Residents press commissioners for answers on proposed hyperscale data center

Residents packed the public-comment portion of the Jefferson County commissioners’ May 28 meeting to press officials for more information about a proposed hyperscale data center and to announce a citizen town hall.

Elijah Chandler, who said he lives downtown, invited the commission and community to a town hall on June 5 and said the meeting would be nonpartisan and focused on questions and answers. "We're gonna host that Friday, June 5 from 7 to 9PM," he said.

Dustin Fresh asked whether the county or the developer had completed an infrastructure or business-impact study for the project. "Has the board or the county been made of infrastructure impacts with a business analysis and or an infrastructure impact study pre, post, or during?" Fresh asked. The chair replied that such studies are the developer’s responsibility and said the project would face building-permit and state reviews when those applications are submitted: "But we wouldn't be responsible for that anyway. The developers would."

Other residents raised legal and fiscal questions. Pam Coler asked whether nondisclosure agreements had been signed and whether the county could grant tax abatements. "Is that illegal or legal here?" she asked about NDAs. Commissioners said an NDA is not necessarily illegal and that while the county council has passed an Economic Revitalization Area resolution making abatements possible, "no one's asked for one" yet.

Mary Hansen urged the commission to gather independent, nondeveloper material on environmental and infrastructure impacts. Commissioners said the zoning administrator and planning process previously determined a data center fits a heavy industrial designation in the Unified Development Ordinance; technical details, they said, would appear in any building-permit application and would be subject to third-party engineering review and state permitting, including Indiana Department of Environmental Management oversight where applicable.

Residents also asked whether the county would consider a moratorium on future data-center projects. Commissioners said they would research the proper procedural route and whether authority rests with the planning commission or with the county commission.

The public comment period produced no formal vote on the proposed project; commissioners said next steps would be driven by permit filings and any formal applications that come before county offices.