When a city considers a major data center development, public discussion often focuses on construction investment, property taxes, and other anticipated revenues.
Those benefits are important, particularly for cities facing persistent budget pressures.
But there is another side to the fiscal equation that deserves attention: What will the development require from local emergency services?
Modern data centers are specialized facilities. Depending on their design, they may contain large electrical systems, diesel generators, fuel storage, battery energy storage systems, transformers, cooling infrastructure, and other equipment that presents unusual emergency-response challenges.
These systems are not inherently unsafe. They are subject to fire, building, electrical, and hazardous-materials regulations.
But responding to an incident at a large data center may require specialized preparation, training, equipment, and coordination.
Firefighters must understand the facility’s electrical systems, emergency shutdown procedures, access arrangements, hazardous materials, and potential consequences of equipment failures.
A city should evaluate these needs before relying on a facility’s projected tax revenues to justify its approval.
Jefferson County, Missouri, provides a useful example. Its 2026 data center ordinance requires development applications to evaluate potential impacts on emergency services and fire protection.
It also requires planning for the management of firefighting runoff, including potentially contaminated water.
That is a reminder that emergency response is not limited to extinguishing a fire. Depending on the incident, responders may need to manage electrical hazards, fuel systems, chemical releases, environmental consequences, and facility access.
For San José, this discussion has a particularly important fiscal dimension.
City officials have highlighted the potential tax revenue from large data center projects. But how much of that revenue will be needed to maintain adequate emergency-response capacity?
A conventional warehouse and a large data center may occupy similar amounts of industrial land while presenting very different emergency-response requirements.
The city should understand that difference.
One approach would be to require a facility-specific public safety impact assessment that identifies potential response needs and any additional training, inspection, equipment, or service costs.
Where a demonstrable relationship exists between a development and additional municipal costs, appropriate fees or other legally supported funding mechanisms could be evaluated.
Community benefits agreements may offer additional opportunities, but they should not substitute for compliance with mandatory safety requirements.
San José should also consider whether multiple large facilities in the same area could affect the capacity of nearby fire stations.
The objective is not to suggest that data centers will inevitably generate extraordinary emergency incidents. They may operate for years without a major event.
The objective is to make sure local governments are prepared for the incidents that could occur.
A sound economic development strategy measures both the revenues generated by new development and the public responsibilities associated with it.
Before celebrating the financial benefits of a data center, a city should know what it will take to protect the facility, its employees, and the surrounding community.
