Onslow County, NC Data Centers & Crypto Mining: Data Center Zoning & Siting (2026)

Section 2.2 defines a "Data Center" as "A facility that centralizes information technology operations and equipment for the storage, management, and/or dissemination of electronic data." That definition sits in the Industrial, Transportation, Utility, and Warehousing use category of Table 9-2, the Permitted Use Table referenced in Section 9.2.

Reading across Table 9-2's Data Centers row, the use is marked "P" (permitted by right) in four of the county's thirteen zoning districts: O-I (Office and Institutional), HB (Highway Business), L-IN (Light Industrial), and H-IN (Heavy Industrial). Every other column, CON, RA, all six residential districts, and CB, is blank, meaning a data center cannot locate there at all under current zoning; a developer would need a rezoning to a Conditional Zoning District or Planned Development District to build one outside those four base districts. The Data Centers row also carries no entry in the ARS (Additional Required Standards) column, so there is no separate section of design, screening, noise, or landscaping standards written specifically for data centers beyond the general standards in Article 10 that apply to nonresidential development generally, such as buffering under Section 10.7 and outdoor lighting shielding under Section 10.5.

Because L-IN and H-IN both allow data centers by right, an operator siting a large server farm has the most flexibility in the county's industrial districts, where the 85-foot height cap and 30-foot side and rear setbacks in Table 8-4 apply, along with the same buffering and lighting rules that govern any other industrial building.