At the end of a long-term planning discussion with the Summit County Council May 6, eastern Summit County planning commissioner David Darcey noted there's a big topic that county planning documents don't address: data centers.
“And this is kind of unfair to everybody, because it's been very recent,” he said, referencing a controversial data center approval in Box Elder County. “We have exactly the same scenario as what Box Elder has. We have a natural gas pipeline that is ... only halfway full.”
Warehouses of servers and computing equipment are popping up around rural America: the physical infrastructure behind the growth of artificial intelligence products.
Data centers also demand power and water. That’s partly why the data center Box Elder commissioners recently approved on the shore of the receding Great Salt Lake angered Utahns.
KUER reports the three-member commission felt their hands were tied and “were the last to know” about the project.
The state leaders backing it say it will be powered by a nearby natural gas line.
Multiple gas pipelines come into Summit County from Wyoming along Chalk Creek Road. The largest, which continues into the Wasatch Front and south along I-15, is operated by Kern River Gas.
“It's got a [billion cubic feet] a day of unused capacity. That's — that could generate a lot of electricity,” Darcey said. “So it's something as we think about what we want to put in the general plan, what do we think about data centers?”
A new eastside general plan
The Summit County Planning Department and volunteers serving on the Eastern Summit County Planning Commission are completely rewriting the area’s general plan.
That’s the document that guides future land use and the local laws that hamper or promote development.
According to Community Development Director Peter Barnes, the eastside is due for a more comprehensive update than the Snyderville Basin, which is similarly updating its own general plan.
“What we did [on the eastside] in 2017 was essentially just a zoning map change with some code amendments attached to it,” he said May 6. “These guys are essentially writing a general plan from scratch. There are no future land use maps in the existing general plan.”
Councilmember Tonja Hanson said the planning document, although non-binding, has a big impact in practice.
That prompted Darcey’s comment on the lack of regulations for data centers. It’s not clear what zone, if any, would allow or disallow such a project.
“Developers look at that plan and go, ‘Oh, but this is what it says in the general plan,’ or, ‘This is what it doesn't say in the general plan. So that means we have latitude there,’” Hanson said.
New Snyderville Basin and eastside general plans have been years in the making.
County staff are working with planning commissioners on each chapter one at a time. They cover topics such as water, transportation and other land use issues.
Residents will be able to comment on complete drafts before the planning commission forwards them to the county council for adoption.
More information about how to get involved is available on the county planning department's website.
