Planning Commission Conceptual - meeting_joint_workshop

all right we're going to call to order the city council planning commission joint conceptual workshop we have a quorum for our council chairman halliburton we have one for the planning commission also okay indeed yeah did we have anyone sign up for public comments no sir all right seeing that we had no one sign up for public comments we'll move straight to our workshop items our first agenda item 3a bobby kirby joel hill represented by sec this is for 5418 franklin road annexation and zoning thank you and good evening mayor and members of the planning commission and city council um let's see there we go this property is located at 5418

Franklin Road. It is just to the east of Overall Creek. You can see it on the screen before you. Directly across Overall Creek is the Kroger that is located at the corner of Veterans Parkway and Franklin Road. There's some new commercial development that's been built within the last five years to the southwest and to the south across Franklin Road is the overall creek as it wraps down to the southeast, but then there are commercial uses along Franklin Road and Malachite Drive, including a Tommy's Car Wash, Three Mothers Restaurant, and an Aldi, as well as some other assorted commercial uses. So the property is currently located in the unincorporated county. So you can see this it is bordered on its west side by the city limits and this just shows the zoning it doesn't show all the city limits but the roadway of Franklin Road is actually in the city limits as well. So you see that there is a predominance of commercial zoning along Franklin Road in this area however when we adopted the future land use map Because of the existing single family residential development along this section of Franklin Road, we coded it as suburban residential. Mr. Taylor will present to you in a moment a proposed zoning request, of course annexation and zoning request for a proposed multi-tenant commercial building. And this would not be in line with the future land use map, as future land use map, as I mentioned, suggests that this should be developed as suburban residential, which is single family residential with a maximum density of four dwelling units. per acre. However, we thought this was a good candidate to bring to the joint conceptual workshop considering the fact that there is a significant amount of commercial fronting on Franklin Road. We would value your feedback in this instance and after Mr. Taylor gives his presentation to see if this is If in general this is something that the Planning Commission and City Council feels warrants a second look with regards to commercial along this segment of Franklin Road. So I'll be happy to answer any questions and Mr. Taylor has a brief presentation that he would like to give you before we'll have questions and answers.

Thank you, Mr. Blomley. Mayor, members of council and planning commission, I'm Matt Taylor of SEC. I've got Mr. Bobby Kirby and Jewel Hale and Lake Kirby with me as well, the owners of the property. As Mr. Blomley said, this property is in the county. We've actually got a... had approved a site plan for self-storage at this facility in the county but there's been several other developments in the immediate area that have been approved and or constructed for the self-storage so felt like that kind of going to the retail that you see here would be better for the for the area. The same group did several buildings directly across Highway 96 of about the same size. While they don't have any exact tenants for this project, they would Typically see something like restaurants or medical related or general office or retail. All those are across the street that they've got a credit union and one of their end caps across the street as well. So we would have you know since my clients have bought the property they've actually cleaned it up. There's quite a few old houses and structures that were in poor shape and so they've taken those down and cleaned the property up already. So we feel like it's an appropriate transition between the large commercial users to the west, being Kroger, and then back to the residential to the east. We do have appropriate landscape buffers planned around the site. We've already talked to TDOT about our access on the Highway 96, and so we feel good about that as well. So myself or one of my clients would be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? All right. Any discussions from the Planning Commissioner or the Council?

I agree with Sean. I think it's a fit. I've got no issues with it.

My guess is... Once this is developed, though, that same side of the street is going to be developed in a similar fashion, even though it's not necessarily part of the long-range plan. I'm just making that comment because this is probably the first of many. I would agree with that, too.

Hi, Matthew. Do you guys have what you need?

Yes, sir. I believe that Mr. Taylor will be requesting a planned commercial district zoning, so it won't be bulk zoning. He'll be bringing back to you the specifics of the development so that you can have oversight of that as well.

All right. Let's move to item B, scan of properties, Manchester Pike annexation and zoning.

Thank you, Mayor McFarland. The next item that we have on the agenda tonight is something that would look familiar to you. This item came before the Planning Commission and City Council back in the early spring, I believe. It was for a planned unit district zoning located along Manchester Pike. It's going to be a combination of industrial and commercial uses. The Planning Commission, after deferring it, voted to make a recommendation of approval to the City Council. The City Council conducted a public hearing on the annexation and then voted to deny the annexation. Since that time, Mr. Newman, who unfortunately could not be here tonight, he's got a sick child, so I'm filling in for him. Mr. Newman has been working with Scannell Properties in addressing some of the concerns that were raised during the public hearings at both Planning Commission and City Council and Scannell Properties wanted to bring the updated plan before you tonight to see if they were headed in the right direction. Mr. McCary with Scannell Properties will present in more detail, but a few of the things that have been modified from the previous plan, you'll recall there was a, I forget the exact size, but in their list of permitted uses was a data center of under a certain size. They have eliminated that from their chart of proposed permitted uses. The building that was closest to Manchester Pike, they've shrunk that building and moved it a little bit further away from Manchester Pike. They're also proposing to leave, so before in their previous planned development, the area along Manchester Pike, they had identified as a preservation area where development could not happen. They have changed that to show it as commercially zoned and whether that would be a part of the planned development or separately zoned as commercial, I think one of the concerns there was to not maybe give the impression that that industrial uses were going to be allowed along Manchester Pike and then also with the with the roadway connection of Elam Farms Parkway. The Elam Farms Parkway connection is on our current major transportation plan to make that connection all the way to Manchester Pike but while the city is working on the Manchester Pike corridor plan. Scannell Properties proposes to terminate Elam Farms Parkway in a cul-de-sac and if during the construction process it is determined that the connection is desired by the city to be made to connect to Manchester Pike, they would construct that remaining roadway segment. If that decision is made after they complete their project, they would dedicate right of way so that the city could make that connection in the future. But they are showing it terminated in a cul-de-sac in the event that the city does not wish to make that connection. So I know that Mr. Tom McCary with Scannell Properties would like to make a brief presentation after which I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. And looking for a few things tonight, the direction as to whether or not they're heading in the right direction. If so, I think it would be their goal to reapply for both annexation and zoning. And two, how you would want to see that that zoning along Manchester Pike, if you would want to see that as a bulk commercial zoning or part of the planned development. So, because I think they're open to, obviously they're open to whatever feedback you have to give them. And Mr. McCary is here. As I mentioned, I'll be happy to answer any questions if you have them for me.

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for letting us chat with you about this project again. We appreciate your time. So Matt really covered the meat and potatoes really well. I kind of stole my thunder a little bit, so I don't have too much to add. I think I'll just run through the slides quick, if they'll participate. So many of you saw this already because it got moved on from the planning commission to the council, but it was never voted on at the council. This was the previous plan, which was number 30 in the iterative process we went through to come up with this. And this is the new plan. There aren't a ton of changes, but the ones we've made we feel are pretty meaningful. So as Matt mentioned, we have the frontage along the pike pulled out of our PUD. our our thought was we would annex that and zone that separately like matt mentioned we don't want to give the appearance that our our industrial development is fronting the pike also we think it creates a better zoning narrative because you'll have regular industrial and then we'll have our quasi-industrial quasi-commercial and then commercial and then residential which is a really, you know, that's a nice transition. Also, we'll establish a precedent that, you know, the city wants to see commercial zoning along the pike as it gets developed further south. So, you know, that's the first most meaningful change we've made. This second building right here, the one closest to the pike, we shrunk and pulled back by about 100 feet. So it's smaller, it's further away from both the northern property line as well as the pike. The idea here being we're just trying to get this tucked even further away because this red commercial zone won't be built immediately so sight lines from the pike, we don't want this building to be large and particularly noticeable. Even though the architectural will be class A, institutional grade, nice new product that will look good, we're just trying to make it a little bit more inconspicuous. Along that same line, we previously had a landscape buffer running right along our auto lot on the east side. We're proposing to shift that as close to the pike as we can before we run into this wetland area. So scooching that closer to the pike will make those trees larger. It'll make the screen itself more effective for the cars coming and going down and up the pike. We also removed that data center use. We never planned to do data centers. Small data center users are great tenants, so we wanted to keep that as an option. A lot of pushback on that. We're happy to cut it if that makes things easier for everybody. And then finally, the road. As Matt mentioned, this is something we were kind of directed to include originally. We don't necessarily want it to connect to Manchester Pike ourselves. We don't feel like our users will be coming and going from the Pike. We think they'll be coming and going via Joby Jackson and the interstate. So if the city's unsure whether or not they want that connection, let's just skip it for now. You guys make the decision at your leisure and as long as we haven't, you know, done our final site plan approval on our last phase, you can ask us at any time and we'll go ahead and we'll complete that road. But otherwise we would call the SAC it and dedicate the right away. So if in ten years from now you guys decide you do want it, it's there, it's available, you can complete that connection yourself. These are some of the views. This is from the northern property line. As I mentioned, you know, the building's gonna be about 100 feet further away, which should dramatically reduce this. Apologies we weren't able to get these updated in time, but I just wanted to, you know, remind everyone that these landscape buffers are going to be pretty immense and will be very effective once they've given enough time to really grow. But if you push this building back 100 feet, it should drop that sight line significantly, maybe to roughly where this cursor is, which I think is quite a meaningful change. Additionally, here's that building we're shrinking so it'll scooch back even further and these trees will come closer to the pike. So again, should be a much more effective visual. I don't think there's going to be much change to this one. The only thing is, you know, theoretically we'll see a good deal of, oops sorry this is a sensitive cursor, we could see a number of buildings pop up in this commercial zoned area over the foreseeable future and those would obviously dramatically screen the PUD from the pike. So it's relatively short term that these sight lines I think would even be in play before the ultimate development of this area would take effect and nothing would be visible any longer.

Would your thought process be that you're going to continue to own this lot and you be in control of how it's developed, or would you think you would be selling the lot and letting someone else develop? That's a great question.

At this time, we think we'd like to maintain ownership of that lot and try to control its fate a little bit. We understand we'd have to come back in for site plan approval of anything we want to put there, so we'd come back before the powers that be and make sure our vision conforms with your vision. Right now, it's just a blank slate and looking to you guys to kind of establish what you'd like to see from a zoning perspective. Is there a specific zoning designation you want? Should we make a custom one to your liking and do a specific zone, another PUD, basically? We're flexible on that, but we'd like to develop it ourselves if we could in the future.

Thank you. Just for clarification, because it's been a while since this was in Planning Commission, the commercial zoned area in the orangish-pinkish color, that can't be developed anyway, correct? So it's going to be zoned commercial highway but can't be developed as commercial highway, correct?

It can be theoretically. So the reason it can't be developed immediately today is because they are wetlands. But they are really low quality wetlands. It's a yard. You drive by it, there's nothing wet about it. It just technically satisfies a couple key characteristics. So at this time, it's considered jurisdictional wetlands. But what we've seen often is that you have a dry season. those boxes get unchecked and at that time we could come forward and try to build something. So it's, I think, pretty feasible. Also the rules and regulations change by administration to administration. So we'll just see. But at this point you're correct that there's quite a bit of wetlands in here encumbering the area. But I do think it's plausible that in the handful of years to follow this area could come into play for development.

the 15 foot type d and the 20 foot type e where exactly are there are those and why is 115 and why is 120. that's a great question um so the the right thank you

So I think what he's trying to do is kind of mirror our zoning ordinance. Typically, when a light industrial or heavy commercial zoning abuts single family zoning, it would be a type E buffer. And when it abuts multifamily zoning as a more intense residential use, it would be a type D buffer. And so directly to the north is that apartment complex that's under construction or that may have been recently finished. But so obviously as a planned development, the type of screening and buffering is a negotiated thing and would be up to the Planning Commission and City Council to determine if a certain buffer type is adequate or not. But I think that's probably the thought process that he was going for. I guess, is E better than D? Yes, sir. E is our most stringent buffer in the zoning ordinance. It's typically what you would see between industrial and single-family residential.

All I would say is, from my view, that Type D, which is where the apartments are, it almost ought to be E. That way you've got E consistently through 20 foot. The other question is I'm glad he's pushed it back 100 feet, but it also said here about the mechanical units would either be on the roof. We're in a mechanical yard. Did the design that he showed, did that reflect the units on the roof or those in a mechanical yard based upon what you showed and said here's where the roof line would be? Because I didn't see any mechanical units. I just saw a flat roof which looked nice.

Yeah, so it should be dual sloped roof. So the high point will be in the center and we typically use rooftop units in lieu of dropping them on the yard anywhere. So our buildings usually incorporate a parapet wall design. Sorry, this is a really sensitive scroller. So they would be tucked in behind these parapets. The roof line is actually below. I'm trying to approximate it for you.

So what you're saying is it's a wall and that mechanical unit will be hidden if you decide to put them on the roof. Correct. Okay.

I guess this is more for staff. I know staff really wanted the road connection and this council really didn't want the road connection. What is staff's opinion of the project with no road connection?

I think it's a good question and I haven't been involved in those discussions. I think that we were comfortable with the proposed changes that they made and I think that we are currently, and Mr. Gore may be able to address this, we're currently undergoing the Manchester Pike corridor study which I think we are hopeful that that will have some traffic recommendations that will inform the final decision with regards to Elam Farms Parkway. Is that correct, Mr. Gore?

I would also note that the applicant's proposal here does keep the option open of making that connection in the future without Council having to decide right now whether or not to make that connection. But wouldn't the city have to do that at that point?

Not necessarily.

The way that it was proposed was my understanding, and the applicant can correct me, was the applicant will make the connection if requested up until the end of their construction. Once they've built out their final phase, then from that point on, if the city has not yet requested at that point, then yes. They would have dedicated the right of way, but the city would have to build the connection at that point.

And with this being a multi-year project to complete, I think that the Manchester Pike corridor study would be done with its traffic recommendations way in advance of the completion of this project so we would know whether or not the recommendation was to make that connection or not and obviously ultimately it would be up to the City Council as to whether or not that connection would be made.

I think the City Council has opinions on that.

I mean I think in a perfect world connection would be great but the issue I think with that and we using for example Haines Drive as an example I mean Haines Drive you're not supposed to have truck traffic on Haines Drive but you have a lot of truck traffic on Haines Drive. I don't know how that if you've got this amount of square footage of docking space which predominantly would be semi trucks is that fair?

Yeah, I mean, we'd expect to see box trucks, panel trucks, and regular subways.

My just thought is, like, if you open up that connection to Manchester Highway, it's a non-signalized intersection at this point on a two-lane road with no curb and gutter and barely a shoulder. You're going to have a lot of trucks that are going to come to that intersection and want to go and get on Manchester Highway. I mean, we can say, look, no truck traffic on Manchester Highway, but they're going to use Manchester Highway.

I absolutely agree 100%. I think the cul-de-sac, though, is perfect. Staff's perspective is we just wanted to secure that corridor through that site. As far as making the connections to Manchester Pike, that we can hold off.

I mean, is there, I mean, that would be great for all the people who are on Manchester Pike to be able to use that to get back to Joby Jackson Parkway, but would there be a way to...

I had even asked a member, if it was a council or planning commission, putting a H-foot barrier or something over the top of the road where literally I couldn't drive through.

The applicant didn't like that. I brought that up, and I don't know if it was a Jersey barrier. We talked

This is your city. You guys get to do what you want to do. If you want to put physical barriers in places, it's fine by us. My attorneys are going to give you about a 900-page liability waiver if you ask me to build physical barriers on arterial roads. But to your point, We don't think our trucks are going to be coming and going from the north. We think they'll be coming and going from the south. So we don't need this connection. We're fine not making it. If you do want it, we're fine building it for you. If you guys decide you want it and you're still concerned about our trucks, we can put signage at our driveway exits Directing trucks that they are obligated to turn south and head on even farms down to Joe B So, you know, no right no northbound trucks leaving our buildings like we can put up signs But at the end of the day, you know It's a free country and there are going to be trucks that want to come and go maybe from the Fed Exes just to the south into the west of us I can't control the other properties in the area or the you know, the independent truck drivers that are out trying to find shortcuts through town, so You know We're willing to do whatever you want us to do, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

This never made it, I don't think, past the annexation part, but once the discussion was that opening up this corridor to Manchester Highway, so opening up the corridor where Panentoni's there, Schwan Cosmetics, Interstate Warehousing, if you've got someone that's going to go back into Murfreesboro... and maps or ways tell them the quickest way is to go through this drive and then take a left on Manchester Highway. That's exactly what's gonna happen and that was one of the things when we talked about years and years ago about all the distribution that was going out in this area, the number one comment, I remember Frank Fly coming up to the desk here, Dias, and it was all about traffic on Manchester Highway. That was what he was talking about. So, yeah.

I think this is a good compromise on what we were facing looking at before.

The question I have, are you bringing both these forward, the pink and... Is there a planned unit that you're doing here? Are you bringing both of these forward? Is that what you're thinking to do?

We'd bring forward our PUD. And for the pink, I think what we would try to do is just when that's being annexed, we would have that zoned commercial highway or whatever zoning designation you guys wanted. And it would be excluded from the PUD itself. So there'd be two zoning aspects, one annexation.

And you'd get an opportunity to train truck drivers to go the other way. That cul-de-sac is going to force them to go the other way.

Right, exactly. And again, you know, the idea is give the city as much flexibility with your long-term planning as possible. So if we haven't finished our development, you decide you want that connection, we'll do it. At that time, like, if we need to put in a 10-foot tall barrier, that'll be the time when we'll ask the engineers and the people smarter than me to figure out how to do that, and we'll do it if that's necessary.

I will say, as part of the apartment complex, they did widen Manchester Highway on both sides, too, which that's already done. So, I mean, it does have, I mean, it used to be a very narrow shoulder.

I think they're going to signalize that intersection, too. What? I believe. That's the plan? Where Crescent connects with Manchester, right here, that's going to be signalized eventually.

Yeah. And it's already brought up to their property line, so we're talking about just you making the connection from them to you, correct? Correct, although they stopped short. I think they went to right here. I don't know why they didn't go all the way. But they did widen Manchester Highway already as part of their project.

Africa doesn't own that property to the north, though, where the extension back to Manchester would be.

No, we don't, but I believe the necessary right-of-way dedications or construction easements are in place. So we would have the ability to finish the connection.

That's correct.

All right, any more questions?

I think it's a better plan. I just don't want to see that extension on to Manchester. That's already... It's a two-lane road. It's already got a lot of issues.

So would you just leave, like, the connection that... would you just barricade that off? Because they've already built Elam Farms up to the end of their property.

It's built not all the way up to the end of their property, but I believe their first access point, but the right-of-way has been dedicated so that this property, when it develops, could build that additional roadway if it was so desired.

I believe there's a one or two hundred foot gap that they did not close. But they've connected to Manchester.

Right now it's basically... They are up to a certain point. They have what's effectively currently a private driveway into their site because it doesn't connect to anything. So right now, only their cars are going to come and go through the section of Elam Farms that they built because it leads to nothing else.

Got it. It's only about 700 people.

Mm-hmm. It comes there. I think the distance of the gap that we're proposing between the two stretches is going to be less. I think it's going to be like 350 feet or something like that. We can confirm for you and let you know, but it won't be a large gap.

So easy to finish later if you guys decide. I just think the biggest thing is, I mean, if council's good with it, because if we push it through, we just want to make sure it's something that's going to get everybody's on the same page with, you know.

The beauty of this approach is we don't need to be on the same page yet about the final vision for Elam Farms in Manchester. You guys can take years to figure that out. So that was kind of one of the primary goals we're focusing on here is how do we keep maximum flexibility for the city so that we don't all have to agree right now what the Elam's Farm Manchester connection looks like. But you're good with a 20 foot deep barrier? So let's just jump back down to that. The E and the D confuse me unless I'm looking at them.

The E is the 20 foot or the D? E is 20.

Councilman Maxwell is asking to move the top D buffer on that north side to a type E buffer.

Yeah, just make it E all the way. I get the instinct to do so because there's a multifamily there and they don't want to be by industrial. My response to that is surely they knew what they were getting into. They built their multifamily next to a giant FedEx distribution center and land future plan for manufacturing intensive industrial. We've put in a lot of landscape buffers. We've rotated these buildings for Crescent. We've talked to them a ton and incorporated a lot of their feedback trying to be good neighbors. But at the end of the day, they've chosen to build next to industrial land and they're trying to have me pay for all the additional screening that they want. I don't feel like that's particularly fair. We're going above and beyond. To be fair, this is an industrial land. Well, it's business innovative in the future land zoning, which is manufacturing-focused industrial zoning.

Well, I mean, respectfully, we're not going to put the arrows of the developer of the apartment building on the people who live there and wish to sleep in peace. No, which is... No, no, please. Sorry. You just heard a councilman say that he wants a Type E buffer. I agree. I want a Type E buffer. Anyone else want a Type E buffer?

Come on, boo.

You can share this and then we'll see.

Yeah. My intention is not to say no to the councilman's request or to your request. I just wanted to put forward the idea that we've been playing very nice in the sandbox with Crescent and have put a lot of cost premiums on our side to make their development more comfortable for them. And that's it. That was my comment. So we'll take a closer look at it.

I appreciate it. I would just say a type E buffer all the way around will really enhance your chances of success from my view.

Well said, Councilman Maxwell. We rarely agree, and I like that.

Thank you so much. I appreciate your candor. Let's move to a discussion of data center use.

I did want to just get guidance really quickly on the bulk zoning for the commercial at the front. If you have a preference for him moving forward with commercial highway, maybe a little bit less intense with commercial fringe.

What's staff's recommendation on that?

I think if he feels confident that those wetlands could be remediated in the future, commercial fringe would give the surrounding residential areas more protections than commercial highway and so I think my personal recommendation off the cuff would be commercial fringe.

If that's what you guys recommend, we don't do a lot of commercial highway bulk zoning much anymore because If that can be mitigated, that'll turn into an 8,000 square foot strip center with front parking. Yes, sir. Thank you. As a matter of fact, we just had one come in on similar acreage that we're not doing bulk zoning. They're going through a planned development, so that would be... fair even to the applicant who's just here.

John, discussion of data center uses. Good evening mayor and council members and good evening chairman and commissioners. I am going to be presenting a draft zoning ordinance amendment to regulate data centers which have been quite a bit in the news recently. So just a brief explanation of what we're doing here tonight. This is obviously just a discussion draft. There's no action tonight. The next steps after this will be we'll take whatever feedback that we receive from all of you tonight. We'll work on the draft. We'll work on some exhibits that we'll be presenting later on. Then it'll first go to Planning Commission for recommendation, then ultimately, of course, to Council for approval. So just a brief kind of level setting, the reason why we're here. In Murfreesboro, data centers are primarily a water and sewer question. As we all know, sewer capacity is something of an Achilles heel for Murfreesboro expansion, as the Stones River is a relatively small river, and at some point its assimilative capacity will be reached, which will ultimately control the growth of Murfreesboro. Therefore, we need to be stewards of very large water and sewer capacitive uses. In this instance, for data centers, the real concern is the cooling that data centers use. They generate very, very large amounts of heat, scaled to the size of the data center, and many of them are cooled by evaporation, where they take water, they run it over the hot components, and they let that water evaporate into steam. So they are drawing treated water from the system and return very little of it. But what they do return oftentimes has fairly high levels of chlorides and dissolved solids that conventional treatment methods often can't remove easily. So that is obviously a concern for us. In addition, for data centers, there are concerns for sighting and where they're located. They generate continuous noise. The main complaint is tonal low frequency noise that persists at all hours of the night and often can cause health issues for neighboring residents. In addition, many data centers have backup generators which are locomotive sized diesel generators that when they are engaged generate very, very loud fan noises but also particulate matter and nitrogen oxides that can also have health effects on neighbors. Nashville specifically responded by restricting routine emitting generation. In addition, there's obviously the look of data centers. There are generally large windowless single story structures on substantial acreage. And the other consideration, of course, for municipalities is the employment profile. The construction of data centers might generate several jobs, but that's only temporary. Once the data center has been constructed, very few people are working in those data centers generally. So there's not much of a benefit to the city. That being said, we'll look here at a little bit of what peer jurisdictions do. Nashville very prominently last month passed an ordinance that they have multiple tiers of data center sizes and different regulations for those tiers, but the size limits they placed were a maximum of 500,000 square feet or 100 megawatts of usage. Bradley County also recently regulated data centers. They did not give a size limit, but they limited them to only a single industrial district. And then the other thing that many of these ordinances look at is who decides. In Nashville, it's their Board of Zoning Appeals. In Bradley County, because it's rezoning, it would be the legislative body. And then there's also the consideration of separation. In Nashville, the side setbacks are based on the size of the facility. In Bradley County, it's 3,000 square feet from a data center to any nearby residence or church or other uses. And so the draft ordinance that we presented to you The size limit we've placed is 50,000 square feet. It's important to note that the zoning ordinance does allow small size data centers up to 15,000 square feet by right in several districts. Those are not nearly as big a concern as these larger data centers are. So the proposal here would be a maximum of 50,000 square feet, but also requiring them to be in planned industrial or planned unit districts, which would make the City Council the ultimate decider, not the Board of Zoning Appeals. And then one thing that we'd like to talk about tonight is if there is a particular separation that you would like to see between the data center and any nearby residential use. I should also note that roughly 20 jurisdictions in Tennessee have currently paused permitting on data centers to study their impacts. There are some examples here, McMinnville, Cedar Hill, and Hamilton County. And I also provided some details on Nashville's ordinance requiring closed loop systems, noise standards, and some other restrictions. So the first thing I'd like to ask you is there are four policy choices that we'd like to hear from you about. The first is the threshold. Currently the draft triggers at any data center over 15,000 square feet and caps at 50. Nothing more than that. So I'd like to hear if we'd like to see something different than that. Both the 15,000 foot threshold as well as the floor cap. The second question is setbacks. Obviously Bradley County is a rural county. They used a 3,000 foot setback. Most municipalities we would see more like 500 to 1,000 square feet between a data center and residential use. But we can pick a different number. And then of course the last question is if we want to keep this as a council legislative act or if we would like to have a tier system similar to Nashville where for smaller data centers it stays with the BZA and it's only for larger ones where it would go to council. So that's the initial thing I'd like to ask. If anyone has comments on any of these items I would certainly welcome those.

Anyone else can start.

I know zero about data centers. What is the average square foot of a data center? Is there such a

It really depends on the data center. There are small data centers. For example, I believe Redstone has a data center here in Murphysboro, but it's a very small one that's only for their use. And so that is within that 15,000 square foot threshold. But then you also have the Amazons and Googles of the world where their data centers are hundreds of thousands of square feet, maybe a million square feet, and everything in between, depending on what the usage is for the data center.

Nobody likes them and nobody wants to have them. And it is, it does provide good jobs when people work there. I actually worked in a data center in college for like six years and you would never know it was there. And they had offices and, you know, people have to maintain them. do a lot of work networking, electricity, HVAC, but definitely closed loop system, noise mitigation, testing generators, proper tons of things. But we have a lot of the land that we want to get businesses in here and I'd rather see a properly regulated data center than cross-docking and perhaps other industrial uses.

You and your cross-docking, Mr. Prince. I'm sure Council will know the answer to this. What about tax revenue for these data centers? I assume they're just classified as commercial?

I'm not sure how it's considered for tax purposes. My assumption would be commercial, possibly industrial.

What about long-term health repercussions? some of the things that were negative in the beginning.

Yes, ma'am.

What about the concern, may not be now, but let's say five years from now we start getting all these health claims, what repercussions?

Right. It is hard to anticipate because especially data centers of this size are not necessarily a brand new thing, but they're becoming much more frequently than they have been previously given the demands for AI. So we haven't seen a lot of very long-term health effects, but just from the research I've done, it seems like the main complaints are that low level droning noise that happens constantly, which can cause sleeping issues for neighbors, particularly at nighttime, obviously. But then also for those backup diesel generators, when those are running, Nitrogen oxide emissions can cause asthma particularly in children in nearby areas. And then of course the other concern which is hard to anticipate I think because it would depend on exactly how they do their discharge but For the non-closed-loop systems, the ones that use the evaporative cooling, the water that they discharge into the sewer system, as I mentioned, can have very high levels of chlorides and of dissolved solids, I believe. And I don't know what the effect is on the river, but if that's not properly treated, that can have environmental effects as well. Or it'll cause potentially increased costs for the city to be able to treat those adequately.

I share a little bit with what you said, Mr. Prince. I think it's an opportunity for the city. And like you said, Redstone is a community partner. They invest a lot of money into local nonprofits, and we love them. And they need a small data center to operate. So I like the 50,000 foot per putt or PID. I think that's great. I would like it to be seen by council and not the BZA personally. And then for the setback, I like what the last slide said about in relation to the size of it. Because I don't know that it's fair for a redstone, you know, little 5,000 square foot data center to have to be 1,000 feet away from a house when the noise from that is significantly less than a 50,000 square foot one. I would like to see the language of what that might look like to have it in relation to the facility size. If you maybe could send that out or we can talk about that.

Absolutely. The current draft only triggers at 15,000 feet and above. So this does not change the current zoning that we have, which is under 15,000 square feet. It's allowed by right in the industrial zones and certain commercial zones. So would you like to see more tiers between 15 and 50 where there's varying setbacks? Is that kind of what you're getting at?

Maybe. Is that what the other, yeah?

That's similar to what Nashville does. Yeah, I'm open to that. I forget how many, but five or six different tiers based on size and their setbacks based on what the different size is. We could definitely look at that.

Right, maybe we don't need five or six, but some sort of scale I think would make a lot of sense because how big is Redstone? You said it's like...

It's definitely less than 15. I don't know the exact size.

7,500? 7,500. Right. I mean, and that's probably, I bet you, if houses were around that, they wouldn't even notice. But 15,000, 20,000, 25,000, I can imagine the noise from it. And I mean, they serve a purpose. If we want to keep leaning into AI and everything that we do as a society, then data centers have a job. Now, is it quieter than a pickleball court?

It is a different type of noise. This is a low droning noise as opposed to loud impactful noises. I've learned quite a bit about noise emissions the last year.

Do we know how many data centers are already in our community? Two. In Murfreesboro? Two.

I believe it's two. It's Redstone and I forget the name of the other one.

The other one that we all know of but don't know the name. Got it.

And the other one is behind Demesis. Just right behind Demesis. It's probably been here five years probably.

I wonder what that noise was. What about, is there a process that has to go through for infrastructure needs?

I think with the infrastructure, Mary, we've had opportunities probably two years ago, and we weren't able to meet the electrical demand, so the utility districts would definitely have to weigh in prior to any conversations or it being brought forward.

Electrical, I mean, we don't have much control over the electrical. I'm just saying more from the water and resources department that, you know, like you would have to develop with a... hydrant, you have to have specific flow. I guess that's something that you guys would come in to determine like we do on industrial.

Yes, and one suggestion that I have later on is we could look at having a specific process for large capacity water users and we could set whatever the threshold is for data centers and if you meet that threshold or above there might be some additional requirements or caps or things like that that we would certainly work with Ms. Smith on where it would make sense to draw those lines. But that definitely would be, that would be my recommendation is that, you know, zoning can only touch so much. Those type of, you know, specific usage limits is really more appropriate for something specific to the water resource department as opposed to zoning.

Yeah, I would just recommend, as y'all talk about this, we've had to put limits on industrial property like Joby Jackson whether we want to use capacity for a really high intense sewer user or a non-sewer user so it may be something we have to look at that we don't get to where we can't provide water but we have issues in an area because they're going to one specific user. So could we put something there basically talking about location then? some kind of location where data centers could go or capacity of data centers. But that may be something that you look at as well as in some of these areas where you would see expansion it's going to be CUD. So that's going to have to be a discussion with CUD on what their requirements are that we're not zoning things for use that the utilities are not.

Would that require all data centers to be in a PUD or PID? Wouldn't that give us more opportunity to look at the sewer basin to see if we have the capacity in that area?

That's what I was going to say. First, we have the sewer allocation variants that we could put in place for that. So they'd have to go directly to Valerie's team to see if we want to utilize the water in that manner for that use. And the other thing is to take a look at the zoning districts that we would like to have we would allow data centers to be in we could bring you a map back it says these these are the areas that would we would allow data centers to be developed in and that way we don't have to go back and forth with areas we really don't want them in or put them in areas that's going to utilize a bunch of sewer and take away from the residential units so

My question is, I'll just use the Redstone one, that's a 7500 one. It's one of our two. Is it a closed loop system? No, it's just a commercial building that they just have the data center in. Okay, so it's not a closed loop system. So this is where I like that first question, what's the threshold? You know, I'd originally said 15,000, but to Jamie's point around, you know, making them kind of being a PUD, I'm almost, I don't care what size they are. If our most precious resource is water, like if I don't drink water, you know, I die. I mean, you can only get so much water in this community. So I feel like you've got to have, Any of these that come before, there's got to be something in place. Whether it's 5,000, 7,500, 15,000, it's got to come before us. But it's got to be a closed-loop system. Because I'll go back to the discharge. Four years ago, we were talking about this. What was the limit? I'll look at Valerie. We can only discharge so much into the Stones River, correct? and that's that's usually a t-deck standard and they're not going to raise that standard so at some point in time if it's not a closed loop system it's going to eat up our water and then what is discharged is discharged and it's you know it's kind of there forever i would actually lower it um i'd keep the cap at 50 000 i'd rather have a 2 000 square foot set fact minimum Kind of like what Nashville's got on standards in terms of closed loop system, something on the generators, it was in your previous slide, and then I guess some sort of annual compliance. I'm not anti-data center. I mean, they're here, they're coming, we might as well embrace them, but we just can't have them pop up everywhere, especially if they don't have a closed loop system. lead us up sewer-wise and water-wise.

I think the important thing to also understand is that to Mr. Prince's point, some surrounding counties have already started to put a moratorium on them and when that happens they actually seek out counties that they can start developing in. So we'll move as quickly as we can to get something back in front of this body.

Thank you very much. There are a couple of other things I want to discuss beyond these discussion items. These are more from a policy standpoint. Just briefly, and I'm not going to go very much in depth on this slide, there's a lot here, but this is just describing what this draft does. As we've discussed, this, for data centers over 15,000 square feet, we could definitely move that threshold. This removes the special use permit process for those larger data centers. It requires it to go through council. That requires legislative rezoning and public hearing and obviously that will preserve council discretion because as a legislative act the council has the ability to approve or deny applications before it even if those applications meet the standards that are set forth. So here the standards are a threshold for eligibility but are not an entitlement to approval. That's the benefit of keeping it with the council is you still have discretion to approve or deny these. Then, in addition, the draft has some disclosure requirements so that we know what their proposed cooling system is going to be, power usage, sewer, etc. It sets objective standards and it also protects existing rights because we don't want to get sideways with state law and grandfathering, of course. So another just brief slide here as to why we're structuring this as a regulation is there are some other surrounding communities, Hawkins County in particular, that they attempted to They didn't outright ban data centers, but my understanding is their regulations were effectively a ban. It was the type of thing where the requirements were such that there was no property within the county that would meet those requirements. And they're currently in litigation in federal court as a result of that. So, of course, we don't want to get in that position. And that's why we're looking at regulating these. I definitely agree with Mr. McKnight's proposal that before it comes back before you, we will have a map or at least a description of the properties in the city that would fit within these regulations to make clear that this is not an outright ban. There are areas where that would meet these requirements. So the last thing that I would like to ask is some of the open items. We will give a more detailed definition of closed loop because that is kind of open-ended right now in the draft. We want to make sure that's very clear. As I mentioned earlier, requiring closed-loop cooling, that's a technology but not a consumption limit. So the proposal will be, I think, to work with Ms. Smith to have specific usage limits from a water resources perspective on large users. And then the other aspect is going to be whether this cap of 50,000 square feet will apply per planned district, in which case you could potentially have a developer that owns multiple properties. Each one of them is a separate PUD or PID all next to each other. Or if we want to have something where we prevent common ownership contiguous with each other so they can't kind of get around that. That'll be something that we'll be discussing and bring before you. So thank you very much and if there are any further questions or discussion I definitely welcome it.

Just a comment. I kind of thought of this a second ago and not to be the good idea fairy. I've been called that before but it would be interesting to see okay hypothetically if we had 20 50,000 square foot centers or 30 15,000 what would the impact be to the water based on various basins, you know, because I don't know what that is, and I'm not trying to create work, but I think it's a good question to know in the back of one's mind to really know what can we take on. I agree. That was all that I had.

Thank you.

All right, let's move to... discussion of car washes. We're right on time.

Well it's actually kind of a little bit of a microcosm of what you guys just talked about and how car washes are having an impact on our water and sewer capacity compared to the physical impact or the revenue generation they're bringing to the community. That's all I would say about the, what I think I heard on those data centers is what is the economic impact? I mean, what's the valuation of the property that they sit on? How much property tax do they generate? And how much, obviously I don't think they're going to generate any sales tax. I don't think they're selling stuff out of their data centers, but if they've got high paying jobs and employment, There's sales tax derivatives out of that. And I think, and this is kind of what we're talking about here, is the impact to utilities versus the revenue generation to the general fund. And so that kind of dovetails nicely into what I want to talk about here. and again does the proposal represent the highest and best physical land use outcome for the property so we're going to look at some locations of car washes and are we our market saturation resource efficiency significant water and sewer capacity is consumed and then the physical return you know right now based on what i'll show you there's minimal local revenue generated by car washes. I was very surprised by what I learned. So right now we have 25. We've got another one approved in blue. It's that tidal wave auto spa. It's over on Medical Center Parkway. It has not been constructed yet. If you use the one per 10,000 resident metric which is a moderate saturation for car washes or for a community. It says we should be around 18 if we're saying 880,000 folks. So you can say right now we have roughly eight surplus. We're probably a heavily saturated market for car washes right now. I looked at Franklin's, it was a real quick AI search. Apparently, and it could be wrong, I gotta verify, but they said they had six car washes for 90,000 people. Anyway, so the water and sewer demand. Sorry, go ahead. I was saying they could probably afford a mobile detail. Well, actually, I did not map these, but we've got 20 mobile detailers also in addition to the 25. I didn't map those out. I didn't want to try to confuse the issue, but there are 20 auto detailer shops out there that that are in addition to that 25. So right now this is just averages about 8,300 gallons per day, a max of 23,000 for sewer, the water and sewer, 3 million average, 8.5 average per year. That's equal to about 32 homes on average and the highest user we saw was equivalent to about 90 homes. The average size was about 1.1 acres. We saw about a $1.6 million in appraised value. That generates about $6,100 to the city on property tax. Right now every, I have it in here, every car wash for that average home, 32 single family units on one acre, it would require a sewer variance. Except we do have two areas in the city that we have a caveat. That's the city core overlay and the gateway design overlay districts. We have No sewer variance requirements in those two areas of the city, which may need to be something we address, at least specifically with car washes. This is where I was surprised. There's no sales tax on automated car washes. If the customer keeps control of the vehicle and the equipment performs the wash, or the customer does the washing, the service is generally not subject to sales tax. So you could have a million to two million, a million to three million revenue generating car wash, But we get zero sales tax dollars from that. We did find that there was some detail equipment that they have shops there that you can go buy detailing material and so the one we looked at was around $8,200 of material sold that year so about $113 sales tax. The payroll spending we did look at jobs assuming a certain payroll amount you again that's where you get kind of that that The employment payroll, there's that surplus expendable spending that comes out of employment. So bottom line, we looked at this and the total estimated revenue of the city is about $8,700, almost $8,800. So it's just, it's not much. So plain talk from Darren Gore. I think we got too many car washes, but this is y'all's call. filters off right now. The utility impact is under priced. We are not charging properly for the impact fees that they hit on the water and sewer. That is an ordinance issue. We've priced car washes as a separate line item. They're not charged for their single family unit equivalency. Minimal revenue return, I just showed you that. And there's likely better uses available. So it will obviously generate more revenue. So recommended forward, we need to look at the saturation. We need to look where the locations of the current ones are. Do we want more than what we currently have? Do we want the utilities to take that impact? Can they take that impact based on the location? Is there capacity? Is it in a stressed sewer basin or a stressed water basin? Validate the inputs. Try to understand what type of revenue generation will come out of it and then compare alternatives if that's the best and highest use you want to see in that particular location. So I know I went through that pretty quick, but I just wanted to kind of give you what we've studied on this particular topic and, you know, see if you guys want to want us to continue to approve car washes or if you think that it's we can put them on put them on hold or how you would like to make some make some modifications to the code so that if we do allow them they are paying their utility their full utility impacts

can you do that too for how many car washes do we have now well we have 25. i'll go back to that so if you do that for the number 26 can you retroactively go back and adjust that for 1 through 25. i don't think we could do that that's a lot of money

How are they getting away from not paying sales tax? It's my understanding if it's a vending system where there's no attendant to help you, then there's no sales tax paid. Any car wash I go to, they have two or three people out there assisting. So to me at that point, it's not a 100% vending system, and we should be able to charge sales tax.

You know, and that's an area that I know that the Department of Revenue has a specific rule on car washes that says if it's automated, it doesn't need sale. If I'm not getting out of the car, I'm not an expert in that area though, Mr. Rollins. I would...

Kelly, I think it's because the vending he's talking about is just the, if you buy like a thing of armor all out of there, you pay sales tax on that. After you get washed. But the actual service is considered a service and services are not taxable.

Not taxable.

And that does, I mean, Greg came upon that. I researched it, just internet research. I have not called the, you know, we've talked to, I think, one particular vendor and got a lot of this information. There could be, you know, there's a range here. I think what I'm trying to point out, though, is that there is a loophole that says they don't get charged sales tax. They generate a lot of revenue but they don't generate a lot of revenue. You can move those numbers around a lot and it's still not going to show a lot of local tax revenue.

I think we do need to check that because I think that's just for the automated ones that you're paying a monthly service. I think if you go to Starbright or Jones, it's been around forever. When you pay, you're paying sales tax on those. You're right.

It says if you get out of the car and someone goes in and does that, that is sales taxable.

would think in today's time though that they could recycle the water wastewater and utilize it again similar to what the city does with respects to the gateway area and using it as irrigation and in the swanson building using it and it is the toilet water you know aren't they

The only way you can, the only recyclable system that ultimately you don't have to send it to the sewer at some point is evaporative losses. You have to evaporate it. Otherwise, you can probably use it several times, but at some point, based on the dissolved solids and the It really is the TD that is all solids. That attacks the steel and does a lot of damage to the equipment. Once that dissolves, it's like salts. Basically, once the salts reach a certain level, you've got to dump it.

I love that it was data centers and then car wash. Every single thing everybody thinks in their mind about a data center is a car wash. Like all the negative things. I'd rather have a data center than a car wash anyway.

I'd rather have a car wash than a vape shop.

Well, again, we want to be customer service friendly. We appreciate businesses and entrepreneurs in our city. And we don't want to vilify or put anything down. But we do want to make sure that, one, as you all have said and we've tried to repeat several times our sewer is our highest commodity and we've got to be very very strong stewards for that of that commodity because it will ultimately dictate how this community can grow

I would advocate for that. Most businesses we couldn't talk about this type of regulations because this one uses a significant amount of utilities so that's why we get to talk about it. We don't get to talk about putting a limit on mattress stores or restaurants. It seems like a fair thing would be for the Planning Commission to talk about, or the council, is there, like what you've got on here based upon how many car washes is a fair number per resident, per many residents that we have. If you look at this map that you've got up here. I mean you've got some that are literally next door to each other. So maybe that's something from a planning standpoint that you look at almost the restrictions that we have on liquor stores to where it's within X number of feet, it's within X number of So that way it just gives sort of a, because if you look here, there's nothing out where Austin lives. There's nothing out on Southeast Broad Street. So you would hate for someone to say that they would want to build one on Southeast Broad Street where there is not a car wash. And then we say, well, we're at 25 out of, we're only supposed to have 18. Maybe there's a way to look at a location where you would, you would allow those to take place?

Well like I said everything's going to have to come for a sewer variance so except for again I guess the tidal wave auto over on med center did not did not have to come so that one out there on the gateway so we may want to put some type of.

I'm surprised that a car wash could be built out in the gateway that meet it can meet the standards of the gateway?

I saw it today. It's a fancy car wash. I'm not going to pay for that.

It's a spa. It's a car spa.

Oh, there's a difference. There's a car wash and a car spa. It's an auto spa.

I'll be honest. I don't know how I feel about putting a cap on car washes, but I am very... compassionate that we need to make sure they're in areas where we can support them, especially in those specific sewer basins that we're struggling with. Can we also up the tap fees, up in all those things? I want to look into how we can get them more revenue generating for the water department, especially. And I just don't know how I would feel about limiting the number of car washes, but I think items two, three, and four on your list, I'm all for.

Okay. We can definitely get to the city code and get our sewer connection fees commensurate to the single family unit equivalency. That would be probably a good first step.

I don't feel like 25 is a lot for a city of our size.

people at Riverview would riot.

I do think it's fair. I'm all for the market determining what, that's what we've talked about for years when people would fuss about Walmarts or, you know, Walmart coming in and we're like, well, you know, stop shopping at Walmart and they won't build anymore, you know. So, but, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but I do think from a water and sewer standpoint that I sure would hate that if we've got a car wash that brings in $9,000 of revenue and we can't afford to give water and sewer service to someone else that's in that basin. I think that's fair planning to say, okay, look, we're not going to put 10 car washes in this basin that keeps us from being able to have someone that wants to come in and you know, build a restaurant or whatever else that actually brings in revenue.

My question would be, is there not a way that we could tax them monthly fees that they charge in their customers and the single transaction fees there's no way we can tax that because that's how they make their money they they make them under unlimited watches and pay you know 20 bucks 30 bucks a month you ain't paying no tax on that so it's not a way to For us to be able to tax those transactions.

You just brought up something I just thought about. Like I go to the take five and yeah, I sit in my car and I go all the way through it. Don't get out until I'm out of the wash and then I get out and I vacuum it and then I'm out of the car.

That's a free service. The backing part's free.

They've got good lobbyists. That's what we know. It may be something that may be a fair baits question that when the legislative session comes along that maybe people don't understand the use that this causes. And really I would also say this to your star bright and your other like autos that you actually get out of the car it's probably not fair to them either that they're paying they're paying taxes and these other groups are not paying taxes because it's really more of a a loophole that they've they've figured out so that may be something that we talked to our delegation about to make them aware of it's really an unfair competitive advantage i can't wait to get the mailer in two years says that i closed the loop on car wash

yeah yeah well we again the variance i agree i think that that the location is is pretty critical about whether it's right on top of another one or if it's separated by some distance that seems reasonable and again the sewer capacity is is the biggest thing i think really one of the main points just wanted to bring up today too is just the fact it's just not a big revenue generator for the city And ultimately, I think what we want to do is have a, when things come into this, even the data centers, I want to have an economic impact report for what are these, especially if it's an inexorable piece of property that we're annexing and we're having to bring services out to, is the revenue or is the revenue that that particular parcel and that particular use on that parcel, is it going to be, I mean, is it going to bring in more revenue than it is our cost to service? That's ultimately where I want us to be.

So if you all take this through the process to Planning Commission, and that may be the other thing that the Council and the Planning Commission also take into account, All of these don't fit our current sewer ordinance, so they all have to have variances from the city council. And if the applicant is coming through, like I heard there was maybe one out on Barfield in 99 that has been in a discussion, or that may not be yet, but that'll be something that the city council can look at and really just say, look, there's four of them in that area out there. We're not interested in giving a variance on that. And that will be the sort of the de facto way we look at it to handle it.

How many are pending? Do we have one of interest out of Salem Highway? Just in discussion phase right now?

That would be something that y'all as staff members can say, hey, that's going to have to come to city council for a discussion and planning commission and Look at the map on it.

Okay.

Yeah, great information.

All right, great. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. Is there any other business? All right.

Seeing none, we'll stand adjourned.