LEE COUNTY – Discussions around including small modular reactors (SMRs) and data centers into the county’s current ordinance regulating solar, wind and battery storage facilities, took a turn Tuesday morning.
Instead of incorporating language regulating SMRs and data centers, Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commision Assistant Director Zach James said the county would be better off with at least one new ordinance, but preferably two.
James said SEIRPC’s discussions with the county’s law firm BrownWinick, who the county retained in August, has led them to believe two ordinances would be better considering the size of regulation around data centers, and the still-developing guidance around SMRs.
“We had talked about incorporating small modular reactors into the wind, solar, battery. They suggested we should do that as its own ordinance. It’s unique and different enough about SMR and nuclear energy that it should probably be it’s own thing,” James said.
He said that will be SEIRPC’s approach following those conversations and he said applications can be completely different than wind or battery storage. But he said the first phase will be to focus on data centers with a project on the east side of Fort Madison that has segments both in the city and Lee County.
The City of Fort Madison is working on their own ordinances for high-impact development as well as a two-mile territorial jurisdiction ordinance.
James said there is way more information available to move quicker with the date center code language, than there is with nuclear reactors. Because of that, SEIRPC will be able to move quicker to finalize language along those discussions.
“That doesn’t mean were not going to go through a good process for data, but it will take us a little longer to figure the reactor side,” James said.
He said SEIRPC has pulled data from other counties and cities to understand what ordinances look like regarding data centers. He said there is a ton of research also available from Virginia where data centers are very prevalent. There were also universities in and out of state, the Brookings Institute, Iowa State Association of Counties, National Association of Counties, and law firms who are experienced in data center regulations and pitfalls.
“These are the resources we’re looking at for Lee County,” he said.
Plans this month include continuing discussions around the two new ordinances and conduct further research. November would be to finalize draft ordinances and present to the county attorney for review, and then get the proposals in front of the board of supervisors.
December, if all things went according to plan, would be for public hearings on the ordinances and a final vote and approval by the board.
James said there are positive economic benefits to data centers, but the county wants to regulate the projects to ensure minimal impacts to neighboring property owners and the communities at-large.
The issue of how to assess property taxes on any proposed centers is also critical to help balance out the developments across the country.
Supervisor Garry Seyb if other states are doing data centers and taxing them, and Lee County didn’t they could get overrun with development, especially with no zoning or permitting required other than for haul roads for equipment.
James said Des Moines County has a small bitcoin mining facility near Big River Resources in West Burlington. Big River is a corn ethanol and grain facility just northwest of the city.
He said the land was taxed at $25,300 before the facility, and now the land is taxed at $174,800. The building is taxed at $118,200.
Supervisor Chair Ginger Knisley said the taxation of the facilities is also worthy of heavy research as part of the contract with SEIRPC.
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