RAVENNA − Several Portage County communities are looking into moratoriums to prevent data centers after residents spoke out, citing concerns about draining resources.
Ravenna City Council’s Planning Committee moved forward April 10 with a 12-month moratorium on the centers after a crowd filled City Council chambers for a mid-afternoon meeting.
The matter will move forward to council’s Committee of the Whole, which is expected to advance it April 20 to a special City Council meeting the same day. Council members said the moratorium would be city-wide, and is not in direct response to a data center proposed at Chestnut Commerce Center off North Chestnut Street.
The decision came just days after Shalersville township trustees extended the township’s moratorium on data centers by six months, denying a request from Geis Construction to lift it so the Turnpike Commerce Center could be marketed for data centers. About 200 residents attended an April 7 trustees meeting where the decision was made, with all speakers opposing them, Trustee Ron Kotkowski said.
Tallmadge is considering a six-month moratorium on data centers, with a pubic hearing set for April 13. In October, Norton officials rejected a proposal by Quantum HPC, which wanted to construct a data center, dubbed Project Triton, on a 90-acre site off South Cleveland-Massillon Road.
Data centers have become popular across Ohio, as tech companies take advantage of the state’s generous tax breaks, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Many are in Central Ohio, but an increasing number are being considered farther north. Akron is home to a large cryptocurrency mining business, and plans to build a data center are underway in Perry Township in Stark County. At least one other location in Canton appears to be under consideration, as well.
Ravenna citizens pack meeting
Ravenna, which scheduled its meeting for 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon so all members of the committee could be present, initially planned the moratorium in solidarity with Shalersville, Councilwoman Carmen Laudato said. After planning the meeting, she learned a proposal for a data center had been submitted to the city’s planning commission.
Despite the meeting taking place on a weekday afternoon, a large crowd filled council chambers, with many standing at the back of the room. Some attendees were forced into the hallway outside the room.
After the meeting, Portage Residents for Responsible Development circulated petitions to try to ban data centers statewide. The group also had training to mobilize petition circulators at Reed Memorial Library, and said future signing events will be posted on its Facebook page.
Laudato said the moratorium will give the city time to study data centers and consider responsible limitations. Kent, she said, also imposed a moratorium.
Councilwoman Amy Michael said she is concerned that the proposed data center would be directly across the street from University Hospitals Portage Medical Center.
“We don’t know any long term effects,” she said. “This is my home.”
Council President Rob Kairis said the moratorium would be city-wide and the policy would not be in response to any proposal.
“This allows us to come up with a policy that is well thought-out and defensible,” he said.
Allison Laudato, the councilwoman’s daughter, gave a presentation outlining the typical operation of a data center.
Denise Brostowitz said she researched data centers and only found two with positive effects. Most, she said, only bring jobs in the beginning, when the centers are built. The centers often also get massive tax breaks, shifting the tax burden to schools, and drive up the demand for utility consumption, passing on the costs to consumers.
The centers, she said, also require large amounts of water for cooling, and the Ohio EPA allows used water to be discharged into system.
The centers typically have a 10- to 15-year life span, she said, leaving the community stuck with a large space that is hard to market to another user.
Will Hollingsworth said he sees data centers as “a gamble where the big tech companies get the gold while Portage County foots the bill.”
“We are being asked to sacrifice the lifeblood of our city so a trillion dollar company can save a fraction of a cent on its margins,” he said. “We are being asked to drain our reservoirs so a chatbot can write a poem or so our sheriff can generate a picture of himself standing next to Bigfoot.”
Shalersville moratorium
Geis Co., which is marketing the Turnpike Commerce Center, recently asked trustees to lift the township’s existing moratorium so it could market the vacant land in the industrial park. There is no specific proposal for a data center on the table at this time, Kotkowski said.
Right now, there are two tenants in the 475-acre industrial park. They are Viega, a manufacturer of copper plumbing products that opened last fall, and a 1 million-square-foot building that has leased 400,000 square feet of warehouse space to Piping Rock, a manufacturer that has plants in Aurora and Streetsboro.
Kotkowski said after hearing from “well over 200 people” at its meeting who were opposed to data centers, trustees want to come up with common-sense regulations so residents wouldn’t be burdened if one is built. One possibility is making sure the data centers, not electricity customers, bear the cost of electric generation.
“We’ve been told by our lawyers that if we ban them outright, we’ll get beat in court,” he said.
Another meeting, with State Rep. Heidi Workman, is planned in June.
Reporter Diane Smith can be reached at dsmith@recordpub.com.
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Ravenna, Shalersville to limit data centers after strong opposition
Reporting by Diane Smith, Ravenna Record-Courier / Record-Courier
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