Explainer

Zoning and hearings

The first thing to find out is whether your county has zoning. In Kentucky, plenty don’t, and that changes what happens next.

What it is, in plain words

Zoning is a set of local rules about what can be built where. If a county has adopted them, a project that doesn’t fit has to ask permission, and asking permission triggers a public hearing. If a county hasn’t, there may be no local approval to ask for, and so no hearing to attend.

Kentucky doesn’t require counties to zone. The Kentucky Association of Counties reports that as of 2025, 58 of Kentucky’s 120 counties had adopted planning. Forty of those had also implemented zoning regulations. State law, it notes, “does not require counties to adopt planning or zoning.”^[1] So most Kentucky counties have no countywide zoning at all.

What the evidence actually shows

Where zoning does exist, the general process runs like this:^[1]

1. An application for a rezoning or a conditional use permit is filed with the local planning commission.
2. The planning commission holds a public hearing on it.
3. The commission votes to recommend approval, approval with conditions, or denial.
4. The final decision rests with the fiscal court for a county, or the city council for a city. The planning commission’s vote is a recommendation, not the decision.

Step four surprises people. Showing up to the planning commission hearing and winning the vote there isn’t the end of it.

Where there’s no countywide zoning, two public processes still exist. State environmental permitting runs through the Energy and Environment Cabinet. The August 6, 2026 executive order directs the Cabinet to deny permits for projects that would harm air quality, water, wetlands, or natural resources. The water page has that list in full.^[3] And when a utility asks to build generation, that goes to the Public Service Commission as a docketed case. The Mill Creek 6 and Brown 12 approval in October 2025 is one example.^[4] Both are places where a written comment lands in a file.

What other places have tried

Two 2026 bills got attention and neither became law. Virginia’s HB 1515 would have blocked final local approval for a new data center. That covers a rezoning, special exception, special use permit, site plan, or plan of development. The block would have run until pending interconnection requests were fulfilled or July 1, 2028. It was continued to the 2027 session on February 6, 2026.^[5] Georgia’s HB 1012 would have barred local data center permits until March 1, 2027. It sat in committee with no votes recorded and died when the General Assembly adjourned.^[6]

Kentucky’s pauses have been local, and they’ve gone both ways. The Kentucky page has the list.

What’s contested or unknown

The hard question is what a county can legally do with no zoning ordinance. That’s live in Carroll County, where officials have said publicly the county cannot block the projects.^[7] We haven’t found a second, independent outlet on the county’s zoning status, so we mark it rather than state it. The general point holds: without an ordinance, there’s usually nothing to apply for.

Questions worth asking

• Does this county have zoning outside the city limits? Ask the county clerk or planning office directly.
• If it does: what approval is this project applying for, and what’s the hearing date?
• If it doesn’t: what approval does this project need from anybody, and who grants it?
• Is there a development agreement with any local government? Is it public before the vote?
• How far ahead is the meeting agenda posted, and where?
• Can the public speak? For how long, and do you sign up in advance?
• What conditions can legally be attached here, and who enforces them afterward?
• Which state permits does this project need, and does any have a public comment period?