Logan County officials approved a one-year moratorium on data center projects with a 6-4 vote May 19. That vote occurred less than a month after the Champaign County Board voted to enact its own yearlong moratorium with an 11-3 vote.
The project proposed by Hut 8, a publicly traded company from Florida, would have been smaller, and utilized less power, than the approved CyrusOne data center for Sangamon County but provided more than seven times the annual amount of revenue for Logan County.
Support of the proposal came from unions who sought the construction jobs that data centers are required to provide in order to receive state tax breaks. Despite the developer’s pledge of $65 million in annual taxes and payments, a consistent number of Logan County residents routinely showed up to County Board meetings to express their displeasure with the idea.
At the May 19 meeting, District 6 board member J. Lance Conahan said the County Board had not conducted a cost-benefit study that it said it would do following an initial moratorium. The County Board voted 9-2 at the Feb. 24 meeting in favor of a 60-day moratorium. Some residents had requested a longer moratorium, but board members indicated they might extend the 60-day moratorium if they believe they need more time.
“My personal opinion, we need more time to do it. We said we were going to do a study and that never came to fruition,” Conahan said.
The board called a meeting April 29 to discuss requests from the public to extend the 60-day moratorium after it expired in late April. About 100 people, almost all of them opposed to Hut 8’s proposed project, attended the contentious three-hour meeting but left frustrated after the board voted unanimously to postpone consideration of a moratorium extension until the board’s Zoning and Economic Development Committee discussed the matter.
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Allison Isely, who is getting signatures to run as an independent for a District 5 seat on the Logan County Board, told WCIA News the moratorium was a welcome surprise after weeks of delays and meetings.
“The last few weeks have felt like everything we’re trying to do isn’t going anywhere, so it’s a huge payoff. It feels like all the work we’ve been doing has been for something,” Isely said.
