By Katie Northcott, News Director
At its meeting on Tuesday, May 26, the Coffee County Planning Commission unanimously passed a motion recommending that the County Commission approve a 12-month moratorium on data center reviews.
Coffee County Mayor Dennis Hunt suggested a data center moratorium at the beginning of the meeting. He asked that the Planning Commission recommend a 6-month moratorium to the County Commission.
A data center is a facility that houses computing infrastructure, including servers, storage, and networking equipment, to store, process, and manage digital data for businesses, cloud services, and applications. Data center development has come under national scrutiny due to concerns such as the facilities’ high resource consumption and noise pollution.
In October, the U.S. Air Force listed Arnold Air Force Base as a potential location for an AI data center. Find more reporting on the proposal here. Find Hunt’s response to the proposal here.
Though the county cannot prevent data center development on federally owned land, Hunt said it was important for the county to approve a moratorium quickly.
“If somebody had already been in here asking for a zoning compliance certificate, we would be in trouble, so we have to get on top of this. We have to do it really, really fast,” Hunt said.
Though the moratorium was not on the Planning Commission’s agenda, Hunt announced his intention to propose the moratorium via Facebook and by contacting local media.
During the moratorium, the County Commission will review county zoning ordinances and if found appropriate, suggest zoning amendments and resolutions that would regulate the construction of data centers.
“What I’ve always been told is that we cannot zone out any legal activity, that we must have a place for all legal activities,” Hunt said. “Having said that, we can apply restrictions, and that’s what this body is going to be charged with.”
The Planning Commission hoped to discourage data center development in Coffee County. While Planning Commission Chairman Steve Cunningham said the commission would weigh the pros and cons of data center development in Coffee County, he said he didn’t “see many pros.” Planning Commission member Duncan agreed.
“They don’t really even bring that many jobs to your county. They just suck all your resources,” Duncan said. “The AI pretty much runs their data center.”
Duncan referenced a resolution recently adopted by Knox County prohibiting data centers from using public electricity services. Duncan suggested that Coffee County work with Knox County officials to draft a similar resolution and possibly also prohibit data centers from using public water services.
A member of the public who was not visible on the meeting recording suggested that the county should contact the Duck River Utility Commission and Tennessee Valley Authority before adopting a resolution similar to Knox County.
Cunningham anticipated that President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14318 might inhibit the county’s ability to discourage data center development.
“They’re talking about this as it applies to military operations, but basically it strips communities of their ability to put roadblocks up,” Cunningham said. “We need to look into that.”
Trump signed the order in July 2025. He said in the order that his administration intends “to facilitate the rapid and efficient buildout of this infrastructure by easing Federal regulatory burdens” and to “utilize federally owned land and resources for the
expeditious and orderly development of data centers.”
Duncan made the motion to recommend a 12-month moratorium to the County Commission, doubling the time suggested by Hunt. Hunt was pleased with Duncan’s motion, which passed unanimously.
Amanda Rhinehart Harrington, a professional planner retained by the county, drafted a nine-page zoning resolution amendment for the Planning Commission’s review. Hunt asked the Planning Commission members to study the resolution and bring suggestions to a special called Planning Commission meeting on June 10.
“We’ve got to address the language, we’ve got to address the definitions, we’ve got to address the placement,” Hunt said. “[Under] the A1 district, permitted use number six I think would encompass data centers. We need to change that.”
Hunt said he did not want to disperse the resolution draft to the public yet because he did not want anyone to get the draft document confused with the “final product.”
