Salt Lake County's data center pause stops at Draper's city limits

DRAPER — The Salt Lake County Council voted unanimously in September to direct staff to draft data center regulations for unincorporated parts of the county, and until those rules are adopted the county will not consider new facilities there 1. The resolution reaches the Oquirrh foothills, the Cottonwood Canyons and a sliver of land northeast of the airport near the Great Salt Lake 1. It does not reach Draper, or any other incorporated city, because those cities write their own land-use rules 1.

Whether Draper has data center regulations of its own, or has discussed adopting any, could not be confirmed from available public records, the Draper Herald reported 2. No data center item appears on the City Council's Nov. 10 agenda, which carries one public hearing — on two zoning ordinances covering about 7.71 acres at approximately 267 West 11915 South 3.

**What the county did**

The September resolution calls on county staff to evaluate every land-use option available under state law, including conditional use permit requirements and utility consumption limits 1. New rules are expected sometime next spring, after public hearings and review by both the mountainous planning commission and the Salt Lake County planning commission 1.

"This is something that everyone has become passionate about and become an activist, whether or not they knew it," council member Natalie Pinkney said during the meeting, describing a process that would include both planning commissions and the public 1. Mayor Jenny Wilson said in a statement that data center construction is "happening fast" and in many cases "increasing costs and straining water and power resources faster than government oversight has kept up" 1.

**Grand County weighs a ban**

Grand County commissioners voted unanimously on Nov. 4 to spend up to $5,000 for Sunrise Engineering to draft rules along two paths: prohibiting data centers to the extent state law allows, or allowing only smaller facilities 4. The vote comes before a 180-day temporary land use regulation approved July 7 expires on Jan. 3. That regulation paused acceptance, processing and approval of applications for data centers and their power plants, and the county's land use code still does not define data centers or set permanent standards for them 4.

County spokesperson Melisa Jeffers said Sunrise expects to deliver draft options within two weeks, with planning commission review, public hearings and county commission consideration to follow. No dates had been set as of Nov. 5 4.

Planning commissioners asked that the policy address state requirements, water scarcity, power demand and the financial effect on the community, and that it define data centers clearly enough to separate them from computing equipment serving another permitted business, such as a bank's server room 4. The Nov. 4 item was pulled off the consent agenda for discussion after concerns that the summary did not specify the alternatives the commission had requested; Commissioner Trish Hedin clarified that the assignment covered both a no-data-center and a small-data-center scenario 4.

**The statewide fight**

Cache County passed a 180-day moratorium on data centers and Box Elder County did the same after the Stratos project drew public opposition, the Draper Herald reported, citing The Salt Lake Tribune 2. Stratos was proposed to cover some 20,000 acres near the northern tip of the Great Salt Lake and advanced through the Military Installation Development Authority, a state agency that can bypass local land-use rules inside certain project boundaries 2.

The political cost was immediate: Senate President Stuart Adams, who voted to advance Stratos as MIDA chair, lost his Republican primary in June, and two Box Elder County commissioners who voted for the project lost their seats, the Draper Herald reported 2.

Gov. Spencer Cox told reporters on Aug. 20 to expect efforts to change the approval process and more data center regulation when lawmakers return Jan. 20 5. "The process was not good, and the MIDA process, especially," Cox said. "I think we need major reform when it comes to MIDA, and I will be pushing for that reform moving forward" 5. He issued an executive order in May calling for higher standards for data center approvals, and public comment at an Aug. 19 interim legislative committee ran overwhelmingly against data center development 5.

**Why it lands here**

Draper sits on the Salt Lake–Utah County line at the Point of the Mountain. The Point, 600 acres of state-owned former prison land, broke ground on its first building, Convergence Point, on Oct. 1; the state expects a buildout of at least 15 years 6.

The industry is not hypothetical in this part of the valley. Bluffdale hosts the National Security Agency's Utah Data Center and DataBank's Granite Point campus on South Pony Express Road, and South Jordan hosts an eBay data center 7. Records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist put the NSA facility's use at more than 126 million gallons between October 2024 and September 2025, about 390 acre-feet, against 19.5 million gallons at the eBay site and 7.7 million at Granite Point over the same twelve months 7.

What the 2027 session produces — on approvals, water-use disclosure and MIDA's authority — will govern the ground the county and Grand County are now writing rules for. Grand County's temporary regulation expires Jan. 3; the county's ordinance is expected by mid-February 41.