The 10 data centers in the City of Aurora are under some of the strictest regulations in the state for the facilities.
City officials are proud of that.
In September 2025, the city had placed a moratorium on any new applications for data centers, because public backlash started to grow and the facilities were getting around zoning laws.
“All of our data centers that we currently had and that we were getting requests for were considered warehouses,” said Alison Lindburg, Aurora’s director of sustainability.
Under the city’s zoning laws, there was no consideration for data centers, and the facilities in Aurora, which house several different spaces for data collection of different companies at once, looked like warehouses anyway.
The city’s first data center was the CME Group Data Center in 2012.
“At that point, we allowed them as warehouses, so there was really no process,” said Tracey Vacek, Aurora's planning and zoning director. “We didn’t really get any complaints with CME as they came through the process.”
Even with its noise issues, Vacek said no trouble ever came up with CME and its center. That changed with the approval and operation of the CyrusOne Data Centers.
“So then, when we started getting some of the bigger ones, as they came in and started to expand, that’s when we started getting more of the noise complaints.”
So, with the mix of citizen concern and data center work arounds, Aurora established its 180-day moratorium. At the end of the 3-month period, the city had a goal to establish a set of ordinances to rein in the facilities.
They achieved that goal.
“So, [the moratorium] expired on March 24 of 2026, and that is the same day that city council voted for our new requirements,” she said.
Aurora’s data center ordinances
The new rules came after a lot of work from the city to figure out what would be best moving forward. Contributors included the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, the public at engagement sessions and through a citizen survey and other communities with data centers.
Lindburg said the city's regulations cover not just zoning but also create a definition for a data center to address transparency and building permits.
Before, when a data center could apply as a warehouse, the permit process was quick and fast. Now, data centers must apply as conditional use facilities.
“That means that they all receive a public hearing, and they all have to [get] required approval by city council,” she said. “There’s also public notice online, in newspapers and mailed to the local residents within a certain distance that a new data center is considering coming into that area.”
The ordinances also address concerns about pollution, an issue Aurora is already dealing with either through current data centers or prospective ones.
“We’re requiring a water study and plan at the time of application,” said Lindburg. “We’re requiring an energy management plan at the time of application and a sound study and plan at the time of application. And that sound study has to be verified after construction once it’s operational before they can receive their permit to actually operate.”
A lot of the ordinances also address what a data center cannot do or cannot have, like exceeding certain use limits.
“We have vibration limits on both warehouses and data centers. We have energy consumption limits of 0.2 WUE [Water Usage Effectiveness], and we are prohibiting evaporative cooling,” Lindburg said. “We also have a requirement for renewables and resilient grid, and they have the choice. New data centers have either bring on 25% of renewables on site of their peak load, or they can supplement battery storage for 50% of their peak load for 15 minutes.”
Of all the changes to rules and regulations in the City of Aurora, Vacek said her department’s changes required the most work.
“I think we realized that we had to change the regulation for data centers that we could not use warehouses as that, we had to have some more specific regulations for these,” she said.
Even then, the new changes have not impeded new data centers from coming to town, according to Vacek.
“Although, I will say that we did work with Edged [Chicago], and Edge was very cooperative,” she said. “They are putting some EV chargers along Bilter [Road] for some community benefit along the tollway because that is an exit off of the tollway.”
Mayor Laesch described his city’s ordinances as a “reasonable start” to regulating data centers in the state. He argued the city can go a step further, but it’s also time for the state to step in.
“There’s certainly people who came to council saying it’s not enough, they wanted tighter, sounder regulations. They wanted tighter energy use, they wanted more renewables, and there’s people that say it’s too much,” Laesch said. “So, I think that we listened to everybody and found something that is effective for the needs of the residents of Aurora, but also carved out a path for other municipalities to follow, and hopefully the state of Illinois.”
Laesch said Aurora is advocating for passage of the POWER Act, a bill the state failed to move forward in the legislative session. It includes many requirements for data centers in the state.
More hands off in DeKalb
Over in DeKalb and its Meta Data Center and the planned Endeavour Energy facility, that city also had to rezone.
But, according to City Manager Bill Nicklas, it was not that difficult to pull off. Since the land had been purchased back in 2006 and then resold to Meta, it was always intended for industrial development.
Meta was just the one to finally get the ball rolling.
“Well, first of all, we had to do some water studies, we had to see what they were asking about, and in the case of Endeavour Edged, they are just flushing toilets with water — they’re not using water for cooling,” he said.
Meta also has their water metered, just like any other home or business in DeKalb.
“They have big vaults where these meters are underground, so we go down and we read them,” Nicklas said. “We can read them every day, and we read them over a period of time, and obviously that helps us with our billing, too.”
Other than that, DeKalb does not require much of its data center.
Meta and DeKalb’s new facility are still under zoning restrictions like building height and landscaping standards, but not much else. There’s also a line of sight study for the homes, which are a half mile to a mile away.
For the new facility, the project will pay half of the electricity tax it consumes for 20 years, but that only starts two years after it is fully energized.
For DeKalb, the city is largely enjoying the money the projects are bringing in, according to Nicklas. He said stopping development is not the answer he has for data centers.
“Moratoriums actually stop development for a period of time, a year or two years, whatever it is. I think the people who are involved in development as a living are generally pretty smart people, and I’m talking about municipal level and also private level,” he said.
“We ought to have some level of trust, because we’re still going to be building warehouses and manufacturing and so forth,” he said.
Edged, their new data center, promises technology that addresses the concerns of the public, including waterless cooling systems and non-diesel generators.
Still not enough
The grassroots community advocacy group Illinois People’s Action [IPA] is a consistently working against the data center push in downstate Illinois. They have shown up to several public events in Bloomington-Normal.
Policy Director Dawn Dannenbring said her organization is working across the region to get community members in the rooms where decisions are made.
“If you’re talking about something that’s going to affect us, we want in on every single decision-making level. And as I said before, that includes the right to say no — and for our elected officials to prioritize us and listen when we say no,” she said.
IPA consolidates what many residents opposed to data centers are thinking about. Dannenbring said while the state works out its policy, they are working away.
Many priorities IPA believes in is shared in Gov. Pritzker’s framework for data center policy, which shares parts of the POWER Act.
“So, the first thing is that the data centers should pay their fair share. They shouldn’t be getting tax breaks,” she said. “Everybody else is paying, and they’re relying on our workforce. They use our water, they take electricity from the grid in most cases, so they should pay their fair share.”
Dannenbring said many conversations about data centers focus on their financial benefit to communities, but data centers also get incentives of their own from the state. She said those need a pause.
The facilities could also work to better communities if they do want to be a part of them, she said.
“Data centers should support the development of new clean energy,” Dannenbring said. “The POWER Act that we have in the general assembly has the term B.Y.O.C.E.: bring your own clean energy.”
Similarly, Dannenbring said the state should be protecting water sources, enforce air protections and force transparency, all of which ensure quality of life to Illinois residents.
“These data centers are so rich; they should be more than happy to pay for the water they use, and they can pay so much more than residents can pay,” she said.
“And if they’re actually as good and friendly and reliable as they say they are and dependable, then they should be pushing for the passage of the Illinois POWER Act because these should be things that they would want to live up.”
The POWER Act is one of the key fights advocates against data centers are looking forward to pushing again when the fall veto session resumes.
