Data centers, solar farms get defined at hearing

WAUPACA – The Waupaca County Planning and Zoning Committee public hearing was rescheduled to 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17 at the Waupaca Recreation Center because at the previous meeting so many people showed up the venue was past its fire-code capacity.

The topic of the meeting regarded revisions to the Waupaca County Chapter 34 zoning ordinances. It pertained to verbiage to be excised, changed or added to existing ordinances regarding data centers, solar farms, battery storage facilities and do-digesters.

At Thursday’s meeting, 200 folding chairs were set up in the Augie Austin gymnasium and almost all seats were taken. Other people sat on the bleachers and there was a small I’d-rather-stand crowd in the rear.

The meeting opened with this disclosure: there are no proposed projects in any unincorporated townships in Waupaca County and no members of the committee have signed any non-disclosure agreements with any developers.

Ryan Brown, Director of Waupaca County Planning and Zoning, took the stage and explained step-by-step the new changes to the language in the ordinance. As he explained, the ordinances were outdated, that technology has rapidly progressed and the local laws in the books did not reflect that.

He explained, for example, that solar farms would be defined in megawatts and not as an outdated square-foot measurement. He explained that there was nothing in the ordinance that defined was a data center was and how it should be identified for what kind of use.

After that, the floor was opened up to public comments and many citizens stepped up to the microphone.

This was the start of a very convoluted, subject-changing public discussion: one person would speak about solar farms, another about co-digesters, another about water quality, and another about the sand mine in Iola and more about data centers, township autonomy and local control, circulating petitions, generational stewardship and thinking about our children, air contamination, cow manure, the mathematics of burning methane gas, the comprehensive plans of townships, and the wonderful natural environment of Waupaca County.

Over thirty people spoke, multiple letters and emails were read aloud to the audience and one Zoom call was broadcast.

There were six squad vehicles parked outside the rec center and Waupaca police officers were present along with county deputies. The only civil disobedience of the evening was when the committee chair asked the audience to stop their applause after Patricia Craig addressed the committee and got a huge ovation. His request was ignored and the audience continued to clap, cheer and jeer throughout the evening.

After the public comments, the committee had back-and-forth discussions regarding data centers, solar farms, battery storage and co-digesters. Brown was on standby and made continual clarifications over the next hour.  The committee voted unanimously to accept the new and wording on solar farms and battery storage and how data centers are defined. They decided to table the co-digester subject for further review. Their next meeting will be Dec. 3.