Shalersville Township trustees tweaked the township’s zoning code on Oct. 6, effectively making it more difficult for Geis Companies and Bitdeer Technologies Group to site a 750-megawatt data center campus on just over 150 acres of Geis-owned land near the Ohio Turnpike.
It all comes down to how the township defines heavy industry and light industry. The township has no land zoned for heavy industry, but township zoning codes must still define what such usage would entail.
The amended code specifies businesses "that may create occasional objectionable or hazardous elements such as smoke, noise, humming, vibration, odor or dust and having some outside storage, beyond the property line” as being relegated to land zoned for heavy industrial usage.
It also states that businesses that are capable of using or generating 25 megawatts or more per day must be sited in land zoned for heavy industry.
The trustees also added to what sorts of manufacturers are appropriate for land zoned as light industrial. Such businesses must be “usually controlled operations; relatively clean, quiet, and free of objectionable or hazardous elements such as smoke, noise, humming, vibration, odor, or dust,” and must be contained within the property lines. Facilities located in light industrial districts can generate or use less than 25 megawatts per day, the amended code states. (New language is in bold print.)
Operations and storage must be in enclosed structures, and the facilities can generate little industrial traffic and no nuisances.
“This amendment introduces a clear 25-megawatt threshold to differentiate the districts,” Portage County Regional Planning Commission Director Todd Peetz wrote to township Trustee Ron Kotkowski on Sept. 9.
“Generating capacities of 25 MW or greater will be classified under Heavy Industrial, while capacities under 25 MW will fall under Light Industrial. This 25 MW metric aligns with ongoing state legislative proposals targeting power production limits, while remaining safely below the Ohio Power Siting Board's 50 MW threshold for major utility facilities," Peetz wrote.
Representing Geis, the developer, attorney Elizabeth Alexander of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease called the new definitions unlawful and illegal and said her firm would see the trustees in court unless they tabled or rejected the proposed definitions. She also stated that her firm will present the Portage County Regional Planning Commission with alternative zoning text next week.
“We’re not zoning against data centers,” Kotkowski said. “We’re defining light industrial versus heavy industrial, and what is allowed in the light industrial district.”
Ohio law grants township trustees the right to establish their own zoning codes and to set conditions companies must meet if they want to set up shop in variously zoned districts, Kotkowski said.
Even if a developer can prove that a given project meets the conditions a township sets, Ohio law states that conditional use permits are discretionary and not an inherent right, he said.
Kotkowski also took exception to what he said was a Geis attorney’s assertion that the word “quiet” in the township zoning code is too vague. He read the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition of quiet, which he said “means making little or no sound or being calm and free from noise.”
“I don’t think that’s vague,” he said as the crowd of about 50 people applauded.
Next in what is proving to be a months-long process, the Regional Planning Commission is set to meet Oct. 14 to consider conditions a company must meet if they want to set up in Shalersville Township. Its recommendations will be forwarded to the Shalersville Township Zoning Commission, which meets the following day.
The document then makes its way to the township trustees, who may or may not accept the recommendations when they meet on Oct. 20. Should they decide on acceptance, another public hearing is in Shalersville’s future before the new rules are codified.
Meanwhile, the township’s moratorium on data centers remains in place and will until the first week of November. The trustees have already stated that they will extend it if necessary.