JOHN COFFELT

Editor

The Coffee County Planning Commission unanimously approved during the May 26 meeting to impose a 12-month moratorium on AI datacenters in the county to allow time for the board to propose amendments to the county zoning resolutions to address the issue.

County Mayor Dennis Hunt brought the suggestion to the committee for a 180-day moratorium along with a proposed nine-page zoning resolution authored by the county’s professional planning consultant.

Hunt noted that Coffee County is fortunate to be one of the 48 out of 95 counties in the state that has county-wide zoning.  That zoning allows the county to control “undesirable” land uses.

“We cannot zone out any legal activity. We must have a place for all legal activity. Having said that, we can apply restrictions. That’s what this body is going to be charged with.”  

Planning Chairman Steve Cunningham, echoing comments made by the mayor, said that while the county cannot use zoning to block any legal use, the county can make itself unattractive as a location for a datacenter.

“If you don’t have a place for everything, you can get into trouble.  However, you can make it so tough for someone to be here. I don’t know if we set that as the goal, but we certainly need to some of the things (discussed tonight),” Cunningham said. 

He also said that the county has only limited (if any) authority over the development on state and federal lands. He said the two most attractive sites for a datacenter could be the I-24 Industrial Site and a portion of the Arnold Air Force Base.

“The one problem that we do have is that there was an executive order signed (Executive Order 14318 Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure, signed by President Trump on July 23, 2025)…that basically strips communities from putting roadblocks up,” he said. 

“There are 47 counties that do not have zoning, we want them to look at those counties,” Cunningham said.

Planning Commissioner Rodney Duncan suggested the county mirror Knox County which recently passed legislation prohibiting datacenters from using local power and water utilities.

Planning Commissioner Randy Harrell said that Duck River Electric and TVA will build to suit the requests of customers and that TVA can provide power directly to an industry.  He said the board should inquire about those utilities’ thoughts on the matter.

Hunt voiced concerns during the meeting that a data center could possibly be interpreted as a permitted use in the A-1 agricultural district.  The proposed zoning resolution would block that and limit datacenters to the M-2 Special Impact Industrial District, a more or less “no-man’s land” district that includes firework plants, refineries mining activities and adult bookstores. The county has one M-2 zone, a 21-acre parcel on Henry Cove Road, owned by Rogers Group.

The moratorium will go before the County Commission on June 9.            

The Department of Air Force announced that it is moving forward with plans to host Artificial Intelligence (AI) data centers on underutilized land at select Air Force bases through a lease of property in a response to Trump’s executive orders.  Arnold Air Force Base is one of the five bases that offered a land lease.