Vice Mayor Scott Somers says the updates benefit the city.

“I think this ordinance is the first step in a number of newly designed, more objective design standards for business, industry, and residential that will improve Mesa,” he said.

The city of Phoenix recently adopted its own zoning rules for these facilities.