Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

Call the April 8th plan commission meeting to order. Can we have a roll call, please? Jason Carneahan here. Helen Douly here. Bill Van Y present. Sandy Harrison here. Jerry Odor here. Frank Palver here. Suzanne Davis here. Angie Holy Lanning. Alicia Rogers here. Mike McCerow here. Andrew Cruz here. Chris Gmer. Meredith Wright here. Now stand for the pledge of allegiance.

To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. We'll now have a moment if someone would like to lead us in a word of prayer. Bow our heads. Father God, we just uh we ask you Lord to um be with us this evening in this uh plan commission. Lord, we want to make uh we want to make uh decisions for you, Lord, for your kingdom and your your glory, Lord. We we just also uh want to make wise decisions for the residents of PEL County. And Father, we just uh pray this in Jesus name. Amen. In your packets, you had the minutes from the February meeting. Uh if there's no additions or corrections and entertain a motion to approve.

So moved. Second. Have a motion and a second to approve previous minutes from the previous meeting. All those in favor signify by saying I. Same. Minutes are approved. Same way with the claims from February and March. If there's no additions or corrections or questions, we will entertain a motion to approve those as well. I move to approve the claims from February March 2026 as presented. I'll second it. We have a motion and a second to approve claims from the last two months. All those in favor say I. I

oppos same. Okay. Claims are approved. Chris, no old business. New business. Petition 2611 for a public hearing on our discussion of a moratorum for data centers until we acquire more knowledge. uh trying to gather in input from the residents, uh input from uh contractors and and such in the business to see what we can learn so we can maybe work together to write an ordinance.

You said it there, buddy. Um yeah, so in your packets um is the ordinance that would go to the county commissioners um because this would be uh basically not permitting um data centers or their accessory facilities um for a period of 6 months um that would be considered a zoning change. Um so that's why it's coming before you all today um to get a recommendation to the county commissioners. Um this is something that has been discussed um by the county commissioners as well as I believe the ordinance review committee as well um that we set up at the last meeting. So um pretty simple. There's not much in there other than um giving a recommendation on moving forward with this. Uh Andrew if you have anything as a legal aspect you want to add to I

sure invite you to

uh yes thank you. If you if the county does not have a moratorum in place, then as the uh committee andor the commissioners andor the plan commission works on a um an ordinance involving data centers and the appropriate regulations of data centers, any data center that would want to come in and apply while the ordinance is being written would then be grandfathered. in and we don't really have an ordinance dealing with it. The only way to prevent uh theoretically two, three, four, five or even one big data center from coming in with no specific uh safety or or community safety regulation, etc. is to do a moratorum to stop that for a period of time. As Chris Gmer said, it is a change to uh a zoning ordinance. So, even though you'd think, hey, maybe the county commissioners could just vote on it, um, no, it has to be brought forward and dealt with as a proposed change to the UDO, the zoning ordinance. So, basically, it's a way to prevent people from filing applications and getting grandfathered in without any rules and regulations.

And we're proposing we're proposing the mortorium for six months. we get that ordinance in place and get our all of our data gathered hopefully. Yeah. And um Alicia and I um I don't know if anyone else listened to it yesterday what Alicia sent but um we did go attend a well attend virtually

a uh data center webinar. Um it was based out of Penn State Penn State. So, like the last maybe 20 minutes, half hour was more Pennsylvania based laws and regulations, but the first half was very interesting. Um, and Tyler and I are actually going to a data center conference in Chicago um may go to maybe um in Chicago and it's just Midwest focused um about the construction of and sighting of data centers. So, we're hoping to gather some information there. Anyway, that's it in a nutshell.

Is six months going to be enough time for you guys to come up with something? That is all that when it was discussed at the ordinance review committee that the committee really wanted to give um as far as length of time. Um obviously it could be extended. It would have to come back to the plan commission and then go to the commissioners again. Um that puts us at about October and I I' I've worked backwards with our um time frame if it would go to like the first October meeting of the commissioners. Um you know commission meeting the Wednesday before that working out how we would gather public input as well. I think it could be done tight. Um it could be done. Seminars in June

uh June 1 second. Yep. Theoretically, you could do a request to extend it for three months more if you wanted to or something like that if needed. Which, you know, at the at our ordinance review committee, we're hoping to start, you know, writing a draft before that wait last minute and slide it in. So, is there any discussion amongst the board this proposal? Has there been any anyone approached or a discussion with anyone regarding a data center? I have not been. Not that I've heard. Okay. Have you

I have not been approached at all, but I just know a lot of commissioners that I've talked to throughout the state are being approached. So that's why I wanted to get the head of this before somebody does show up and it's not a whole solar situation again that solar is presenting and then we're trying to put an ordinance together. It's better just to have something in place to say, "Hey, this is how we want it done. If you guys want to come, great. If not, you can move on to something else. But I've not personally been approached by any data center and not that I know of anybody's looking at us. From what I understand, we're not lowhanging fruit. Um, not one of the easier counties to get to. But eventually, they're going to start asking every county, I'm assuming, to see if they can put something there. So, having something in place when they come is much easier for us to just say, "Hey, here here's what the public says that we're okay with here." But yesterday on the webinar we watched from Penn State that according to like electrical grid and electrical usage, it was EGM PJM PJM. Um, northeast Indiana was actually one of the sections that was highlighted because of that potential for better electrical access, which is one of the four key things that the data centers look for. So a quarter of what they're looking for is pinpointed here in Northeast Indiana. So

because Decal's in that PGM because it kind of just carves out just a little bit of Indiana and so I think a lot of the other Indiana data centers are looking at the other power grid that's out of Chicago. But now that the Pennsylvania one's coming over, they're going to they will eventually ask us here in my prediction. So having something in place ready to go ahead of time is be way better letting the public have an opinion on it first. So and we also have a good water supply which is another of the four. And these buildings, as I understand it from the committee, are pretty large buildings. Chris, can you speak to that?

Well, there were actually I typed it up as we were sitting there yesterday. Yeah, there are about five different stages of what they call data centers. Everywhere from what they call Bitcoin, which is like the smallest that looks like someone's backyard shed, up to what they call the hypers scale, which are the what 100,000 square foot plus 100 100,000 acres. Um yeah, there's 10,000 plus servers. Yeah. So that's kind of the scale you have. It could be small or it could be large. Correct.

Yeah. Wouldn't the large one that's going in south of New Haven, wouldn't that take in our some of southern Muel County? I have no idea. That's above my above my education level. Yeah. Yeah. Huge. Are you talking about the power grid, the the Google site, right? But but are you talking about it taking the data using using that as that's the data center that's Yeah. I mean, they all have their own, too. Like Microsoft would have their own. Auburn or Auburn, you know, Auburn,

Amazon would have their own. Google would have this Google. Right. Right. Right. So, they would all have their own. Um, so think about that, too. But, um, you know, obviously I don't know that answer. I don't know if anyone here does know that answer. Um, but one thing that Commissioner Miller brought to us too is I don't know if he heard from a Purdue um webinar or whatever, but a professor can come and speak to the plan commission and it's part of the uh

right and the the meetings that I've kind of worked backwards and um I have that down is for him to come and and talk to the plan commission, allow the public to hear him and um ask questions and well as well and maybe not have it be a full-on let's present an ordinance but just have um information that you all can ask that obviously we don't know that answer to um and uh write an ordinance that you know maybe we don't want uh Amazon or Google or Microsoft size data center, but we're okay with other smaller organizations that may need um data centers. So, it's just or like she's like Alicia said, there were five different levels, if you will, based off of size and energy capacity and or energy usage, water usage, um building size, that sort of thing. So, there's various sizes that we could include or even exclude with that. We just have to, it's just too soon to, you know, really have those discussions right now.

And so once we get I get a link to that recording, I will send it out to all of you to view and see. So, a lot of the downsides of data centers is being pretty well documented because they've been out there for a while now. So, um, people know what all the things they hate about them are. So that would be a good starting point is to see what the problems are. So you the one in the one in New Haven you say is quite large. It's one of the biggest ones. It's that top that's one of the big ones. Yeah. They purchase 1,200 acres.

But not all data centers are that way is what we're trying to say. There there's a wide range of data centers. You can have them up to like 20 acres maybe. And then you have all the way up to,200. So the question is

the committee is going to have to decide. I'm not on the committee is where do we want to fall if we want to fall in there somewhere? Because there's a lot of you have Bitcoin. The government's also spreading out their is of the AI of drones and all the stuff that they use for warfare. Now they're going to need a lot of data centers and they're trying to spread it across country. So you can't just bomb one area and you take out all their AI. So they're trying to spread it out among everybody too that there's just the range is so much different. So when you think of data centers, don't always think Google and think it's just this massive 1,200 2,000 square feet one. I mean you can have it all the way down to size of Dollar General. Well like there's five different size. Yeah. What they consider also you consider like Parkview Health. I'm sure they probably don't have all their servers within the same building as the main hospital.

So they probably have their own data center slightly offsite. That would be what they would call the what was it? economy or business enterprise or regional type data center. So there are those considerations as well. Do does the water usage and electric usage scale with the size? It does. It was interesting. Like a small one's not going to use near the amount of water and electricity as the 1200 acre one. Yeah. The smaller ones they were saying use little to no water. They use more of air cooling. Yeah. The others the gel cooling racks. Yeah. The others can use Okay. You know, up to 150,000 gallons a day. So, it just depends.

That's why it's important to get this document together and get this ordinance in place because there's so much wide range of it. So, when people hear data center, they always think the massive huge ones. We don't want that. Okay, that's fine. But there's also smaller ones that are size of Dollar General. Like, are those going to be ones that we don't want either? I mean, those are possibilities also as we go forward with more AI. I mean, I follow the Ukraine war pretty closely. They use AI for everything over there. I mean, the AI usage is crazy. And that's how Warfare is going to go going forward. They're going to need more of these data centers for AI. So, they're going to keep popping up. Question is, what do we want here at Dow County? Any more discussion from the board? Anyone in the audience wish to speak for or against this petition? You state your name and address, please.

Is the mic on? Blue light. Thank you. Okay. Uh Jessica Hardy, 1314 Pearl Street here in Auburn. Just wanted to say thank you. I'm very impressed with the committee at this point for being proactive instead of retroactive on this. Um I'll have many things to say about it in the future when we actually start putting out ordinances on it, but right now that's really it. I would also just say to make sure you get yourselves extremely educated on the situation. Um, read up on it. Um, read up on how they use the water, what it does. Ask your kids, ask your grandkids, Google it. I don't whatever you need to do to get the information uh on what exactly they are. But otherwise, no, just thank you very much for being proactive on this. Um, it makes me feel good.

Anybody else? Chuck Knox, County Road 68. And um I want to echo what she said. A lot of good information here. So um the size of them are important. You know, not everything's going to be as big as Google. Um I got the chance to be kind of a fly on a wall on a data center just within the past month, which it was very enlightening to me to see what was going on. And it was more of the no water usage ones. And so they're air cooling these things. They're keeping the temperature at a certain rate or certain temp in the building itself. Um, they're quiet. It is a what they're doing is renting space. They're renting server space. So, they they come in and they capture the electricity and then get it into a format that the um the the people with the data that manipulate the data want to use. And so, some of them were um banking, some of them were gaming. Uh there was one that we could not get into. So I'm assuming that was military. So I think you know you got a good point that the military is spreading these things out. Um payout to a community is very large and so I think we would be remiss not to actually look and try to get something together that would bring value to this community. And I I think this could and I think we could protect everybody protect the water. Um, INM is doing a good job of tariffs on these large users. And so what they're doing then is these tariffs then come back and help the residents. And so they are they are battling this um raising of rates because the rates are going up. Nipkco's had they're in in big trouble now. I was just at the one in New Haven um for the relative regulatory commission on that one and it was a they were they they were struggling on there. They had all the NIPCO um lockout um union members

there too. It was pretty contentious meeting at that one unlike this which is good. So um I look forward to see what you guys have and um thank you else none. We'll close the public comment portion of the petition. Guess we just move on for a motion. Not really any findings. I think that's right.

Would entertain a motion for favorable, unfavorable, or no recommendation to the commissioners on this petition for a six-month mortorium. I move to make a favorable recommendation to the commissioners for ordinance number for the whatever moratorum moratorum ordinance number

second it have a motion and a second for a favorable recommendation for petition 2611 11. We have a roll call vote. Yep. Alan Douly. Bill Van White. Yes. Sandy Harrison, yes. Barry Odor, yes. Frank Palver, yes. Suzanne Davis, yes. Angie Holt, yes. Jason Carneahan, yes. That was our only petition for this evening. So now we'll have uh reports from any town city liaison

with Auburn. We had two uh reszones from residential to institutional. Um the first one was what was that out across from the high school? A classic city center. the current owners of that bought adjacent property and it was zoned uh residential. So they wanted to make that institutional, change it to institutional so it would be the same as the Classic City Center. And I wonder why they were doing it, not us. And it turns out it's in the ETJ, so they have jurisdiction over that. And then 701 South Main Street was residential and um the Weber Law Group wants to buy that and turn it into their law offices. So they wanted that reszone to institutional and everything around it like the the community center and the church next to it I think might be the Presbyterian church or whatever. So it it kind of fit into that neighborhood. So that both of those got approved. I think that was it.

Um, Waterlue met March 16th. Um, the bulk of the conversation centered around sort of a recognition that um that NIPCO has been installing new poles um in the town and has not been applying for approval. So it was interesting conversation that they had um recognized that there was a resolution in 2017 that indicated that um they needed to have approval before installing the poles. So, they're still in the process of evaluating whether it's been a pole replacement or if new poles have been added because town's really made an effort to reduce the number of poles and to to make sure things are going um underground to maintain the you know the beautifification and enhance the beautifification of this the town. Um so they're going back through um the plan commission and the town council to get approval for those. Um, they also went through, which I thought was interesting, and I suggested they reach out to maybe some of the other towns or cities that may have something else like that, um, in terms of what what that process looks like and really dialing that in, um, to do a new, uh, ILP application specific to utilities or whether they're going to use an existing um, petition for the plan commission. So, that was part of the discussion. Um, they also talked about the the poles that are being replaced. I found it interesting that the the utility that's lowest on the pole. So, some of the other utilities are using those poles and they're relocating, but the lowest utility is the one that owns the pole. So, um there's some maintenance issues and then who owns it and so there's a lot of discussion about that, but I think they're they're getting a handle on it and um trying to make sure that

that those utilities are complying um including NIPCO and then Frontier has some others that they're looking at in the in the town that they're for those and getting proper permission. Um, Hamilton had to cancel their meeting last month because they couldn't get a quorum. Supposed to have a meeting Monday night and Butler had to reschedu their meeting from last month and they're going to have a meeting at the end of the month. So, what I don't have anything on my I just I just talked to get back to me because I just

Okay, Joe is made. They they voted in five members on their board. Uh but still have yet to be able to find a Democrat or someone that will finish out their their board. is there and it's basically they're not getting anything done. They want to they wanted to know if it would be possible for them to how are they going to get around they can't find an independent or a Democrat get within their boundaries. How do they get around I know there's some of those codes that say that you can reach out to your local Republican or Democratic chair and see if they'll wave the requirement.

That's exactly it. What do you mean these these particular statutes don't I think like a park board you can do that maybe or some other board or something. We did that with the uh whatever that assessment appeals. Yeah. Yeah. They always Sheila Stone Breaker always asks for a waiver and gets it.

And no one's been able to find a waiver. Well, let me remind Lindsay after you mentioned that the last time, Jerry, I I mentioned it to the chair and she said she thought she might know someone, so I'll remind her.

They they uh they pursued that, but they picked them up empty-handed. But they do have five. They do have a forum. Uh, is there something keeping them from starting to do business until they

Oh, they did. No, no, no. I mean, I don't want to be giving them. Well, that's what I told her. I said,

attorney, they need a legal opinion on that whether they can operate without it. But then you can with Lindsay that they got such a small population that they're trying to draw out of. But theoretically, you could have somebody that shows up a couple times a year. I mean, unless they're I don't know what they're I don't I don't know what they're I mean, they need to see their they need to look at their rules of procedure what they because ours require people to meet show up for a certain Yeah. So, I don't know what that is. And

well, the other thing might be since they have that huge ETJ, you know, the Auburn Plan Commission has two people that have to be residents. So maybe they can expand that a little. That's the same thing. So they would have to That's what he's talking about is they have to have the two members from the ETJ um that they're struggling with finding the Democrat or the Oh, it's not somebody from within the city, right?

It's ETJ. Oh, okay. I'll call Andrew tomorrow, Chris, because I just saw him last night at a meeting and he said the fourth Thursday and that would be the 23rd, but you're saying it's tomorrow.

The email I have from um him on March 24th was saying that um he would like to have a meeting on April 2nd, but realistically it will be April 10th. And then the mayor wrote back and said April 9th, not April 10th. So I've not seen anything. I don't I've never I've not seen a packet from them yet. Usually it comes out right the day of. So, um I don't know. I was I have it on my calendar for tomorrow evening, but if it's not, that would be awesome.

We'll figure it out, Sandy. Okay, Ashley. I haven't heard anything from Ashley or anything. So, I don't know if they're doing anything or not. So, we have it. I haven't heard anything. I don't think they I don't think they had I don't think they had a meeting. No. Okay. Is there any comments uh from the public on any matters for the good of the cause? Yes.