At a July 7 Swain Commissioners’ meeting data center moratorium committee representative Celia Baker presented commissioners with ongoing first-stage research, including legally preventative options. “You either do zoning and you come up with the types of things that are or are not allowed within the zoning boundaries, or you create a shotgun blast of multiple targeted restrictive ordinances, one covering noise, one covering light, one covering water,” she explained.
“I don’t like the thought of telling somebody what they can do with their own property,” said Commissioner David Loftis.
He was joined by other commissioners in advocating to maintain the county’s long-held zoning-free status.
Unsurprisingly, commissioners went with the “shotgun blast.” With that choice, Swain County is faced with an unusual task: blocking high-impact industrial users in an unincorporated area.
Something as targeted as a ban on data centers would violate North Carolina law, Baker said, because it constitutes “zoning without calling it zoning.” A zoned municipality cannot ban data centers either — though it can employ one of two strategies that apply extra regulations to applicable projects.
The first is a conditional use permit process.
Weaverville, for example, recently classified high-impact industrial facilities as “noxious uses,” which may only be permitted in certain zones and generally require a public hearing along with zoning board approval. Although conditional permitting can be effective, some community planning organizations describe it as reactive.
A second, special exception model provides the strongest data center deterrent. It designates hyperscale facilities as “special land-use.” Permitted projects under this designation must meet stringent criteria and pose no risk to the surrounding environment. So places like Swain County get the shorter end of the stick — both through exclusion from the special exception model and the relative simplicity of permitting.
In fact, zoning is least common in rural areas, planned to host 67% of future data centers. But even as it is billed as the solution, zoning can facilitate a host of data center-related problems. To untangle this contradiction, one needs only to look to the past.
Single-family residential districts have long caused urban sprawl, segregating neighborhoods and boosting white wealth at the expense of Black renters and homeowners. Exclusionary zoning also produces environmental justice zones, where heavy industry is located beside low-income, typically minority-occupied housing. This crisis continues to grow as data center developers scout already polluted areas bordering communities historically denied political and social capital.
Zoning and land use ordinances nonetheless share a central theme: each is strongest before a project is authorized. Facilities often expand post-approval. And some, like Elon Musk’s Colossus 2 in Southaven, Mississippi, introduce unpermitted air-polluting gas generators and continue to operate despite community lawsuits.
Baker also addressed this phenomenon at the meeting.
“Even things that have been approved and seemed like it went through the proper channels during the permitting and the buildout and the approvals process, more and more things are coming to light … Communities are finding out they did a lot more infrastructure buildout than they told us they were going to,” she said.
At the end of Baker’s presentation, audience members suggested a referendum, another legal data center-blocking avenue. But in Swain County, such a measure requires signatures from 10% of registered voters and must submitted by the end of July to appear in the General Election. While several referendums have successfully banned data centers, there is no precedent for this ballot initiative in North Carolina — and it is not immune to legal challenges.
In a nation where most towns have zoning ordinances, Bryson City is an even rarer phenomenon. A stalled 2025 Universal Development Ordinance would’ve added various districts, but Bryson City remains unincorporated pending its passage.
Although Swain County’s data center moratorium doesn’t apply within town limits, Alderman Tim Hines spoke of other naturally restrictive factors.
“People ask, ‘Well, what are you going to do if, someone wants to build [a data center]? Me, personally, I don’t know where they could. It’s not like there’s a large enough tract of land in town for sale,” he said, adding that Bryson City would not approve a facility’s request to tap into its water and sewer system.
“If we can’t provide water and you can’t legally drill a well inside city limits without town approval, you have no water. And this is true for any business that wanted to come in,” Hines noted.
The Smoky Mountain News asked about the feasibility of housing a hyperscale facility atop the former airport strip, which is currently for sale and considered within Bryson City limits. Hines explained that the property didn’t have enough water to sustain heavy industry operations, though he admitted some data centers have switched to chemical-based coolants. Electricity would pose the most significant barrier. But even that might not be prohibitive.
“Currently, is there enough power up there? No. Can that be remedied by Duke Power? I’m sure,” he said.
It’s unclear if Duke’s planned Almond Transmission Line Project would increase the town’s power reliability.
When considering the layout of Swain County, commissioners’ words paralleled Hines’ argument. Since around 87% of county land is owned by the federal government, data center construction would be limited to a relatively small area.
Loftis suggested crafting ordinances that mandate a certain distance between public lands and data centers.
“I know right there in Marble they’re a long way from any Forest Service,” he said, referencing Cherokee County’s Core Scientific in-progress AI renovation.
But according to the county’s GIS viewer, the data center is within a half mile of a voluntary agricultural district, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians land trust acreage and territory owned by the Forest Service. Furthermore, the Marble facility is taking actions likely to disturb the water table.
“They weren’t allowed to continue using the municipal water supply, so for this one facility, they had to then drill three different wells on the property to start drawing groundwater to support this new expansion,” Baker told commissioners.