The first of two public hearings will be held Tuesday, Aug. 11 to take comments on the county’s updated zoning regulations for data centers.
The Lincoln County Planning (and zoning) Commission will conduct a hearing at their usual time and meeting place — 5:30 p.m. in the North Platte city council chambers in City Hall, 211 W. Third St.
The planning commission can recommend the updates, or not, to the Lincoln County commissioners. The commissioners will also hold a public hearing and make a final decision. Both sets of commissioners can make changes to the proposed regulations if they so decide.
The county commissioners’ hearing will be Monday, Aug. 31. The location will depend on the attendance at the first hearing.
The county commissioners discussed the topic Monday with Zoning Administrator Judy Clark, who said the district courtroom is not available that day to use if a large crowd is expected. Apparently, the courtroom will be occupied with court cases that day.
Clark suggested holding the second hearing in the council chambers if a large crowd is expected. The “litmus test” will be the size of the crowd at the planning commission hearing.
Clark said the council room is larger than the commissioner’s meeting room. Also, City Hall has a overflow room with a video screen that can show what’s happening in council chambers.
Commissioner Chris Bruns wondered aloud if two weeks will be enough time for the public to digest what happens at the planning commission hearing, so they are can make informed comments at the commissioners’ hearing.
There was no answer to that question from his colleagues.
There are expected to be about 10 pages of new regulations.
“I’d think we’d like to get these wrapped up sooner rather than later, and rather not put it off until September,” Bruns said at one point, apparently expressing the consensus of the board.
Clark said data center zoning regulations, the requirements of conditional permits and the “data center matrix” will be on the agenda at the first hearing on Aug. 11.
One or more hyper-scale data centers are possible in Lincoln County, according to the North Platte Chamber of Commerce. A hyper-scale center would require its own power plant. Together, the data center and power plant could require up to two square miles of land and require water equivalent to 10-15 center pivot irrigation systems to keep the operations cool, the Chamber said.
Top photo: Inside the campus network room in Google’s Council Bluffs data center. (Google photo)
This is an ongoing report. Check back for more information. –Editor
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No matter how many regulations and protections the planning commissions comes up with, Data Centers are a bad idea. It comes down to how much they will benefit everyone in the county, and it isn’t much. We will still say No.
Here is a website regarding AI Data centers and traditional data centers. Might be a good resource for some.
https://www.red-eng.com/insights/knowledge-base/whats-the-difference-between-ai-data-centres-vs-traditional-data-centres
Weldon Umpress thank you for that link, thats actually a really good article. Non-AI datacenters ARE the internet, this very website is hosted in them, your email is hosted in them, netflix/amazon/instagram….. and they more or less create the same amount of jobs as AI datacenters for a community. The noise they create is still a factor but they use a lot less water even compared to closed loop cooling systems (how many times a day do employees flush the toilet?).