Plans for an $860 million data center project in Edgerton are moving forward despite the city’s planning commission rejecting it in June.
On July 16, during a special meeting, the Edgerton City Council unanimously overrode the planning commission’s rejection of final plans from Dubai-based DAMAC Digital for a data center project at the Logistics Park Kansas City warehouse at 31800 W. 196th St.
The city council’s override comes about a month after the city council voted on June 15 to deny a six-month ban on data centers, which would have temporarily prevented applications for facilities where the primary use was a data center. The vote for that was 3-2.
The city council’s approval of DAMAC Digital’s plan was “disappointing … but expected,” Edgerton resident Kim Twente said in a message to the Johnson County Post.
“This is incredibly disappointing, as it was the citizens that voted them in and that they are supposed to represent. We have expressed over and over again that we are against this project, but they continue to ignore our pleas,” she said.
DAMAC still has a final plat for the data center that needs to be approved, which will need to go back before the Edgerton Planning Commission in August and then the city council after that, Kara Banks, a spokesperson for the city, said in an email to the Johnson County Post.
DAMAC did not return a request for comment by the time of publication.
The argument centers on fuel storage location
DAMAC’s proposed facility, like other data centers, would’ve housed rows of computers meant for storing, processing and transmitting data. Here’s an explainer from the Associated Press about how data centers work.
When the planning commission denied DAMAC’s application in June, it did so because of concerns that the application did not meet the fifth standard of approval in city code: “The plan is consistent with good land planning and site engineering design principles.”
One commissioner, Adam Draskovich, who voted to reject DAMAC’s application, expressed worries at the time that the application went against the city’s zoning code (Article 5, section 5.2, subsection H, item number 4) that all fuel storage tanks, which would power the data center’s backup generators, must be located below ground. DAMAC’s application did not meet this requirement.
“I’ve gone through your entire site plan, I’ve gone through everything,” Draskovich said. “There was absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, that shows fuel storage. So, that means your fuel storage with the generators are above ground.”
At the special city council meeting, Charles Renner, DAMAC’s representative at the city council meeting, clarified that the denial was unnecessary, as the fuel tanks that support the generators will be underground, as reported by the Kansas City Star.
“They found a problem that did not exist,” Renner said at the meeting. “We’re only here for one reason, and that is because for some people, a data center is an uncomfortable topic.”
The planning commission’s decision to accept the project is based on if they’re following city codes and since the final plans for the data center are, they should be approved, Renner said.
“If we’re all saying we want to follow the code, the documents are there. Your process is there to accept it,” he said.
DAMAC has a website that contains information about the data center and frequently asked questions.
Edgerton resident expresses loss of faith in city council
Twente, a member of Public Trust Collective, a nonprofit organization focused on zoning transparency and keeping local governments honest, spoke in favor of a moratorium on data centers previously at Edgerton City Hall.
Throughout the data center discussions, the Edgerton City Council hasn’t been transparent with the public, she said.
“We cannot get straight answers from them on anything. If the data center pushes through with this, they will end up just doing what they want to do,” she said.
The city council’s override of the planning commission’s rejection of DAMAC’s application is representative of that, Twente said.
“Ultimately, a lot of trust has been lost in our city government. Our council has made it clear that they are not representing us, but are more interested in appeasing the corporations,” she said.
A representative from the city did not respond to a request for comment on Twente’s statement.
