Forney's Data Center Decision: What's on the July 21 Council Agenda

If you live in Forney — particularly south of US-80 near Fox Hollow — there’s an item on Tuesday’s City Council agenda worth knowing about.

This is a straight account of what’s proposed and where it stands, drawn from the city’s own posted agendas and meeting records. No position taken.

What’s Being Proposed

The project is called the Forney Compute Facility. The basics, as presented to the city:

5.4 acres east of FM 1641
About 60,000 square feet, up to 50 feet tall
Roughly 20 megawatts of electrical load — city staff described that as comparable to the power used by 16,000 to 20,000 homes
Closed-loop cooling, on-site septic, overhead Oncor power lines
Power drawn off the electrical capacity freed up when Smurfit Kappa vacated

The applicant is Basic Developers, LLC, with Daniel Stewart as agent.

Why It Needs a Rezone

This is the part that explains the whole fight.

In April, Forney adopted new data center rules — Ordinance 26-12 — which require, among other things, that a data center sit at least 5,000 feet from residential property.

The proposed site is roughly 1,100 feet from the Fox Hollow neighborhood. So the applicant requested a Planned Development rezone, which would let the project proceed under custom standards rather than the citywide setback.

Where It Stands

Forney’s Planning & Zoning Commission deadlocked 3–3 on June 4, 2026 — twice, on two separate motions. A tie fails, so the request was effectively denied.

That denial has been appealed to City Council, and it lands on the July 21, 2026 agenda. Under the city’s zoning code, overturning a P&Z denial requires a three-quarters supermajority of the Council — a higher bar than a simple majority.

Also on that same agenda: a proposed text amendment that would prohibit data centers in all zoning districts citywide.

So the Council is considering an individual appeal and a potential blanket ban at the same meeting.

How Forney Got Here

The ordinance behind all of this went through an unusually long process this spring:

March 5 — Planning & Zoning recommended the data center regulations, 6–0
March 17 — Public hearing at City Council. Six residents spoke, all opposed. None spoke in favor. Council tabled the item, 5–0
April 7 — Two more residents spoke. Council tabled it again, 6–0
April 21 — Council amended the ordinance from the floor, raising the residential setback from the proposed 1,000 feet to 5,000 feet, then passed it 5–0

Worth noting plainly: the setback in the final ordinance is five times what was originally drafted, and the change came after residents showed up twice.

The Wider County Picture

Kaufman County’s four cities have gone in different directions on this:

Forney is restricting — the 5,000-foot setback, a conditional use permit requirement, and now a possible outright ban
Terrell is going the other way. Two days after Forney’s vote, on July 23, Terrell holds a hearing on a new “Technology Infrastructure Campus” district built specifically for these facilities, with Council consideration set for August 18
The City of Kaufman has permitted data centers since March 2025, when Ordinance O-07-25 created the 142-acre Kaufman Commerce Park planned development with “Data Center” written into its permitted uses. No application has followed as of July 2026 — the zoning exists, the project doesn’t
Crandall has an unnamed project under negotiation in executive session. Public records don’t say what it is, and we’re not going to guess

Kaufman County itself has taken no action at all — no data center appears anywhere across 88 Commissioners Court meetings from January 2025 through July 2026.

One structural fact that explains a lot: Texas counties have no zoning authority over unincorporated land. Kaufman County cannot regulate where a data center goes outside city limits, even if it wanted to. Only the cities can, and only inside their own boundaries.

If You Want to Weigh In

Forney City Council meets at City Hall, and agendas and packets are posted at forneytx.gov. The meeting is Tuesday, July 21, 2026. Agendas list the public comment procedure.

Whatever your view, this is the kind of decision that gets made by the handful of people who show up. For context on how few that can be: Forney’s June runoff for a City Council seat was decided by 107 votes, on 6.09% turnout.

Why We’re Writing About It

We’re a gym, not a newspaper. But we’ve been at 127 E US Highway 80 since 2001, we’re on the south side of the highway like Fox Hollow is, and a 20 MW facility about a thousand feet from a Forney neighborhood is something our members are going to be asking about.

We’ll post an update after the vote.

Details above are drawn from City of Forney posted agendas, meeting minutes, and staff reports as of July 19, 2026. Verify at the source before relying on any of it: agendas, packets, and minutes are published at forneytx.gov, and specifics can change between a posted agenda and the meeting itself. If something here is inaccurate, call us at (972) 564-0909 and we’ll correct it.