USA – IOWA Trends and Developments Contributed by: David M. Erickson, Christopher S. Talcott, Amy S. Montgomery and Shannon M.H. Hasse, Dentons Davis Brown PC
• recycling and reusing water multiple times before discharging as wastewater; • using native vegetation landscaping to reduce irrigation demands; and • capturing and utilising rainwater, and more. Entitlements and Approvals Several legal processes and approvals are nec - essary in order to develop and operate a data centre, including acquiring the land, ensuring appropriate zoning and obtaining necessary permits to construct the facility. These efforts to obtain legal permission to build and operate a data centre are broadly referred to as “entitle- ments” . In most cases, these activities, obliga - tions and important project milestones are set forth in a Development Agreement between the developer and the city. Annexation In many cases, one of the first steps towards obtaining the necessary project entitlements is to annex rural property into city limits. This is an important step for developers to ensure that the project has access to essential city infrastruc - ture, services and incentives. This step is also important to cities as it allows them to expand their jurisdiction and their tax base, while ensur - ing alignment with their comprehensive plans and increasing property values and job oppor - Local zoning ordinances often lack specific lan - guage authorising data centre use. As a result, this can cause confusion as to which uses are permitted, and creates risk to the substan - tial project investment. To mitigate this con - cern, many developers will co-ordinate efforts to rezone the property, amend the applicable zoning ordinance to permit data centre use, or rely on zoning interpretation letters that provide tunities. Zoning
assurance that the use is permitted under the applicable zoning ordinance. Permits Permits are an important component of the data centre construction and operation process. While the necessary permits may vary between projects, issuance of a building permit is a nearly universal requirement as it ensures adherence to local building codes and other regulations. Other permits may include, but are not limited to, wet - land permits and utility permits. City resolutions and constituent challenges Central to most of these entitlements is the city approval process, which occurs through various public hearings, multiple readings of resolutions or other actions, and city resolutions approv - ing various actions. This is the most common stage where developers are faced with public challenges, as it is a central tenet of the govern - mental process to allow for public comment on various governmental activities. Incentives The State of Iowa and local municipalities within the state offer several competitive incentives that make it an attractive destination for development of large-scale data centres. While Iowa remains a developer-friendly state, recently passed legis - lation poses a risk to some of the incentives that developers have enjoyed in recent years. The High Quality Jobs programme The High Quality Jobs (HQJ) programme, created in 2005 and offered through the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA), is a series of tax credits and financial assistance programmes that provides qualifying businesses with assis - tance to offset certain costs incurred in locating, expanding or modernising Iowa facilities, with the intention of promoting growth in businesses
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