data center

Now that Microsoft has announced a national policy of forgoing local property tax breaks for its data centers, four of the St. Joseph County Council's five Republicans have sent Amazon Web Services a letter asking it to renegotiate the 35-year, $4 billion property tax abatement it's receiving from the county for its New Carlisle data center under development.

Cass County leaders held a forum to better understand data centers, as officials prepare for potential impacts tied to growth in artificial intelligence and computing demand.

"Municipalities have to expand, or they die off," said council member Gregg Tuholski. "Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is."

"Your job is to take care of the people of Bristol, and you’re not doing it," Lester Otto told council members. "What you’re doing is feeding the money grabbers."

“We want a true partner that our residents deserve, and Microsoft has met that bill,” said LaPorte Mayor Tom Dermody.

Statewide advocates for electric ratepayers and the environment came to Granger Wednesday night to talk about the data center that Microsoft will start building this summer. They urged Microsoft to be more transparent and they called on St. Joseph County officials to watch out for constituents as they negotiate a development agreement.

St. Joseph County Council member Amy Drake says the county gave Amazon too many incentives and tax breaks for its data center near New Carlisle, so she's glad Microsoft won't seek a property tax abatement when it starts building a data center near Granger this year.

The Indiana House on Monday passed a bill to give local communities 1% of state sales tax that data centers are exempted from, while eliminating the public rezoning process that a growing number of communities have used to stop data centers.

The commissioners passed a resolution Thursday, urging local governments and utility providers “to develop and implement a comprehensive regulatory framework.” It also calls on developers to publicly disclose how much water they expect to use and where they’d get their power – along with steps they’d take to avoid financial impacts on local residents.

A St. Joseph County Council committee will consider new restrictions on low-frequency sound, the kind we feel rather than hear, that's emitted by industrially zoned operations like data centers.