When Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission member Justin Henninger opened a special-called meeting Tuesday night with prayer, he petitioned for "peaceful and logical conversations." Within minutes, a raucous debate ensued between P&Z, local residents, and an attorney for TenKey LandCo I LLC, the owner of the 200 acre-tract where a proposed data center with power manufacturing would be constructed.
"Go away! We don't want you here," chanted some members of the audience of about 100 people who showed up at the meeting held at Franklin-Simpson High School. The Planning and Zoning Commission later decided to table a vote on a preliminary development plan for a proposed data storage center.
It's the second time the project stalled before regulators after the commission declined last October to amend regulations to classify data centers as one of the permitted uses for land with a heavy industrial zoning regulation.
Simpson County Judge-Executive Mason Barnes said he heard too much conflicting information Tuesday about the impact to local resources like water and sewer services.
"I was a little amazed there were so many discrepancies in their permit applications and what they actually said, and then different numbers on different things," Barnes said. "I felt like that was the message given tonight, 'We want you to ignore all of this, but let us do it.'"
The Planning and Zoning Commission scheduled a Feb. 5 meeting to reconsider the preliminary development plan.
"The preliminary application presented to the Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission tonight was an early step met with thoughtful questions from the community," said Gregory Dutton, an attorney representing TenKey LandCo I LLC. "The best way to get to those answers is to approve the application and move the project forward into the full development plan process that will take several months to complete and include numerous investigations, studies and assessments to ensure the project meets all applicable local, state and federal requirements. We are confident we will receive an affirmative vote on Feb. 5 given that the project's preliminary development plan application meets all applicable requirements."
The developer, OTN Group, submitted applications requesting more than 15,000 gallons of water daily to operate the data center campus.
Dutton told the commission that local utilities have stated they have enough capacity to meet the project's needs for water usage and energy until on-site natural gas turbines are installed to power the data center.
Riley Bright, who owns an antique business next to where the data center would be located off Exit 2 on I-65, said his main concern is noise.
"These decibels are going to penetrate our building," Bright said. "The generators create a silent noise that can penetrate walls and can vibrate windows."
TenKey LandCo I LLC has proposed three, 200,000-square-foot facilities that would be built over a three-year period. The data center and on-site power manufacturing would be located on Steele Road at the southern end of Franklin.
In addition to ongoing concerns about water consumption, noise pollution, and energy grid strain, residents also expressed fears about the data center being located on a karst landscape where dissolving bedrock has created sinkholes, streams, and caves.
Simpson County Fiscal Court recently passed an ordinance requiring developers to get a conditional use permit, which would give local government more control over how a data center would operate.
Dutton argues the ordinance doesn't apply to this project because the proposed site is within the city limits of Franklin. Barnes, however, disagrees.
"It's a county-wide ordinance that envelops both the incorporated and unincorporated areas of the county."
According to TenKey LandCo I LLC, the project represents a nearly $5 billion investment with at least 100 jobs and a minimum salary of $80,000, along with tax revenue estimates of more than $17 million to help fund public services and infrastructure.
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