Residents and planners urge pause on Amazon AWS fuel-cell plan amid emissions and oversight concerns

Planning and Zoning is reviewing a site-plan change by Amazon Web Services that would remove a planned building and replace it with a large natural-gas fueled fuel-cell generating facility (Case PZ20559), Planning and Zoning commissioner Emily Cole and several residents told Hilliard City Council during the Oct. 14 meeting.

The issue matters, Cole said, because the change is being handled by Planning and Zoning under a narrow scope of review and will not come before council: "this technology would be the largest facility in North America, the second largest facility in the world," Cole said, and she added that the application "did not include any carbon capture technology." Residents said the city should pause and seek more information before the technology is approved.

Paul Lambert, a member of the Hilliard School Board, spoke during public comment and described the proposed fuel-cell installation and its local fiscal arrangements. "These fuel cells will give off over a million pounds of carbon dioxide per year," Lambert said. He also noted payments from AWS under an agreement with local schools and said those payments would generate "about $6,000,000 a year" when the campus is fully built out. Lambert asked council to "press pause on this project so that you have a time to ... look and see what this might do to our community."

Chris Ignat, a Darby Glen Boulevard resident who lives adjacent to the Amazon campus, told council that neither Planning and Zoning nor councilmembers had the technical information he believes is needed. "How are you going to allow PNZ to decide on these fuel cells if there's no code in place?" Ignat asked. He pressed for emissions data, EPA permitting details and monitoring records, saying "there's no code. They have nothing to even base their decision on."

City staff and commissioners noted that, because the project is a site-plan change, the Planning and Zoning Commission will be the body to review and decide the application under its statutory scope. Council members and staff did not take formal action on the matter at the Oct. 14 meeting.

What happens next: Planning and Zoning will continue its review of Case PZ20559. Council members and residents at the meeting asked for additional information on emissions, permitting, and whether local ordinances or codes should be updated to address on-site power generation of this scale.