With AI data center proposals already being debated in Central Illinois, including in Logan County and Pekin, some officials want to be ready if one finds it way to McLean County.
The McLean County Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday unanimously recommended an amendment that will now move to the county board next week. It includes language on where data centers can be located, and what is required if one is proposed in the county.
Lea Cline, chair of the Land Use and Transportation committee, spoke about the amendment drafted in collaboration with fellow McLean County Board members Jim Rogal and Adam Reeves about how the county’s current zoning laws can be refined to address data centers.
“We spent several months visiting data centers, reading about the industry and learning from other counties and states about approaches to zoning around this industry,” said Cline. “Our goal was to create zoning language that gives the county meaningful oversight while remaining flexible enough to address a rapidly evolving industry.”
Cline said a key point was to acknowledge the variability of data centers, since they cannot be easily defined.
“They range from small modular facilities, of which there are two in Bloomington that you probably pass by and you don’t know it, to very large hyper-scale operations,” she said.
The large centers now being considered around Illinois and the country are what are recognized as “AI farms.” They are different from the small computing centers that have been around for some time.
Cline said because of the nature of the large facilities, she and her colleagues avoided writing specific language that officials would be unable to adapt as quickly as the centers themselves.
“Instead, the draft before you is organized around categories of documentation and performance standards, screening and lighting, road access, emergency planning, water use, power demand, battery storage and noise compliance,” said Cline.
“The intent is to require applicants to clearly document the impacts of their specific proposal and to give this board, and ultimately the county board, the ability to evaluate each project on its own terms based on its size, technology, location and infrastructure design.”
The current county zoning would allow data centers in agriculture, commercial and both M1 and M2 manufacturing districts. The amendment would only allow proposals in the manufacturing districts to address concerns about sacrificing valuable farmland.
“That change reflects concerns about land use compatibility and the preservation of agricultural areas in practical terms,” said Cline. “This amendment prohibits the siting of large-scale AI farms or similar facilities in agricultural zoned areas of the county.”
Proposed legislation
One part of the data centers the county does not regulate, as Cline made a point of clarifying, is the internal operation of the facilities. She said that is under the authority of the state.
“To that end, there have been multiple bills introduced this session in Springfield that address industry regulation, infrastructure use and related issues. The county is supporting efforts at the state level through our legislative advocacy,” Cline said.
She did not declare whether or not the board would consider banning data centers outright, especially since some already exist, but the goal of the amendment is to preserve the county’s ability to do so.
The primary concerns residents near proposed data centers have focused on is the effect on the environment, notably water because data centers require a lot of it to cool their servers.
Cline said under the amendment, a proposal would need to disclose how much water use would be expected, and what kind of cooling system would be used.
“We couldn’t put specifics on either of those because they’re dynamic. You’re going to have to ask the applicant to provide a context for what they’re using and how they’re using it, etc.,” she said. “So, if I could just say to anticipate the state law ... proposals that have legs really, in the legislature, all of them are requiring that the applicants will have to provide some of their own electricity.”
Other legislation would put restrictions on battery storage for the centers or reduce light pollution.
While the language of the McLean County amendment remains vague, it gives the county the ability to wait and see what Springfield has an appetite for and address later on its own.
Cline said, “…probably what we will do is wait for this legislative system schedule to pass through and see what has come out and then go back and look and see if there’s anything that wasn’t covered that we would like to cover locally that is in our authority to cover, because there are certain things that we cannot require as zoning authority that some people want to cover.”
The county board will review the amendment at its March 12 meeting.
