{"id":202549,"date":"2026-02-10T21:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=202549"},"modified":"2026-02-11T21:43:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T02:43:56","slug":"data-center-questions-discussion-dominate-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/02\/10\/data-center-questions-discussion-dominate-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Data center discussion dominates meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s meeting of Van Wert City Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPermitted 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,\u201d Block explained. \u201cConditional use allows us to set certain specific barriers and say \u2018you need to meet these metrics and if you don\u2019t meet these metrics then you\u2019re not being a good neighbor, you\u2019re not being part of our community\u2019 and we\u2019re going to say \u2018no, you can\u2019t put that there. They could always come back with a different, revised development for a different, revised data center that\u2019s less obtrusive then that would be approved by the BZA (Board of Zoning Appeals).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Law Director John Hatcher said changing the zoning designation this far into the project would be equal to moving the goalposts for the developer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a little late for this project,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t 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,\u201d Safety-Service Director Jay Fleming added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleming also said the heart of economic development is to remove barriers so businesses are encouraged to come to the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m torn between both sides of it,\u201d Fourth Ward Councilman Eric Hurless said in response. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI encourage citizens to attend and participate because this will be a great opportunity to ask questions,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the discussion, Fleming addressed concerns about the amount of water that will be used by the data center, stating the city didn\u2019t commit to millions of gallons per day and he added no groundwater will be used by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one\u2019s well is going dry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have voted on Samsung, we wouldn\u2019t have voted on Honda,\u201d Fleming noted of past potential businesses locating in Van Wert. \u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s how it could work or should work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hurless responded by saying he believes citizens just wanted more transparency about the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s meeting of Van Wert City Council. The Mega […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 13:47:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202549"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202604,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202549\/revisions\/202604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}