Troy officials provide data center update mid-way through moratorium

By Greg Hoskins | June 18, 2026 |

By Charles Bolinger

Editor • With three months to go before Troy’s moratorium on data centers expires, city officials brought a major update to the city’s planning commission meeting on June 11.

Tom Cissell, the city’s engineer, opened the meeting with a discussion item, a change to how any new industrial zoning project, including data centers, will be treated going forward after passage by the city council. Instead of a single reading at the planning commission level followed by another single reading at the city council and a vote at the end of that forum, Troy officials will employ a three-step approval process and allow three opportunities for the public to speak for or against a project.

First, all new industrial zoning matters, not just data centers, will pass through the planning commission, which makes a recommendation then it goes before the city council, as usual. However, the first reading at city council will not have a vote. Instead, the ordinance will return for a second reading at the next city council meeting then the council members will vote on it after second reading.

In addition, Cissell said if the council is uncomfortable with an aspect on first reading, the matter can be returned to the plan commission for re-consideration or amendment. This would add to the time it takes to approve a project.

According to Cissell, the benefits are that it creates enhanced public review requirements for major industrial developments; it requires a minimum 14-day review period (the maximum is 30 days) between city council hearings; it expands public participation and transparency for industrial projects; and applies to annexations, rezonings, warehouses, manufacturing, logistics and other industrial uses besides data centers.

The change is in draft form currently; it will get a public hearing and a plan commission vote in July.

Next, Cissell detailed what he and other city officials have been working on since a data center moratorium was approved in mid-March. It currently expires in mid-September. City officials can request another six-month moratorium on data centers in September if they feel more time is required to re-tool and strengthen their ordinances.

One of the first updates shows that Troy officials listened to its citizenry after the backlash over the Cloverleaf Data Center project earlier this year – there will be no hyperscale data centers in Troy. That means no massive complex from Google, Oracle, Amazon or Facebook. The previous proposal was for a 500-megawatt (MW) center.

Instead, the city has capped data centers at 30 MW, enough energy for a credit card processing center or a Bitcoin or other crypto-currency operation.

Cissell pivoted briefly to give a quick overview of what is going on in Springfield when it comes to data centers. He said Senate Bill 2181 has been in the works and if approved, it would supersede all local ordinances regarding data centers for non-home rule towns like Troy.

The bill would have created the Illinois Data Center Energy and Water Reporting Act but it failed to pass, Cissell said but Gov. JB Pritzker issued an executive order after the congressional session ended. His order rolled back all data center tax incentives.

“This data center ordinance can be reconsidered in the fall veto session, which runs from Oct. 14 to Oct. 30,” Cissell said. “We have no idea if they’re going to [do so].”

He said city officials will monitor the situation in the capital to avoid a repeat of the solar situation they found themselves in 2023 and because they are a non-home rule city, which is common for towns with fewer than 25,000 people. City Administrator Jay Keeven said Troy’s current population is around 11,700.

If the state does not pass a data center ordinance, Cissell said they want to extend the moratorium for another six months, to March 2027. After that, they would look at passing an ordinance that resembles that of Aurora, Illinois.

He showed an extensive list of places they have used for reference and background – Aurora; St. Louis; Lake and LaPort counties, Indiana; and the Illinois State Association of Counties – among others.

Other data center updates besides the two-reading ordinance are:

Increased setbacks: 1,000 feet from sensitive receptors (schools, daycares, residential); 500-foot setback from public rights-of-way, side and rear setbacks from property lines
Electrical capacity controls: facility electric demand capped at 30 MW
Building design enhancements: no blank walls over 100-feet-long, public-facing elevations must resemble Class A office architecture and no monolithic warehouse-style buildings
Expanded landscaping requirements: landscape buffer increased to first 100 feet of 1,000-foot setback area, eight-foot-tall landscaped berm, native woodland restoration requirements added and minimum tree density standards established. Landscaping and berms must be built first
Noise regulations expanded (require less dB at the property line and rules on the pulsating noises)
Renewable energy requirement added (a certain % must be renewables)
Expanded utility impact requirements
New section on water use (closed-loop systems required) and cooling system regulations
Annual operational compliance reports
Transfer of ownership requirements added
Facility expansion controls added
Decommissioning requirements significantly strengthened (a bond worth 150% of the original construction amount)
Requirements during construction – light and noise levels, traffic control plan, replace roads destroyed during construction, etc.
Six-figure fines per day as punitive measures

For reference regarding the setback distances above, one mile = 5,280 feet; one half-mile = 2,640 feet and one quarter-mile = 1,320 feet. A football field is 360 feet long.

In other action, officials discussed parking minimums versus parking maximums.

Cissell said the goals are to keep Troy’s zoning and parking ordinances current and modern, to allow the city to grow and develop responsibly and to foster community pride. They also want to reduce non-porous surfaces, like paving.

He called it setting a baseline figure and being flexible enough to go above or below that baseline.

Now, the city regulates parking slots by the type of business that it is and the parking calculation for that business. Banks must have one space for every 200-square-feet of floor area and one space for each employee; animal hospitals must have five spaces for 1,000-square-feet of total gross floor area with a minimum of four parking spaces.

Instead, Cissell said he wants a maximum parking requirement or parking spaces allowable without a parking study. He cited similar requirements in four other places, O’Fallon, Edwardsville, Kirkwood, Missouri and Lansing, Kansas, just north of Kansas City, which he labeled as his favorite of the group.

He said the potential benefits are lower development costs, sustainable development, improved form and higher density development.

If the commissioners are pleased with these examples, Cissell said, a draft ordinance will appear next month with a public hearing on it two to three months away.

Finally, there has been a reshuffling of the commissioners themselves in the wake of Chairperson Jami Stone’s departure. After discussing it with those commissioners present, the new planning commission chairperson is former vice-chairperson Liz Compton; the new vice-chair is former plan commission secretary Rachel Lybarger; and the new secretary is Dr. Danielle Bogue. Commissioners Matt Reiter, Shane McBride and Stone were absent.

On one other note, the carpet in the city council chamber has been replaced, completing the second phase of the room’s refresh. During January and February, the walls were repainted and the wainscotting was replaced to better mimic the wood that composes the dais.

The city’s next planning commission meeting is July 9 at 6:30 p.m.