Franklin County APC pauses data-center code adoption to incorporate conference-sourced revisions

The Franklin County Area Planning Commission on Tuesday agreed to send conference-sourced feedback on a draft data-center ordinance to its work group for integration into a new “version 5,” while keeping the publicly posted version 4 available for notice and comment.

David Mannix, who presented the memorandum update, said the document posted after prior meetings incorporated about 23 revisions from public feedback. “This document was released, after last month’s meeting, which was a review of the May public hearing. There were 20 odd requests made by the public… and there were a total of 23 revisions that we made based on the public hearing feedback,” Mannix said.

Rob Sig, who attended an industry conference, told the commission he heard recurring practices other counties use that could strengthen the ordinance: separate drainage use and maintenance agreements (distinct from road-use agreements), more frequent construction-stage meetings between county staff and developers, and clearer requirements for decommissioning plans and escrow or bond mechanisms. “I heard a lot of feedback from people that are doing solar, batteries, storage…there was at least 4 or 5 different use agreements for road use, for drainage,” Sig said, urging the committee to collect sample agreements as templates.

Mannix responded that the most effective approach would be to have the ordinance require those specific user agreements while leaving the granular contractual language to separate development agreements. “The ordinance should just make the requirement that that agreement’s in place, and the details would be in that contract,” Mannix said, adding that the work group could draft a small set of targeted changes to version 4 and present them at the next APC meeting.

Commissioners discussed timing and public notice. They noted the newspaper advertisement deadline mentioned in the meeting (July 18) and debated whether to post version 4 now and present the proposed minor changes at the same public hearing, or to wait and advertise a new version. The group generally agreed the work group could prepare a short list of changes quickly, that posted drafts should be available to the public, and that a public hearing could be scheduled later in the calendar window discussed (members referenced a likely hearing in September, subject to committee follow-up).

The commission did not take a formal vote to adopt the ordinance at the meeting. Instead, it directed the work group to draft the proposed updates from the conference feedback, post the revised draft for public access, and return the revisions for APC review at the next meeting.

Next steps: the work group will draft version 5 incorporating the identified items and present it to the APC for review; the commission discussed advertising/version posting logistics so the public can review the posted draft before any hearing.