Microsoft 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.

“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.

Urban planning expert and St. Joseph County Council candidate Jan Cervelli says even though the council already has approved the rezoning Microsoft needs for its Granger data center, the company should be transparent in how the center is developed.

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.

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.

The St. Joseph County Council is set to vote Tuesday on a rezoning needed by a New York developer to build a data center on over 1,000 acres along Chicago Trail near New Carlisle.

St. Joseph County two years ago hired a firm to identify existing Granger subdivisions with failing septic systems, but paused that work recently when its dispute with Mishawaka developed over who would serve the planned Microsoft data center with water and sewers.