Halifax County commissioners Tuesday voted to schedule a legislative hearing next month to consider a moratorium on data centers.

On a 5-1 vote, the board set the hearing for its October 19 meeting at 5:30 p.m.

The vote to hold the hearing is not a vote against the current Quiet Data Centers Halifax discussions, Commissioner Jimmie Silver said. “I don’t want the thought of us saying we’re going to conduct a legislative hearing giving someone the impression that we’re going to stop it.”

Commissioner Thomas Barrett, who voted against holding the hearing, said, “I’m not necessarily against a moratorium on data centers. I’m just looking at the situation we’ve caught ourselves in.”

He explained that he was not sure the county could enact a moratorium before QDCH submits its plans.

County Attorney Glynn Rollins said he needs to talk to the company’s counsel “and be frank with them and tell them our board is going to consider a moratorium on October 19.”

Rollins said he does believe a moratorium is the proper step. “I do not want another company coming in here and buying a piece of land and deciding they want to do a data center too and we can’t do a thing about controlling it.”

At the beginning of the discussion, Rollins said Commissioner Gary Redding had asked about the possibility of exploring a moratorium on data centers. “If you want to place a moratorium on data centers, as they’ve done in Edgecombe County and in Northampton County and other counties in the state, that is allowed under state statutes. If your moratorium is going to be for 61 days or more, then you have to give the same kind of notice that you would for any other change or limit to your zoning ordinance.”

That would require public notice of a hearing, he said. “There are also some technical requirements that you make findings about why you have to have a moratorium. That would not be hard to do.”

As the county’s current zoning ordinance stands, data centers are not mentioned, which means the county has no zoning authority over a data center.

Rollins said the county planning department believes a light industrial zoning district would allow a data center because it is similar to other facilities “that don’t put off dust and other things detrimental to adjoining property owners.”

Because the county has nothing in its zoning ordinance, it would be an entirely different picture if the county had not signed an economic development agreement to sell land it owned, compared to a private owner selling the land. “You would not be able to do a single thing about that,” he said.

While Rollins admitted he and Redding butted heads earlier in the meeting over proposed amendments to the economic development agreement with QDCH, he said, “I think we can absolutely agree that we’ve got to do something about putting in some kind of supplemental regulation that is across districts about data centers.”

Referring to erroneous comments made in the public comment portion of the meeting claiming New York and Texas had completely banned data centers — when in reality one had enacted a pause and the other was considering a study moratorium — Rollins said, “Guess what you can’t do in North Carolina? You can’t ban them. You can regulate them to a degree, but you can’t regulate them unless you come up with the regulations. So do I think a moratorium is a good idea? I absolutely do, because I don’t think this will be the last company that is interested in a data center in Halifax County.”

There are other legal considerations in potentially imposing a moratorium, the county attorney added. “The moment you adopt a moratorium, if you’re a party who wants to do a data center, unless you’ve already got your development approval application in, you’re going to be blocked from doing anything.”

Thus far, QDCH has not filed anything with the planning department, he said. “They don’t have to file a special use permit, but they do have to have a zoning certificate, and to get that they have to submit a site plan.”

The planning department would have to approve the site plan before the company could be issued a building permit.

If a moratorium is enacted before QDCH submits that application, Rollins warned, “You’ll possibly be subject to an argument that you violated your land purchase agreement and maybe your economic development agreement, because it’s preventing them from moving forward from what your contract said you could do.”

He described it as a tricky situation. “If you adopt a moratorium too soon, some might think, ‘Why don’t you do the moratorium and exclude this company?’ The problem with doing that is there’s something in our state constitution that’s called the equal protection clause.”

Rollins said he believes the county needs to take time to craft a comprehensive supplemental regulation addressing data centers, and do so with input from the public and stakeholders.