City councils wrap: Limits on data centers, gas stations, nursing home runs
A lot of ground to cover from Lafayette and West Lafayette city councils, with more on the way.
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There will be more coming in upcoming editions of BiL from a busy night at Lafayette and West Lafayette city councils Monday – including continued blowback from neighbors about West Side’s decision to rezone land for SK hynix in May – but here’s another chunk …
LAFAYETTE, WEST LAFAYETTE AGREE TO STOPGAP DATA CENTER MEASURE, TOO
Lafayette and West Lafayette city councils followed suit Monday evening after Tippecanoe County commissioners earlier in the day agreed to new zoning codes designed to limit where large data centers could go.
The zoning ordinance change approved Monday offers two definitions of data centers.
The first would cover those with 10,000 square feet of floor space and smaller. Those smaller data centers – typically aimed at data storage and security needs for local companies – would be allowed to go into the commercial and industrial zones already in the county’s codes.
Anything above 10,000 square feet would be defined as a “large data center.” Large data centers would be restricted to the county’s I2/industrial classification.
Current zoning codes left things open to giant server warehouses – similar to those popping up and raising questions about energy and water use across the state – to build in a number of commercial and industrial zones in the county by just getting a building permit. With I2-zoned land limited in the county, the zoning changes would force a developer of a data center to face at least three public hearings and votes to get necessary zoning.
The zoning changes were billed as a stopgap measure, coming with a one-year sunset clause that forces the county to come up with more detailed regulations specific to large data centers.
The proposal cleared the Lafayette City Council unanimously, with little comment.
In West Lafayette, Larry Leverenz, city council president, called the measure a placeholder, giving time to address questions about zoning for data centers of any size. Council member Iris O’Donnell Bellisario said she also wanted to see limits placed on data centers looking to locate in smaller, neighborhood business zones, but she pulled back a proposed amendment to give county planners time to consider that in new regulations. Zachary Baiel, a West Lafayette resident, called for a cap on the size of large data centers as another way to curb developers’ interest in coming to Tippecanoe County.
Council member David Sanders said proposal raised bigger issues with the city’s relationship with the Indiana Economic Development Corp., a state public-private entity that he called the driver in recruiting data centers to locate in the state. He said dealing with issues stemming from the IEDC had been like a game of whack-a-mole. He listed the agency’s past attempts to pump-and-take millions of gallons of water from western Tippecanoe County to feed the LEAP District near Lebanon, a state audit that revealed lax oversight and questionable spending, and recent reporting about deals that netted companies under officials with ties to the IEDC – including the current head of Purdue Research Foundation, Chad Pittman – contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. (See: “‘The Three Kings’: Top IEDC official and his partners received $180M in IEDC contracts,” Sept. 24, Indianapolis Star.)
“We need to reassess our relationship with the IEDC,” Sanders said. “This is the time to abolish the IEDC. It cannot be repaired. … This is just this is our step as a community to say we don’t want what the IEDC is selling to us. But we need to make our voice louder to say we don’t want anything from the IEDC. We want the IEDC abolished.”
For more details on the local data center zoning measure:
In other action by the Lafayette City Council …
$500 fees for non-emergency lifting assistance runs to nursing homes: Assisted living facilities will get charged $500 every time they call on the Lafayette Fire Department to make non-emergency runs to help lift someone who has fallen, under an ordinance the Lafayette City Council approved Monday.
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