The Indiana House Monday passed a bill to give local communities more tax revenue from data centers. That tax money would be a carrot but critics say there’s also a stick.
The bill would give local governments 1% of the state sales tax that data centers are exempted from paying. But opponents have stopped a growing number of data centers during the rezoning process, as current law requires them to be built on industrially zoned land.
This bill would allow data centers on agriculturally zoned land, which would eliminate that public process, as long as the soil has been deemed lower quality for farming. That description fits about 31% of all farmable acreage in St. Joseph County.
The bill passed the House 56-43 with 13 Republicans, joining all 30 House Democrats in voting no.
Republican St. Joseph County Council Member Amy Drake says she hopes to persuade local Senate Republicans to oppose the bill.
”The reason they’re doing it is because the state sees data centers as a win for the state to bring in economic development, and they know that a lot of communities are staying no to data centers," Drake says. "So they’re basically trying to block the NIMBY-ism by ramming these projects down everybody’s throats without allowing it to go to a hearing.”
