Kuna council approves rezone for Gemstone Technology Park after debate over traffic, water and school impacts

The Kuna City Council voted 3-2 to approve a comprehensive plan map amendment and rezone for a proposed data center campus called Gemstone Technology Park, a phased project the applicant says would occupy about 620 acres south of Kuna and be developed over roughly a decade.

The application by Diode Ventures (presented by attorney Heath Clark and project manager John Michael Hanley) seeks to change the site’s future land-use designation from agricultural to industrial and to rezone the property to an M-1 light industrial/manufacturing zone. The council approved the change with conditions that include a requirement that Locust Grove Road serve only as secondary/emergency access and that the applicant submit a landscape and maintenance plan for a northern buffer.

Why it matters: The project’s backers say it would generate a large construction payroll, hundreds of temporary jobs and about 100 permanent positions while adding substantial property-tax revenue and mitigation payments for local emergency services. Opponents — many of them neighbors along Locust Grove and Cloverdale roads — warned the council that construction traffic, long-term vehicle trips, groundwater and wastewater use, and strain on school capacity could harm the rural community if infrastructure upgrades are not guaranteed.

What the applicant told the council

Doug Hansen, Kuna planning and zoning director, opened the hearing by summarizing the request and noting staff’s finding that the application complies with Kuna City Code, Idaho Code and the previously approved Osprey Ridge development agreement.

Heath Clark, attorney for the applicant, told the council the project would be a single-user, low-intensity industrial campus that "will not connect to city water or sewer" and would instead provide on-site water and wastewater systems that must be permitted by state agencies. Clark said the campus would be phased over about 10 years and estimated 800 to 1,200 construction jobs during buildout and roughly 100…