Data center discussion dominates meeting

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

Can a council approved zoning designation be changed for a data center that is coming to Van Wert? Should the matter of the data center coming to Van Wert have been put before voters? Those were two of the questions posed during Monday night’s meeting of Van Wert City Council.

The Mega Site, where the data center will be built, was annexed into the city last summer and was zoned I-2 with a permitted use designation for it. However, Councilman At-Large Hall Block requested it be changed to conditional use I-2, a request that later died on the vine.

“Permitted use, as long as they meet typical development requirements then they are allowed to proceed with that development without any further input from the city,” Block explained. “Conditional use allows us to set certain specific barriers and say ‘you need to meet these metrics and if you don’t meet these metrics then you’re not being a good neighbor, you’re not being part of our community’ and we’re going to say ‘no, you can’t put that there. They could always come back with a different, revised development for a different, revised data center that’s less obtrusive then that would be approved by the BZA (Board of Zoning Appeals).”

Law Director John Hatcher said changing the zoning designation this far into the project would be equal to moving the goalposts for the developer.

“We’re a little late for this project,” he stated.

“I don’t think you can change the rules because they followed all the rules in place and did all their due dilegence about coming to Van Wert,” Safety-Service Director Jay Fleming added.

Fleming also said the heart of economic development is to remove barriers so businesses are encouraged to come to the city.

“I’m torn between both sides of it,” Fourth Ward Councilman Eric Hurless said in response. “I agree with you, we want to make doing business in Van Wert as easy as possible but yet, we also have a duty to protect our community from the bad players if we give them free reign.”

Council members also expressed frustration with limited information about the project, not yet knowing who will own and run it. Thor Equities is the developer and Councilman At-Large DeWaine Johnson, who chairs council’s economic development committee, shared information from Van Wert Area Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Brent Stevens that the end user will be announced in late March. He also said a community event is being planned at Vantage Career Center to share information. The date of the gathering will be announced in advance.

“I encourage citizens to attend and participate because this will be a great opportunity to ask questions,” Johnson said.

During the discussion, Fleming addressed concerns about the amount of water that will be used by the data center, stating the city didn’t commit to millions of gallons per day and he added no groundwater will be used by it.

“No one’s well is going dry,” he said.

Fleming also addressed the sentiment by some community members that the data center should have been placed on the ballot and decided by the citizens of Van Wert.

“We wouldn’t have voted on Samsung, we wouldn’t have voted on Honda,” Fleming noted of past potential businesses locating in Van Wert. “I don’t know if that’s how it could work or should work.”

Hurless responded by saying he believes citizens just wanted more transparency about the project.

After the lengthy discussion among council members and Fleming, Block made a motion to change the I-2 permitted use designation to conditional use, but it died due to a lack of a second.