Plainfield residents press council on RADIUS data center; town manager says Plan Commission decision stood

Town Manager Andrew Klinger told the Plainfield Town Council on Jan. 12 that the RADIUS data center project reviewed by the Plan Commission was a site and architectural approval, not a rezoning, and therefore was decided at the Plan Commission level. He said the property is already zoned I-2 industrial and that the Plan Commission found the development plans compliant with town standards.

Klinger sought to correct what he called “confusion/misinformation” after a large public turnout at the earlier Plan Commission hearing, telling the council that "the petition by RADIUS is not a zoning matter for the Town Council to hear, but a site and architectural design matter that was handled by the Plan Commission." He said staff posted the petitioner materials and the staff report online before the hearing.

Residents who spoke during the meeting raised a range of concerns about utilities, tax incentives and long-term community impacts. New citizen speaker Ms. Xue said she objected to the town’s use of "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas," calling it a sign of cultural erosion. In contrast, resident Madeline Garcia praised the inclusive wording and urged caution on offering local property tax incentives, noting state tax credits for data center equipment already exist.

Several speakers focused on technical and local-infrastructure questions. Klinger summarized the utility analysis presented to the Plan Commission, saying the petitioner stated that the data center would use a closed-loop cooling system and that "the only water consumption is for staff use, and that's estimated at less than 700 gallons per day, which is the equivalent of five or six households." He also said the Plan Commission received a will-serve letter from Duke Energy indicating the company could meet the project's critical load and that the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission is the proper forum for broader reliability questions.

IT professional Wayne Mehl told the council that even a modest data center can spark community distrust because of past industry impacts and urged the town to treat data centers as a distinct land use. "What if we get the 500 megawatt? I don't think we want that as a city," he said, emphasizing the need to consider future scale.

Other residents asked whether companies would pay for necessary utility infrastructure and how frequently closed-loop systems are flushed; Klinger said the utilities are on-site, connections would be paid by the developer, and that the systems are intended to be closed-loop with only occasional flushing, but he did not provide a flushing schedule.

Klinger also said any incentives would follow established processes and be reviewed publicly by the Redevelopment Commission and, if applicable, placed on a future Town Council agenda. The council did not take formal action on the RADIUS project at the Jan. 12 meeting; the Plan Commission's site-plan approvals remain the controlling administrative action described in the staff report.