For developers, the amendment creates a council-review checkpoint before construction: a data-center proposal must obtain a special use permit before it can break ground. The use is not allowed outright on qualifying properties; each proposal instead goes before elected officials for individual review.
The change addresses a gap in the former Unified Development Code, which did not list data centers as a distinct land-use category. Community Impact reported that this could have allowed a project on qualifying land to proceed without a public hearing through the special-use-permit process. Mayor Nick Long said the city lacked rules to prevent that outcome on some properties; the amendment provides for public review of future proposals, according to Community Impact.
A Lopsided Vote With One Holdout
The Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously recommended the changes on Oct. 19. City Council later approved the ordinance on its first and final reading, with the vote recorded as 7-1. Although the action was described as unanimous, Community Impact's account identifies Council member Tom Crews as the sole dissenting voter. The council will not need to revisit the ordinance at its Nov. 17 meeting, according to Community Impact.
The debate centered on whether the ordinance should include specific standards for potential community impacts. Crews objected that it did not set out standards for concerns including water use and noise, according to Community Impact. Other council members argued that detailed rules could become a checklist for developers rather than leave room for individual review. Council member Chad Tressler said it would also be difficult to anticipate every change in the technology and its footprint.
League City's Water Supply in Context
League City's August 2024 Drought Contingency and Water Emergency Management Plan says that in 2023 the city purchased monthly averages of 313 million gallons of treated water from Houston and 58 million gallons from GCWA, while producing a monthly average of 6 million gallons of self-supplied groundwater. Those figures provide local context for concerns about water-intensive development, but do not specify how much water a data center might use, according to the City of League City.
Why League City Moved Now
Texas' planned data-center buildout is one backdrop to League City's decision. The state has at least 248 planned facilities, including 86 in North Texas, 56 in Central Texas and 45 in West Texas, and provides the industry more than $1 billion in tax breaks annually. ERCOT received 519 requests over two years to connect large electricity users to the grid, compared with 24 the year before; the proposed projects could require 438,595 megawatts combined, with data centers accounting for 90% of that demand. Most of those projects aim to be operating by 2030, according to The Texas Tribune.
Some of those projects dwarf anything proposed near League City. A facility in Abilene plans to draw up to 1,200 megawatts from grid power, on-site gas generation and batteries, and said it would need 8 million gallons of city water just to fill its systems initially, the Tribune reported. Outside Amarillo, a campus planned by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry's company, Fermi America, could need up to 11,000 megawatts. Closer to League City, Galveston County already has its own operating facility: Dataprana opened the county's first and only data center in La Marque in July 2025, a 30-megawatt immersion-cooled site built with 30 modular mining containers and 5,000 ASIC machines, according to Data Center Map.
State Oversight Is Also Under Strain
The rush of projects has also put pressure on the state agency that oversees their environmental footprint. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which regulates the state's air quality, water quality and waste management, shut down its automated electronic filing system in late October after watchdog groups alleged the agency had violated a directive from Gov. Greg Abbott by processing nearly three dozen data-center permit applications, the Tribune reported. The agency confirmed through a spokesperson that it had suspended the specific permits flagged by the watchdog groups and temporarily disabled the electronic system used for automatic authorizations.
The state-level developments do not directly change League City's ordinance, but they illustrate the broader oversight challenges surrounding the industry's growth. The city's new rule is procedural: every data-center proposal will need the council's approval through a special use permit. Whether additional standards for issues such as water use and noise are needed remains a point of disagreement among council members.
What the Review Covers—and What It Doesn't
The ordinance described above establishes a land-use review, not specific operating limits: the council discussion centered in part on the absence of set water-use and noise standards. League City's August 2024 water plan reports that in 2023 the city purchased monthly averages of 313 million gallons of treated water from Houston and 58 million gallons from GCWA, while producing an average of 6 million gallons of self-supplied groundwater per month. Those figures describe the city's water supply, not projected data-center use, according to the City of League City. Separately, ERCOT reported tracking approximately 410 GW of large loads seeking interconnection, about 87% of them identified as data centers; those requests are not realized electricity consumption, according to ERCOT.
State environmental reviews are separate from League City's land-use approval. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality provides online status information for several application categories, including stormwater and wastewater; that information does not establish which permits a particular data center would need, according to TCEQ. For a nearby point of comparison, Dataprana said its La Marque facility became fully operational in early June 2025 with 30 immersion mining containers. The company’s account describes that facility, not a proposal in League City, according to Dataprana.
