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City leaders host listening session on draft data center ordinance Thursday

By Robert Maharry 7 min read

The process of enacting a set of ordinances specifically governing data centers within the city of Marshalltown is moving closer to the finish line after two sessions held Thursday -- one over the lunch hour and a second from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Attendees during the noon gathering included Assistant Housing and Community Development Director/Zoning Administrator Clayton Ender, Housing and Community Development Director Deb Millizer, Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman Jon Boston and fellow commissioner Steve Valbracht, City Councilors Mark Mitchell and Gary Thompson, Marshalltown Water Works General Manager Zach Maxfield and Mark Eaton of the Board of Adjustment.

A series of displays along the wall of the first floor room where the event was held showed the proposed ordinance up to this point as it pertains to water, power, noise, overlay districts and other major considerations, and there was no formal presentation provided. Members of the public had the opportunity to engage with Ender and Boston as they walked through.

The T-R asked several random attendees for their thoughts on the issue and found a split between those who see a potential data center as a boon to the community and those who oppose them outright regardless of size and scale.

Christopher Tiernan fell into the former camp.

"Based on my understanding, it's supposed to bring in $3 million more revenue into the city, which could be used to improve our streets and all that. And it's supposed to be a closed loop system, so it's not gonna use a huge amount of water. It sounds practical to me," he said. "The city always has budget constraints. They don't know how to manage their money, but I'm not on the city council so I can't comment."

Monte Eaton, who lives just outside of Marshalltown, had a similar take.

"What's the negative to it?" he asked. "They're gonna bring in property taxes. Granted, everybody wants more jobs, but when you bring more jobs, you have more housing and all that escalates."

He added that with the city not being asked to provide any tax incentives on a proposed Swarm Systems data center in the Edgewood Industrial Park, he failed to see the drawbacks, especially considering how many existing facilities in Marshalltown are larger than that already.

"We already have noise ordinances. We have light ordinances. We have building sizes. We have building codes," Eaton said. "We need to grow the city and get more infrastructure. Once one is located here, everybody else is gonna want to locate. Nobody wants to be the first guy in the door. That's generally the way it works."

Dan Vaske admitted that he came into the session with "very little knowledge" on the data center controversy and came into the session with a healthy sense of skepticism, but he left feeling that a data center could work in Marshalltown.

"It's gonna benefit most of the other industries that we have," he said.

On the other side, Cindy Mayer remains opposed to a data center "no matter what," she told the T-R.

"It's not a very big employer for Marshalltown," she said. "(I'd like to see) more stores out at the mall, get some other stores in town, like maybe Kohl's or something, get some industries in town that will employ a lot of people. John Deere wanted to come at one time, but the city said no."

The John Deere situation, Vaske noted, unfolded over four decades ago.

"They need to bring some industries that are going to really employ some people, not just five or 10 people full-time. More than that," Mayer said. "These people are billionaires that are building these. Zuckerberg, Bezos, all these people, they're all in this AI rush (saying) 'Oh, we've got to beat China.' We have three times as many data centers as China does. Why do we need to beat China? I don't understand what the rush is except for AI."

Mayer added that she does not use artificial intelligence (AI). Mitchell told the T-R he is currently seeking information on how data centers affect cattle populations, and Barb Brown said she opposes them for environmental reasons.

"My fear is, once they let one in there, we're gonna have a hyperscale (facility). That's my fear," Brown said. "The only limit is gonna be 300 feet (from homes), so if they buy out there in those two areas where they have, they can put as many as they want -- Edgewood and east on 18th Avenue... The number one reason (I'm opposed) is I am afraid of what's our wildlife gonna do? What's our farmland gonna do? There's so many other places that their animals don't produce. They're stillborn."

Boston, flanked by Valbracht, commented that he feels they are "really close" to sending a full-fledged ordinance to the city council for three readings and formal approval. The Commission is scheduled to meet for another work session on Thursday, Oct. 8 with the plan to host a public hearing on Oct. 15 followed by a recommendation to send it to the council for its first reading during the Oct. 26 meeting.

"We've seen the attitude change. You know, the very first meeting we had, it was like 'Oh, the sky is falling, it's terrible.' The media only seems to write articles about how bad data centers are and not how the new ones are fixing all the problems," Boston said. "Actually, I think that if we get one installed and people see it running, it's gonna be one of the lowest impact general industrial sites in town because they're gonna meet all these requirements that we put out, and they're not gonna start out huge... And they like Marshalltown because this is a central point for all of these electrical lines."

As the first session of the day wound down, Ender told the T-R he was processing the feedback he had received thus far before updating the ordinance with a third draft that will return to the P&Z Commission next week. The second draft can be viewed online at the city website by checking the agenda for the listening session at this link: https://marshalltownia.portal.civicclerk.com/event/4310/files/attachment/13417.

According to Ender, he is still working on fine-tuning the electric elements based on written comments received from Alliant Energy to focus more on the physical infrastructure than the consumption itself, noting that the regulatory authority there lies with the state of Iowa. Setting clear guidelines on generator noise is also a high priority except for "legitimate emergencies" when the grid is down.

The question of whether data center overlay districts should be established in both the Edgewood Industrial Park and east of 18th Avenue is still unresolved, and Ender said they are being considered because the community conversation has already centered around those areas. Another focus was protections for residents outside of the city limits who may be affected by data center development, with a reminder that the city's regulatory jurisdiction is limited to its own borders.

The data center issue has become one of the most divisive in recent memory here, with contentious council meetings and rampant social media debate over the last few months, but Ender feels that residents are doing a good job of expressing their viewpoints in a respectful manner.

"I do believe that the work has been productive. People have been civil. Certainly, emotions have shown during meetings. I've felt, throughout this entire process, (that) people have predominantly been civil," he said. "And I've been very happy about that because we have heard news stories where things have gotten really bad in communities, and I'm very proud of our community not going to those lows and staying level-headed. It's OK for us to disagree, but we need to remain civil about this and follow the procedure."

Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.

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