Chillicothe is asking its own residents to help write the rules before the data centers arrive. The city will hold a public open house on Monday, November 16, as it considers new land-use standards for data centers, battery energy storage systems and cryptocurrency mining operations, the Chillicothe Gazette reported.
The open house runs from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the newly renovated Armory, 153 N. Paint St., in Yoctangee Park, according to the community announcement reported by the Chillicothe Gazette. The event is free and open to the public, and no registration is required to attend and be heard.
The timing is deliberate. Chillicothe City Council adopted the city’s current Unified Development Code in October 2025, but data centers are not specifically defined in that code and are therefore subject to interpretation, the Gazette reported. City leaders want to decide, in writing and in advance, whether facilities like these should be recognized as distinct land uses, with standards that address their potential effects on nearby communities.
“Data centers and similar facilities are new to many Ohio communities, and Chillicothe needs clear rules that reflect what they are and how they affect the people who live near them,” Mayor Luke Feeney said in the announcement reported by the Chillicothe Gazette. “Before anything is written, we want to hear from our residents. I encourage everyone to join us at the Armory on Nov. 16 and share their ideas.”
The city’s Department of Planning and Development is leading the effort alongside American Structurepoint, the firm that helped create the development code, according to the Gazette. The evening will begin with a brief overview of how other Ohio and regional communities are approaching data centers, battery storage and crypto mining — questions of power demand, water use, noise, building scale and distance from homes that have divided planning meetings across the state.
After the overview, residents can share ideas, questions and concerns and speak individually with city staff and the city’s planning consultant, the Gazette reported. That format matters: instead of three minutes at a microphone after a decision is drafted, Chillicothe is collecting input while the page is still blank.
The stakes are real for Ross County. Southern Ohio is squarely in the path of the state’s data-center and energy buildout — see our coverage of the $37 billion energy hub planned for Piketon, just down U.S. 23 — and of Chillicothe’s own Hopewell park internship earning a university partner honor. Communities that write their standards early negotiate from strength; communities that wait often find themselves reacting to a specific proposal under deadline pressure.
Public feedback from the open house will help guide draft language that could be added to the Unified Development Code, the Gazette reported. Once draft language exists, it will go to the city’s Planning Commission for review before being sent to City Council for consideration — two more public steps where residents can weigh in.
Residents who attend can expect the discussion to range over the questions these facilities raise in town after town: how much electricity and water a data center draws, how its backup generators and cooling systems sound at the property line, how tall and how close to homes its buildings should sit, and what a community receives in return in jobs and tax base. Battery storage raises its own questions about fire safety and setbacks, and cryptocurrency mining has drawn noise complaints in communities elsewhere in Ohio — all of it easier to govern with standards written before a specific application is on the table.
Chillicothe is also writing from a position of recent experience. The city replaced its development code just last year, in October 2025, and this process is a targeted repair to that new code rather than a rewrite of it, according to the Gazette’s account. Filling the data-center gap now means the next proposal that arrives at City Hall gets measured against rules the community chose — not against silence that lawyers on both sides would have to interpret.
For more information, residents can email [email protected] or call 740-774-1185, according to the announcement. What happens next is Monday’s open house itself: 5:30 p.m., November 16, at the Armory in Yoctangee Park — and then the first draft of rules that Chillicothe residents will have had a hand in writing.