Hancock County’s Planning & Zoning Commission voted last night to deny a request for a zoning change to build a potential data center near Garner. The unanimous vote came during a near-three hour meeting before a standing-room-only crowd.
Some three-dozen people spoke during a public hearing, with the majority opposing the data center. Garner resident and former Ventura mayor Doug Merbach says the focus should be on job retention and expanding existing businesses, not trying to attract a data center.
“I think we have great local businesses here already,” Merbach says. “Stellar, IMT, Plas-Tech. Let’s develop those companies rather than bringing in something that we don’t know anything about and we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
LeAnn Blanchard says data centers aren’t a good tool to create economic development and growth.
“Living near a data center often lowers your quality of life because of constant noise, air pollution, and rising utility costs,” Blanchard says. “This in turn lowers property values. It is one huge devaluing of the community.”
Garner city councilman Darrell Schumacher was one of the few who spoke in favor of the rezoning during the public hearing. He says Hancock County needs the development a data center would bring.
“We need an economic boost in the arm in Hancock County and for our schools,” Schumacher says. “There’s no doubt about that, folks, and when you are talking about schools, you’re talking about kids, and I’m all for that, because I’ve been in 47 years of education.”
Schumacher cited an article in the publication Farm Journal that showed electric use by data centers in 2023 was four-percent, while projections for 2030 show it at nine-percent.
“Water usage, right now, agriculture has 40-plus trillion gallons of water used every year. Golf courses are 500 billion gallons of water,” he says, “and data centers, 18 billion gallons of water on 4929 total centers.”
A limited liability corporation called MCNI asked the county to rezone some 724 acres of Concord Township from agricultural to industrial for the potential development of a data center. The unanimous decision by the Planning & Zoning Commission can be appealed by MCNI to the county’s Board of Adjustment. A company representative said they likely would appeal.
(Bob Fisher, KGLO, Mason City)