VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — City and County governments across central Florida are looking at ways to regulate Artificial Intelligence Data Centers.
Some have outright bans in place, while others are adjusting local codes to control them.
In Volusia County, leaders are considering a 6-month pause on AI data centers to better prepare for them.
County leaders have directed staff to draft a proposed 6-month moratorium as they assess how these massive facilities could affect water resources, utility infrastructure, and environmentally sensitive areas.
Council member David Santiago said, to be clear, the county isn’t looking to ban AI data centers but rather to control them if they do come.
“It’s a matter of fact of where we put them and how it affects our community, so these 6 months will allow us to really get some good data and put some guardrails to protect our community,” said Santiago.
We asked Santiago if the county is hiring someone to study the effects of AI Data Centers.
“No, so we advised our staff about 3 or 4 months ago to research trends, and what’s happening in other parts of the country, and legal remedies we may have in Volusia,” said Santiago.
Justin Harvey is part of a statewide movement to stop the development of AI data centers.
“I would rewrite the code so that they can’t build them, but I think we just restrict them to no end or maybe tax the heck out of them so they don’t want to build here,” said Harvey.
In addition to speaking out at meetings, he’s conducted independent research and says the industry is constantly changing.
“I have even heard from experts talking about how this stuff is already outdated, so we could potentially build these and in 5 10 years they’re abandoned, and we move on to something much smaller, a better way to store this information,” said Harvey.
State law already prevents utility companies from passing the infrastructure and electricity costs of a-I data centers on to taxpayers. But Santiago said that ensuring the industry doesn’t affect the county’s quality of life or conservation efforts is also top of mind.
“Hopefully the state doesn’t preempt us, and we can come up with some reasonable guidelines that if they’re interested in coming into Volusia County, that they’re done the way we want them to be done,” said Santiago.
Santiago said there have been no formal requests from an artificial intelligence company, but there have been some inquiries to the county. He adds that Volusia County has plenty of land that’s already zoned for and could support that kind of industry.
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