Wilmington City Planning Commissioners unanimously tabled a vote on site plans for an Amazon data center.
The Tuesday decision to delay came after city staff highlighted several details missing from the company’s application, including water service demands and local habitat impacts.
“Staff of the Commission has not made findings of compliance at this time due to outstanding studies and unresolved review comments,” Anya Tipton, interim executive director of Clinton County Regional Planning Commission, said.
Project details
The $4 billion project would span 471 acres and is estimated to create around 100 jobs.
In the first construction phase, Amazon proposes three data center buildings, a substation, administrative building, a water treatment building and stormwater management ponds.
Planning commissioners posed several environmental and logistical questions to Amazon representatives at their meeting Tuesday.
Wilmington’s service director Michael Crowe asked for specifics on things like center cooling methods, noise mitigation and potential pollution.
These were met with responses like “That's all proprietary information" or “We can get back to you with an answer on that.”
“A lot of the things you're asking aren’t being included in the site plan submission. Obviously, like generators, things like that. Those are going to be included with a building permit submission,” said Matt Poindexter, land development director with Bohler Engineering, which is working with Amazon on the project.
“So we can certainly get you that information. That's just why they're not included.”
Contracted engineers that presented to the commission left shortly before the public comment period.
Amazon representatives that remained said they weren’t permitted to take questions from the media.
Public doubles down on missing information
The Municipal Building in downtown Wilmington was packed leading up to the decision.
The project has garnered high public engagement in the Clinton County community. Residents formed a Facebook group called Wilmington Residents for Responsible Development in late November to discuss the proposed site. As of Jan. 8, it has 3,000 members.
Many residents say Amazon is not being transparent. Several say they want the project to be scrapped altogether.
Wilmington resident Molly Boatman was one of dozens that spoke at the meeting prior to the commission making its decision.
“The planning commission now has a chance to, and the obligation to, correct this wrong by requiring Amazon to prove that all potential impacts have been resolved before giving further consideration to the site plan before you,” Boatman said.
For Wilmington resident Lacey Cluley, no unanswered questions should be left on the table.
“They have the information, and we deserve to know what it is, if it is going to have an impact on people's homes and their lives,” Cluley said. “Amazon can afford to build to our standards, not the other way around. We should be setting the price, not them, and we should be demanding what we expect out of this building, if it has to be built at all.”
The next review of the site plan hasn’t been announced.
Big plans for Ohio
The Wilmington data center is part of a larger effort by Amazon to invest in new and existing data center infrastructure across the Heartland.
By 2030, the state anticipates the multi-national company’s investments in Ohio will total $23 billion.
In a related matter, Wilmington city council is still expected to vote on a 30-year tax abatement for the data center. But a date for that hasn’t been announced.
