Stark County planner schedules public hearings to update floodplain and animal feeding rules; data center work deferred to workshop

County planner Steve Josephson told the Stark County Planning and Zoning Commission on Jan. 29 that staff will bring several zoning and subdivision ordinance changes to public hearing at the commission’s next meeting.

Josephson said he is preparing an edited copy of the zoning ordinance to include amendments from the past year and will post it online and mail hard copies to commissioners. "We'll post that. And also, I'll mail out hard copies of that to, you know, to the planning and zoning, the planning and zoning commissioners," he said.

He asked the commission to schedule public hearings on two items at the next meeting: updating the floodplain-management ordinance to correct statutory references following changes to the Century Code, and revising commercial animal feeding operation standards to align with a newer state model ordinance. Josephson said the animal-feeding updates are "mostly about distances" and that the state’s model is still being finalized, but local references should be made consistent with state law now.

Josephson also updated the commission on the data center task force, noting the group has focused on defining sound standards and mitigation; he said staff will circulate the task force’s work and that consultants may present on data centers, solar farms, and battery energy storage systems at a future meeting or workshop when draft standards are available.

He identified a separate, noncontroversial correction in the subdivision ordinance: tree-planting setbacks were inconsistent between sections (one section said 125 feet from a section-line or county-road centerline; another said 100 feet). Josephson proposed changing the subsection to 125 feet for consistency. He also suggested clarifying that the agronomy center north of South Heart — which was approved with a conditional-use permit for on-site storage and distribution of agricultural chemicals, fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia — is an allowed use in the commercial zoning district language for clarity.

The commission agreed to schedule public hearings for the floodplain management and commercial animal feeding operation amendments, and to include cleanup (typographical) fixes on the agenda.