Data center fight could change the future of Grove City
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Grove City residents and leaders are clashing over a proposed charter amendment that one side says would protect the city and the other says would destroy its economic prospects.
Why it matters: The conflict is a microcosm of nationwide pushback against unpopular data centers and one of the most extreme local attempts to stop them.
Catch up quick: This summer, Grove City residents pushed back so hard on a planned 300-acre project that city council enacted a one-year moratorium on all data center projects, including the $6.9 billion planned campus.
- But the opposition group Protect Grove City didn't stop there — they drafted a charter amendment that aims to block data centers and other large development projects unless voters approve them individually.
- They gathered more than 2,000 signatures, enough to force city council to add the proposed amendment to the November ballot.
Yes, but: The amendment doesn't just limit data centers.
- If passed, any Grove City development that occupies 50 or more acres, uses 20 megawatts of power or consumes 500,000 gallons of water a day would be subject to a referendum.
- It would also require the developer to pay for related ballot costs.
The other side: Some Grove City and regional economic development leaders say the amendment's effect would be devastating.
- "It would literally kill the city," Council President Ted Berry tells Axios.
- "This is not a data center amendment," says former U.S. Rep. and current Ohio Chamber of Commerce CEO Steve Stivers. "It's a development amendment, and it basically says, 'We don't want to grow.'"
That's a risk Protect Grove City is willing to take for what they say is an effort to "give people a voice."
- Jen Belt, one of the group's leaders, tells Axios they feel city leaders are no longer representing them.
- "What we're seeing around the country is that our interests are not being considered. You're not hearing us."
The latest: At a special meeting Thursday, the day before the deadline for council to put it on the ballot, the group will ask council to replace the original amendment with a "compromise" version that replaces the 50-acre threshold with 750,000 square feet of floor area and removes requirements for existing companies.
- Protect Grove City would withdraw the previous amendment if council sent the new one to the ballot.
But the new version was drafted this week and hasn't undergone public vetting. Council is unlikely to adopt it instead of the amendment for which the petitioners collected signatures.
- "It's almost like a blackmailing technique," Berry says.
- Belt says the group was "willing to come to the table" in good faith, which isn't blackmail.
The bottom line: Berry says the issue "fails miserably" in his own polling and seems ready to let it go to the ballot as written.
- "Obviously, the tide has turned, and they don't have the support to get it passed," he says.
- "Whichever version goes on the ballot, we'll be campaigning for the passage of that this November," Belt says.