Ohio leads the nation in data center-related ballot measures in the upcoming election, with 21 initiatives across 18 municipalities. Voters in communities stretching from Trenton in the state's southwest to Defiance in the rural northwest will decide whether to adopt regulations limiting the construction of hyper-scale data centers. The state has more than 200 data center projects planned or under construction, the fifth highest total in the nation.
In Grove City, southwest of Columbus, a measure called Issue 28 could thwart a development already in the works. The data center development company Headwaters submitted a preliminary plan to the city in May, asking Grove City to annex 310 acres southwest of the city for a campus with at least six warehouses of servers.
The property Headwaters wants to develop sits directly across the street from Patricia Spillman's family farm, which the Spillman family founded in 1861. Spillman said she was approached about selling but strongly declined. She did not say how much Headwaters offered for the 100 acres the farm sits on, but she described a 32-acre plot down the road that sold to the developers for $1.5 million, or $46,875 per acre. Realtor Ryan Deeter said land prices depend heavily on parcel size: the median sale price in Grove City over the last three years is around $81,700 per acre, but for the nine parcels larger than 20 acres, the median was closer to $20,000 per acre. The sale is contingent on the city annexing the 310 acres and Headwaters securing permits.
"It's sickening to look at that. It's not just me, it's all of my neighbors out here, all of our houses are gone and it's all replaced with warehouses," Spillman said, gesturing to the cornfield across the street. Rather than wait for an official proposal, she joined forces with Jen Belt and Karen Church to form Protect Grove City. "We formed a coalition fairly quickly and made sure that all residents within a three-mile radius of the site were aware of the workings that were going on," Belt said, adding that the group pushed for a moratorium to win a pause.
Grove City's City Council passed a year-long moratorium on data center development in June. Adjacent Jackson Township passed its own year-long moratorium, and nearby Pleasant Township passed a permanent one. But Protect Grove City concluded a temporary pause would only delay data centers, not stop them. "After that we realized very quickly that we probably should get something more permanent to happen so that we didn't have to exhaust ourselves every time a data center came wanting to build in this area," Belt said.
The group worked with Cleveland-area attorney Robert Dintaman to draft a city charter amendment called the Community Consent Amendment. It names data centers only once, in a list of examples of "Heavy Industrial Development," defined as any proposed development occupying 50 or more acres, drawing more than 20 megawatts of power at peak electrical capacity, or consuming more than 500,000 gallons of water a day. Belt said the wording was deliberate, pointing to communities that restrict data centers directly and end up sued or accused of discriminating against an industry. Urbana, in Champaign County, is currently facing such a lawsuit from a developer over the city's ban, with the developer arguing the regulations violate state and federal laws. Other Ohio communities have taken similar approaches, from banning industries that use certain amounts of electricity to requiring financial guarantees from developers seeking tax incentives.
Opposition to Issue 28 has organized under the name Save Grove City, which argues the amendment is too broad and could harm development in the city. "It does not talk about industry. It does not talk about if it's a non-profit. It doesn't talk about if it's a school or whatever," said Cassie Ferguson, a volunteer with the group. Asked about the legal concerns behind the broad wording, Ferguson said, "let them sue," adding that residents, elected officials and staff would be able to counter such a challenge. Ferguson also warned the measure could interfere with Issue 6, a bond issue to replace Grove City High School and Westland High School, saying the new high school could have to go before voters next year, causing delays and added costs.
Protect Grove City counters that the city's law director has some discretion over what triggers a citywide vote, backed by a citizen appeal process. Grove City Mayor Ike Stage, who opposes Issue 28, rejects that interpretation, saying it is not how law director Stephen J. Smith reads the amendment. "The law director, I think, in a couple situations, made it very clear that if this amendment goes through and it goes into our constitution, our city charter, he can't make any discretionary decisions," Stage said. "What is written is written."
Preliminary campaign finance filings with the Franklin County Board of Elections show a wide funding gap between the two camps. Protect Grove City has raised just more than $3,500 from 34 unique donors, while Save Grove City has raised $145,000 from eight unique donors. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce is behind the opposition group. "In coordination with local officials and stakeholders in Grove City, the Ohio Chamber helped establish the 'No on Issue 28' committee," said Adam Rapien, the chamber's senior vice president of political engagement, calling Issue 28 "an overly broad and inflexible approach that will create significant barriers to responsible economic growth." Chamber officials did not respond when asked which local officials they worked with. Beyond the chamber's $50,000 contribution, Save Grove City has received nearly $100,000 from construction contractor political action committees, reflecting an industry the source describes as supportive of data center development less out of enthusiasm for server warehouses than for construction itself.
