Planning Committee - Regular Meeting

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir, I want to revisit the capturing the heat. So you're saying that the data centers produce not the energy that produces the heat, but the actual heat itself, correct?

How is that captured and then distributed to homes without cooling off?

One quick final question before I have to go. When you went out and heard the noise on site the other day, did you take a decibel reading by chance?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for joining us. I assume that the Microsoft facility has diesel backup generation? They do. How many units do they have?

Yeah, I'm sure it's, especially today, pretty cost prohibitive. So once a month, they're kicking them on for a short period of time. Has there been, I don't know what WeEnergy's track record of keeping the lights on are. Here in Louisville, we have Louisville Gas and Electric. It does not have a great track record of keeping the lights on. We lose power pretty regularly. How many times do you think that they've had to engage those up there?

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I did get some notes thanks to my aide being here. So my questions are, how are the jobs calculated? Because I know that there's construction jobs, there's jobs to get it up and running, but maintaining those systems, when you say apparently it might bring 2,000 jobs by 2030 with this new Microsoft plant, how are those calculated?

It does. And my other question is about you said the one you visited was did you say three quarters a mile from residence? Is that what you said? Or two thirds?

I appreciate that. My last question, Mr. Chair, is I'm sure you probably heard that we have one that's nearly a million square feet that got under before we could do any regulations about it. So there's no tips, there's nothing built in to mitigate the harms yet. Hopefully we can achieve that. This question is, when I did just a general search of Mount Pleasant, and I'm looking at what I see. It's an aerial view. I don't see a lot of bodies of water. Are most of the data centers located near bodies of water? Ours uniquely is closer to our Ohio River, this bigger one that's being built. I just

place to for people to go and get some questions answered as well again robin thank you very much mr chair really yes councilman reed has a question oh councilman reed thank you yes i've been in the queue for 20 minutes oh sorry sorry about that councilman reed that's all right uh very quick question number one you're from wisconsin so i take it you're a big packer fan just like i am

I understand. Well, we need it this year. But very quickly, question. Does your local ordinance have a minimum requirement for decibel levels? If so, what is it? Yeah, it varies. Yes. I mean, maximum is what I was trying to say.

Okay, great. Thank you very much. Take care. You too.

Thank you, Chair. Very enlightening, thank you. I'm no expert on this, but got a few questions. Are you aware of, first of all, what's the damage that that is provided by the low frequency noise?

So are you aware of any studies of other industries like automotive or airports or other manufacturing facilities, do they produce the same kind of low frequency noise?

Okay, so the low frequency noise that you've described so far is unintended generated byproduct of data centers. Right. Is there any correlation of the health anomalies that you've described with intended low frequency noise, because low frequency is used in mining and oil exploration and communication with underwater and lots of other beneficial uses of low frequency noise. does that also produce the same kind of health issues?

But I was asking about the low-frequency noise.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being here and listening to you reference the STAR program really brought back memories of of Tom Pierce of just door knocking with REAC and in the Rubber Town community and understanding how that community has been so affected by the pollution and all those things. I, um, my colleague Hudson's responses and your responses make me, um, really want to make sure that we are working on an amendment that has a health impact statement. We do financial impact statements. We clearly need a health impact statement for this. And that's an amendment that I want to

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I want to point out that we currently in the proposed, the PC recommendations have a maximum square footage, which is an order of magnitude. It's 10 times larger. than other maximum square footages in the state of Kentucky. The Kentucky Resource Council recommendations do not have a maximum square footage, and I'd like you to walk us through the thoughts behind that. Certainly.

Yeah, and I appreciate you bringing up the low frequency sound concerns. There are, in my opinion, pretty obvious differences between ambient, constant, low frequency pollution, essentially, from a facility versus directed application for mining and underwater applications, which then are also mediated by the medium, right? that vibration is somewhat captured by the earth, by the water, versus again, its propensity to travel through air and affect people. My last question, obviously we have a list of the differences. I'm sure you're aware of the differences between the PC recommendations and w

Thank you, Chair. And thanks for being here. I guess I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly. And the recommendations that you have given, are those for the hyper data centers or just all of the data centers?

Okay, my next question is, we already have several data centers here in the city, and one of the things that you said was is make sure that all of them are consistent. I'm just trying to see how we will be able to do that, and I haven't read all the recommendations, but I will, aligning all of them the same. You know, because there are smaller ones that I've heard nobody complain about, right? And then, of course, this one that's a lot bigger, then it's brought a whole different ideology of what data centers could look like. So it's just, you know, when making these recommendations, just tryin

Right, and I'm in agreement with you on that. My concern is I'm just kinda hanging on to you saying that keep them consistent because for data centers that are already here in place, right, If they're gonna be consistent, then what if some of those data centers that are already in place doesn't meet the criteria of the guidelines?

So you're just talking about new regulations?

Right, which also being consistent, if you get into that bait and switch, because it seems like that that has happened too. Yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald, for being here and presenting. I'll keep it simple. My question is, you mentioned this multiple times this afternoon about creating a new zoning classification. elaborate a little bit more to that for me because I don't, I'll leave my personal opinion out of it, but I'd like to hear a little bit more detail of why and where, maybe give me some ideals or some sites of where you think a rezoning of your ideology on that would go and how it would be approved because I'll leave it at that.

No, I thought the questions were very well asked and covered many of the things that I was already thinking, particularly what the Councilman Batchon said. So no, I'm good. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, yeah. It makes sense. I understand what you're saying, but I think what it causes is, again, that unintended consequence of adding, like in your words, the, well, not quite your words, but saying the adding the extra layer of bureaucracy or line in the sand that you're butting up to with adding, for example, the 500,000 square foot, right? So your suggestion is take away the 500,000 square foot, stay consistent across the board, but let's create a new zoning to basically do the same thing. That's where I'm seeing that. And I think others would possibly look at it in that roo

I appreciate that. Thank you so much. It's a great conversation, and I think we can continue to have that.

Yeah, it just evoked so many emotions thinking about what you're saying about West Louisville, too, as well as Southwest Louisville, which is one of the districts I share and border with colleagues here. I think about the high cancer rates, the high heart disease rates, the respiratory issues, and I think about when these decisions were made. I think the industrial zoning is too vague, and that's what allowed this one to be in Councilwoman Hawkins' district as she spoke about. And I think we got a chance to get ahead of that. And it doesn't mean we're closed for business in the ways that we li