Two bills filed Nov. 9 for the 90th Legislature would let Texas county commissioners vote on, or set conditions for, data centers built in the unincorporated countryside — a place where, under current law, most counties have no power to say what kind of building goes where.
House Bill 928 by Rep. Armin Mizani of Keller is the blunter of the two. It would bar anyone from building a data center in a county’s unincorporated area “unless the commissioners court of the county votes to approve the construction at a public hearing held for that purpose.” It sets the same rule inside cities, where the city council would have to vote.
House Bill 547 by Rep. Salman Bhojani of Euless takes a narrower path: it would let a county require noise studies and a county “site construction approval” for facilities run by the grid’s largest electricity users, and would cap the noise those facilities may make at a neighbor’s property line.
For residents on the edges of fast-growing metros, the gap these bills address is concrete. Texas cities may regulate “the location and use of buildings” through zoning. Counties generally may not. The chapter of the Local Government Code titled “County Zoning Authority” grants zoning power only around specific places — Padre Island, Amistad, several named lakes, the El Paso Mission Trail, military zones and Hood County — and contains no general grant. As The Texas Dispatch has reported, a commissioners court can check whether a subdivision map meets road and drainage standards, but it cannot stop a lawful use of land outside city limits.
HB 928 is short: three sections. It defines a data center as a facility “used primarily to house servers and related equipment” and applies only to projects whose first building permit or other required approval is sought on or after Sept. 1, 2027, the bill’s effective date. It does not set criteria the county must apply, leaving the decision to a vote after a public hearing.
HB 547 runs 10 pages and is written to avoid becoming a general zoning power. It says outright that the new authority “is separate from, and does not expand, a county’s general authority to regulate land use or zoning.” A commissioners court could adopt, by order, a program requiring site approval for “covered facilities” — those operated by customers subject to the state’s large-load grid-connection standards, which the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) applies to sites above a size threshold it sets. The county could require a pre-construction noise study by a licensed engineer, condition approval on noise-reduction measures, require a post-construction study, and charge a fee no greater than its cost of review.
The bill also writes noise limits into state law, measured at the nearest point of each neighboring property line, day and night: 55 decibels for a home or for agricultural or rural land; 60 for homes in mixed residential and commercial developments; 65 for commercial, civic or institutional property; and 70 for industrial property. The bill bars counties from interfering with grid connections or with an emergency instruction from ERCOT, the nonprofit that runs most of the state’s grid.
Cities already wield tougher tools. The City of New Braunfels, using its zoning power, is weighing a data-center ordinance that would cap noise at 35 decibels at residential property lines and require a 2,000-foot buffer from homes and schools, as the Dispatch reported; the ordinance is on the City Council’s Nov. 16 agenda for final reading, according to the city’s Legistar calendar. A data center a few miles outside the city limits faces no such rule today.
County officials have described the limits plainly. “Under current state law, counties have limited authority to stop projects like these outright,” Robertson County Judge J.D. Scarpinato wrote in June, as quoted by KWTX. The strongest argument against a county-by-county approach comes from the Senate. Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston has argued that rules for data centers “should be statewide, top-down guidelines,” according to a Texas Observer account citing The Texas Tribune. HB 547 answers part of that concern by limiting the county’s role to noise and paperwork rather than a yes-or-no on the use itself.
A third bill, Senate Bill 296 by Sen. Roland Gutierrez, is captioned as relating to the “siting, construction, permitting, and operation of certain data centers”; its text had not been posted on the Legislature’s website by Nov. 10. The 90th Legislature convenes in January, and committee assignments will decide which version gets a hearing first.
Key facts
- HB 928 (Mizani), filed Nov. 9, 2026: no data center may be built in a county’s unincorporated area without a commissioners court vote after a public hearing (city council vote inside cities); applies to projects first seeking approval on or after Sept. 1, 2027.
- HB 547 (Bhojani), filed Nov. 9, 2026: counties may require noise studies and site approval for large-load facilities; caps of 55/60/65/70 dB(A) by neighboring land use; fee capped at the county’s cost; does not expand general county zoning power.
- Texas counties have no general zoning power; Local Government Code Chapter 231 grants county zoning only for named places.
- SB 296 (Gutierrez) on data center siting was filed; text not posted as of Nov. 10.