The resolution was passed by a 6-1 vote during Tuesday night’s meeting. Amy Jumper, Cledis Scott, Edwin Davis, Stephanie Truelove, Mary Collier and Patrick Thackery all voted yes, while Audra Bean voted no.
Community members attending the meeting loudly applauded after the moratorium was passed.
“We were elected to make thoughtful and responsible decisions for our community. Our responsibility isn’t about moving quickly, it’s about doing what’s right. It’s about supporting the moratorium, it’s about honoring that duty. Our community places its trust in us to be carefully and responsibly. I believe voting in favor of this reflects that commitment to our community,” councilwoman Jumper said.
The resolution reads:
“A resolution imposing a temporary moratorium on the establishment or conversion of other structures or buildings into a data center, including the development and construction of any building, structure, use or change of use, that would allow data centers, and for a period of twelve (12) months from the effective date of this resolution, in order to allow the city administration and city council time to investigate the findings of the State of Ohio legislature’s evaluation of impact that a data center would have on local community, i.e.; water, electric, environment, critical infrastructure and future community planning, to investigate the impact of a data center on city resources and property values and to better understand any noise or pollution generated thereby, and the impact on safety, the power grid, and water usage, and to further review applicable federal codes, Ohio statutes, codes and regulations along with the city’s codified ordinances relative to such activity, and declaring an emergency.”
Council members initially brought forward the resolution at the Feb. 17 meeting and pulled it by a 5-2 vote after they got more of an overview of the project with additional information.
Thor Equities’ potential $1 billion data center is being proposed at the corner of State Route 55 and U.S. Route 68, adjacent to the Rittal facility in Urbana.
Raj Vohra, a representative with Thor Equities, spoke during the meeting before council voted on the moratorium. He said he “understands this is a very important issue for everybody,” so he wanted to let them know more about the project.
Vohra said they began evaluating whether a data center could be developed in the area in 2025, with one of the key factors being the existing robust power infrastructure that can be used without major upgrades.
“Based on the analysis, we became confident that a data center could be developed with little or no impact to the community and the environment,” he said.
Thor Equities recently began working with CyrusOne, a data center owner, developer and operator, for the project to evaluate the 325-acre industrial site or data center campus. Chris O’Grady, a representative for CyrusOne, also spoke during the meeting, giving an overview of the project.
Vohra emphasized they’ve only started to move forward with the data center idea in recent weeks.
Councilwomen Truelove asked developers what they would do if the moratorium was approved.
“We followed all the steps and protocols required to get to this stage. We’re hoping that there’s no need for a moratorium because we followed the process in place and regulations by the state,” Vohra said in response to her question.
Truelove said she hears them saying they hope there isn’t a moratorium, but wanted an answer on what direction they’d go in if it was approved. However, developers didn’t respond to that specific question.
Jumper asked developers why they were here now. “If you were so concerned about what the community thought and what the residents of Champaign County or Urbana thought, why wouldn’t you have a meeting sooner so we could have all discussed everything?” Jumper said.
Vohra explained they had to go through a public process, which they did, and there were no community concerns at the time.
“Just because there was a public hearing and you had stuff walked into us, the whole entire public might not have known what was going on and not once has it ever been mentioned, a data center,” Jumper said.
Vohra asked council to give them some time to work with them and the community, and to answer questions and concerns before making a decision on the moratorium. However, it was put on the floor for discussion and approved directly after the developers’ presentation.
After the vote, about 40 people spoke at the end of the meeting for almost two hours. Most talked about their concerns about data centers, wanting to know more about the process and questioning developers, and praised council for the decision they made to pause them from coming to the city.
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