CONSULTING SERVICES FOR THE PREPARATION OF A DATA CENTER AND LARGE-LOAD DEVELOPMENT REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

The City of Lakeland, Florida (City) is soliciting proposals from qualified multidisciplinary consulting teams to assist the City in developing a comprehensive regulatory framework governing the zoning, siting, permitting, utility service, and long-term operation of data centers and other large-load developments. The rapid growth of data centers, artificial intelligence (AI) computing facilities, cloud computing infrastructure, and other energy-intensive industries presents opportunities for economic investment while also creating unique challenges related to compatibility, utility infrastructure, environmental resources, and long-term fiscal sustainability. Unlike many local governments, the City owns and operates electric, water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities. This unique governance structure allows the City to coordinate land use planning with utility planning and infrastructure investment. It also requires the City to ensure that future development is planned in a manner that protects existing utility customers, preserves system reliability, and allocates infrastructure costs fairly. The City recently adopted a temporary 12-month moratorium on new data center and large-load development to provide sufficient time to evaluate existing regulations and develop a comprehensive policy framework addressing the unique characteristics of these facilities. The City’s objective is to emerge from the moratorium with a technically sound, legally defensible, and implementable regulatory framework that provides certainty for both the City and future applicants. The successful Consulting Team will evaluate existing conditions, identify regional and national best practices, assess utility service and municipal infrastructure capacity, develop recommendations for the siting and regulation of future data centers and other large-load development, and prepare implementation documents, including recommended amendments to the City’s Land Development Code, related utility policies, and other implementation documents necessary to establish the recommended regulatory framework. The final product should provide the City Commission with practical recommendations that can be implemented through future legislative and administrative action.