Consultant presents proposed Unified Development Ordinance; commissioners approve UDO pending data‑center language

Brian Stone, an engineer with ACDC Engineering, told the Rush County Board of Commissioners that consultants and a steering committee spent a year consolidating the county's zoning and subdivision regulations into a single Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) designed to be searchable and easier to use.

"We're taking your current zoning ordinance and subdivision control ordinance and putting them together in one document," Stone said, explaining the UDO will reformat rules into tables, add a land‑use matrix and hyperlinks, and provide definitions for all uses so users can quickly find whether a use is allowed. He said the planning commission held a public hearing and made a unanimous favorable recommendation to the commissioners.

A committee member speaking to the board emphasized the drafting process, saying the project used steering‑committee input and public review. The consultant noted the UDO will not replace the county's comprehensive plan and that it intentionally excludes finalized data‑center regulations for separate future work: "the data center language was removed from the UDO; we will continue to work on that information before putting those provisions back in," Stone said.

Following the presentation, the board moved and voted to approve the UDO as drafted, with commissioners noting the data‑center topic will be revisited and refined following further study and public outreach. The motion carried on a voice vote.

The approval authorizes staff to proceed with implementation steps described during the presentation, including electronic publication of the document and updates to the zoning map. Commissioners asked staff to return with any errata sheets or map updates and to track further revisions to data‑center standards separately.