LaPorte County is putting guardrails on potential data center developments.
An ordinance approved by the county commissioners Wednesday limits data centers to industrial zones and requires approval from the board of zoning appeals. It also sets standards for setbacks, noise and required training for local fire departments.
County officials had been working to get an ordinance in place before projects were officially proposed, and Commissioner Steve Holifield already expects some changes. "Next week, the data center committee’s getting back together to go over this," Holifield said. "This is a living document, so we can amend it, change it, anywhere in the future."
Holifield said it’s only the second standalone data center ordinance in the state. He expects it’ll be a model for other counties.
The ordinance only applies to unincorporated portions of LaPorte County, not cities and towns. The city of LaPorte and Michigan City have both approved data center projects.
Commissioner Connie Gramarossa felt that if a developer wants to put a data center in unincorporated LaPorte County, the best place would be the Kingsbury Industrial Park. "There’s a place for them, and they just have to be put in the right spot," Gramarossa said. "You know, this is not something that we want next to somebody’s home."
Still, LaPorte resident Eric Beal argued that simply regulating data centers doesn’t go far enough. "I’m begging you to, please, continue to work hard at this," Beal told the commissioners during the public comment portion of Wednesday's meeting. "Get this stuff out of our community."
The commissioners unanimously voted to accept the ordinance without sending it back to the plan commission for more work, although they did stipulate that several typos identified by their attorney be corrected.
