The Nobles County Board of Commissioners is expected to vote Tuesday morning on a zoning measure that could allow data centers to be built in areas of the southwestern Minnesota county that are now zoned for agricultural preservation.
The text amendment to the county’s zoning ordinance would allow data centers as a light industrial use in agriculture preservation districts, said Bruce Heitkamp, Nobles County administrator. Currently, data centers are not permitted to be placed in those areas.
“Seventy to 80 percent of Nobles County is in ag preservation district. It’s our No. 1 industry,” Heitkamp told MPR News. “Down here, it’s 70 percent of our tax base. So, if that text amendment was approved, data centers, if approved, would be approved anywhere in those ag preservation district areas.”
Earlier this month, the county’s planning commission voted down the measure after hearing from many residents who are against it. The April 8 planning committee meeting was attended by about 300 residents.
“Everybody’s concerned, and we’re concerned too. But we’re looking at the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities, the threats,” Heitkamp said. “And the commissioners are out there and trying to get as much information as they can from the varied sources that they have … and [they are] just addressing things as they’re proposed to them.”
Now, Nobles County commissioners are considering three options. The first would be to uphold the county’s planning commission’s recommendation to reject the zoning change. The second option is to direct staff to develop an alternative measure that may include stronger regulations on data centers and limit where they could be located. And the third option is to overrule the planning commission’s vote and adopt the zoning change for data centers.
A vote to approve the zoning change would be a big win for Geronimo Power, which is proposing a $4 billion data center project on about 950 acres of farmland just east of Reading, Minn.
In contrast to other data center project developers across the state — who have been very secretive about project details in advance of such votes — Geronimo Power has been very up-front with residents, hosting open houses to show details of their plans. And the company has been actively promoting the project all around the county. Nonetheless, the project has drawn significant opposition among county residents.
If approved, the Geronimo project is planned for completion by 2035 and estimated to generate about $7 million annually in tax revenue for Nobles County, according to the county’s scoping documents.
The Nobles County Powered Data Park would generate about 400 megawatts that could scale up to 1,000 megawatts of power over time. Geronimo Power would sell the site to a data center operator.
