In Ohio's Grove City, a proposed charter amendment has sparked a fight that doesn't seem to end. Residents and leaders are clashing on two sides, with one saying the amendment would protect the city and others saying it would destroy its economic prospects. What highlights the conflict is that it is a microcosm of a nationwide pushback against data centres and the region makes one of the most extreme local attempts to stop them, as per a report by Axios.
The pushback is on a planned 300-acre project valued at approximately $6.9 billion. It would be a high-density computing/data-centre campus, designed to provide infrastructure for the rapidly expanding AI and cloud-computing industry. According to the developers, the site was deliberately selected since it exists next to a 345-kilovolt electrical substation, which they say makes the location suitable for a power-intensive facility. The project has raised concerns about electricity demand, water use, noise, backup generators, traffic, environmental impacts, and the long-term character of Grove City.
The backlash was so intense that the city council enacted a one-year moratorium on all data centre projects, including the $6.9 billion planned campus. The opposition group known as Protect Grove City did not stop at the moratorium. They went on to draft a charter amendment that aims to block data centres and other large development projects unless voters approve them individually. They managed to collect more than 2,000 signatures, enough to force city council to add the proposed amendment to the November ballot.
The amendment doesn't just limit data centres. If passed, any Grove City development that occupies 50 or more acres, uses 20 megawatts of power or consumes 500,000 gallons of water a day would be subjected to a referendum. It would also require the developer to pay for related ballot costs. On the other side, some city and regional economic development leaders claim the amendment's effects would be devastating. "It would literally kill the city," said Council President Ted Berry to Axios. "This is not a data centre amendment," says former U.S. Rep. and current Ohio Chamber of Commerce CEO Steve Stivers. "It's a development amendment, and it basically says, 'We don't want to grow.'"
Interestingly, this is a risk that the opposition group is willing to deal with as they say their initiative is an effort to "give people a voice." Jen Belt, one of the group's leaders, said they feel the city leaders are no longer representing them. "What we're seeing around the country is that our interests are not being considered. You're not hearing us."
At a special meeting on Thursday, the day before the deadline for council to put it on the ballot, the group will ask council to replace the original amendment with a "compromise" version that replaces the 50 acres with 750,000 square feet of floor area and removes requirements for existing companies. Protect Grove City would withdraw the previous amendment if council sent the new one to the ballot. However, the new version drafted this week had not undergone public vetting yet. Council is unlikely to adopt it instead of the amendment for which the petitioners collected signatures. "It's almost like a blackmailing technique," Berry said. Belt added the group was "willing to come to the table" in good faith, which isn't blackmail. Berry claimed the issue "fails miserably" in his own polling and seems ready to let it go to the ballot as written. "Obviously, the tide has turned, and they don't have the support to get it passed," he said. "Whichever version goes on the ballot, we'll be campaigning for the passage of that this November," Belt said.
