HAMILTON — A rural Butler County township’s ban on data centers got a county stamp of approval on Tuesday, November 10, when the five members present from the eight-person Butler County Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of an amendment that would prohibit data centers from being built in St. Clair Township, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The resolution now heads back to the township, where the three elected township trustees will ultimately vote on it — and interviews with the trustees suggest it is likely to pass, the Enquirer reported. Two of the three trustees have said they would pass the amendment.
St. Clair Township Trustee Dustin Gadd said during the meeting on November 10 that he would support the ban proposed by the zoning commission, the Enquirer reported. “There’s not enough room in St. Clair Township to put this mega data center,” Gadd said, according to the Enquirer. Trustee Wanda Jones also previously told the Enquirer she fully supports township residents in opposing the data center and is “standing behind a ban to protect our community residents and the wildlife in the area.”
The zoning amendment is the latest hurdle for a $5 billion Amazon data center planned for land just outside Trenton, the Enquirer reported. Amazon plans to build on about 600 acres just south of Trenton in two rural townships, including St. Clair Township. Trenton’s own residents voted overwhelmingly on November 3 to ban large data centers from their city — but that ban applies only within Trenton’s city limits, so the project’s remaining path runs through township land. If the St. Clair Township change passes, the Enquirer reported, it could block the project entirely.
Planning commission member Jeffrey Griffith said he expects St. Clair Township’s zoning text amendment to become “a template for the rest of us,” the Enquirer reported. “I think we’ll see a lot more of these coming out of the townships,” Griffith said, according to the Enquirer.
What happens next: the resolution goes back to the St. Clair Township Zoning Commission, which will finalize the amendment before sending it to the township trustees for a final vote.
Photo: Greg Hume, CC BY-SA