The Bradley County Commission essentially prevented data center development earlier this year, but two major projects in the East Tennessee county are seeking to build the facilities anyway.
The developer of one of the projects, Project River, is asking the city of Cleveland to annex the developer’s property so the county’s restrictions for unincorporated land won’t apply to it. The firm planning the other development, Project Midspan, sued the county Friday over its restrictions.
The Bradley County Commission voted unanimously in April, shortly before its members faced elections, to place several limits on where data centers could be built. County residents filled the meeting, asking commissioners to ban data centers outright, a move the county attorney said would almost certainly be challenged in court and overturned.
The commission decided to limit the computing facilities to the county’s special impact industrial use zone. The only county site in the zone is a landfill.
Data centers also cannot be built within 3,000 feet of homes, schools or churches or within 3,000 feet of any property zoned for forestry, agricultural or residential use, according to the commission’s amendments.