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Council discusses data center interest; Administration proposes zoning limit
Summary
Council members discussed private interest in building data centers in Alliance and an Administration proposal to limit data centers to a particular zoning district (referred to in the transcript as '12'); council raised concerns about energy demand and grid impacts, which city staff said are Ohio Edison responsibilities.
Council members questioned staff about recent inquiries from a company interested in locating a data center in Alliance. A staff member (Dreger) confirmed there has been interest and said the Administration is proposing a zoning limit that would confine data centers to a district referred to in the discussion as '12'.
Council member Kiko expressed concerns about the energy demands of data centers: "There is a lot of controversy about data centers. One of the concerns is that they really compromise the power grid because they require so much energy." Dreger responded that grid-capacity and reliability are governed by the electric utility, saying the issue "is an Ohio Edison issue, not one for us with respect to that." No specific parcel count or map analysis was provided during the meeting; Attorney Fink addressed a related question but did not provide a numerical tally of affected properties.
Council asked whether the city would coordinate with Ohio Edison and other stakeholders; staff said the proposed zoning would place data centers at the east and north perimeters of the city but did not supply a list of parcels. Mastroianni said a Planning Commission review will follow for related zoning changes.
