On the agenda: Monroeville minutes — data center (Aug 31)

Planning Commission Meeting 8/17/2026
The Planning Commission for the Village of Monroeville met at 6:00pm in Council chambers, for the
purpose of discussing rules and regulations for data centers.
Present at roll call:
Chris Raftery
Chris Sherley
Jim Morrow

Joe Galea, Mayor
Elisa Brown

Also attending:
Tammy Schlachter, Jim Ehrman, Eunice Collene, Andrew Brown, Scott Summerlin, Ken Underwood, and
Jill Tangeman.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Mr. Jim Morrow made a motion to approve the Planning Commission minutes of June 22, 2026. Seconded
by Mayor Joe Galea. Motion carried.

Ms. Raftery opened the meeting for discussion. Ms. Brown began by explaining that tonight it was the

intention of this committee to see a summary of the feedback that's been received that she
believes is a running log of what we need to consider as we move through this process. So, she
put together a document that is less comprehensive than the original one was but wanted to
point out that we're hearing different things at all the meetings. Council meetings, zoning
meetings, community feedback in general, and to put it all into one comprehensive place so that
way as the commission looks at putting together zoning code, all of the things, all of the concerns,
all of the worries are brought before the people who need to discuss them and look at it
comprehensively. She would like to go through some of the upper-level things that people have
said so they are able to say these are what they’ve got from the residents, they’re summarized,
and these are some of the things that they need to work on. Ms. Brown continued by saying this
summary could then be provided to our legal counsel to help with the creation of the ordinance.
And in doing so, to consider these items as this should not be a copy and paste situation.
Ms. Brown asked the members to go through the feedback summary for some considerations
such as protection of homes, schools, tracks, athletic areas, parks, waterways and other sensitive
places as well as location, scale and project as they are all very important items to consider. Also,
to look at the use of best available technology to reduce noise, vibration, emissions, water use,
energy demand, heat, lighting, waste, and safety risks. Along with meaningful limits on project
size, megawatt demand, generator use, water consumption, expansion, and full campus buildout. Clear disclosure of the project's intended purpose, owner, operator, and known and
anticipated tenants to have the full picture of the project. Also, residents have said they would
like applicant-funded infrastructure, professional review, monitoring, emergency service needs,
enforcement, and decommissioning, which is something that was in the Plain City ordinance that
Joe brought at the last meeting. Something that's important is transparent public information,
direct citizen outreach, and complaint response, and then also enforcement with meaningful
consequences. Also, fair opportunities for local contractors and measurable benefits that will
reach the entire community as a whole and not just subsets. So really what I tried to do this time
is take the feedback from the community, research from Plain City, from different townships and
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places in Pennsylvania, kind of the best data that's already in place, and put together all the things
that we should look at line by line by line, but then also supplement that with legal aid, because
this is bigger than any of the people in this room to be able to actually define these things and
protect us. The village residents shouldn't have to pay for infrastructures, reviews, monitoring,
emergency service needs, or anything else related to those improvements for the project. Safety
and traffic as well, a lot of conversations with fire and what would be required for that. Traffic,
obviously, Huron County Engineer, making sure that our roads and the different things that are
potentially damaged are also in the agreements to be fixed.
Ms. Brown continued that we must keep hearing about what our community wants and not just
a small subset. Enforcements are important. I think that must go all the way through to
potentially, if legal would allow it, all the way up to cease and desist, corrective work, all the
remediation, all those things have to be delineated. Discussion regarding site restoration as well.
Mayor Galea noted that a lot of what was brought up is identified and summarized in what Ms.
Rafferty shared with us what the city of Findlay is considering for their data center regulation
ordinance. And they've got conditional use standards for data centers, which is a proposal at this
point, but he believes it's under consideration at Findlay and it mirrors a lot of what we've talked
about with other communities' ordinances. The proposed ordinance for Findlay contains a
section on decommissioning and what would happen if the data center site were abandoned.
There are standards as far as traffic management and that these need to be included in any
conditional use plans. Environmental review and emergency services review, onsite power
generation, again, putting limits on onsite power generation and emergency generator use and
requirements for development agreements, water usage.
The Mayor continued stating that these are kind of broad strokes and we could get granular
today, which may not be necessary prior to reviewing with experienced legal counsel, which we
will be retaining here momentarily. The village has taken the steps to do that and that will happen
soon. Possibly as early as next week. He believes we have got a good framework from which to
start, and we have gotten a lot of alignment from the community on what they want to see to
make sure that any proposal is a benefit to the community and not a detriment. The message
that he is getting from the community is if we put standards in place, if we enforce our standards,
then we have good neighbors. If we fail to do that, we're not taking the community into account,
we're not keeping the accountability to the community, then that's where problems will arise.
So, I think we've got a good start to that.
Ms. Raftery commented that she was impressed with Finley’s proposed Data Center Zoning
Ordinance. It may not mirror what we're looking for, however, it does answer a lot of questions.
The layout was very well, and it would be a working tool for us. The Mayor added that he had
read it more in depth and was impressed by the level that they've gone into, and that it is, in a
lot of ways, is a representation of the type of the state-of-the-art of regulation in this area and
that they've really put some thought into it. He added that perhaps we reach out as a community
to the planning staff and the law department and everyone at Findley to see how they arrived at
this and see what insight they can give to us. And, as Ms. Raftery pointed out, some of this is not
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going to be applicable to the village as Findlay is a much different sized community than
Monroeville. He added that even though the two communities are different, he thinks Findlay
has provided something which is a good inspiration and something for us to really consider as we
move forward, and he would certainly recommend that everyone else on the commission and
also that council familiarize themselves with this document and that it should guide a lot of our
discussions because there is a lot in here with similar concerns as our community. This indicates
that our community's asking the right questions, and that the individuals that drafted their
ordinance have a lot of those considerations in mind, and they've all gone out, gotten their
community's feedback, and these are concepts and feedback and concerns that we're seeing, not
just in our own community, but, all over and represent valid, legitimate concerns. Another thing
to be aware of is that not every consideration brought to the commission is going to be something
we're going to be able to act upon. We heard in June about a lot of wide-ranging concerns, and
some of them are things that are appropriate from a land-use standpoint, and some of them are
policy considerations that go well beyond the village and need to be addressed at the state or
federal level. What we do have is the ability to set regulations that are based on health, safety,
and welfare concerns consistent with Ohio law, and I think Findlay has done a nice job to do that.
And a lot of our community’s concerns that have been outlined by Mr. Brown fit that framework.
They're legitimate community concerns. They're in some cases health-based, in some cases
they're safety-based, a combination thereof, and we need to make sure that anything we do is
backed up by research, by data, by information. When we put standards out there, they must be
grounded in something, and Findlay has done a good job of doing that, and I think that's part of
our job here.
Ms. Raftery read from one of the sections from the proposed Findlay ordinance, and believes we,
as a village are exactly in line for making sure that we mark off every one of those to the fullest
degree, and that we're going to mitigate, minimize any areas that are avoidable. The Mayor
stated he viewed this as making all data center applications conditional use in a specific industrial
district. And one thing that's been raised a lot is an overlay district. He asked Ms. Brown if she
would educate them regarding this. Ms. Brown responded that the reason she put it in the
summary is because there were a lot of questions in the community about what an overlay
district is versus a conditional use, and what is best, and what would be most beneficial. She
continued explaining in simple terms, that an overlay district is essentially a mapped area where
additional data center rules would apply on top of existing zoning that's already in that place. It
can identify appropriate locations and establish those added requirements for things like parcel
size, infrastructure separation, buffering, and design, whereas a conditional use process is going
to evaluate the specific proposal at hand during public hearings and using standards that are
already written within the zoning ordinance. The Mayor added an example would be we could
say the data center overlay district is limited to these parcels or includes these parcels, and
whatever regulation or permission we want to give would exist only in that overlay. And that's
one way that these have been handled. Also, for a village our size, an overlay district might be
more regulation or more definition than we really need. It might just be as simple as how Findlay
has done it, which is this is a conditional use within this type of zoning. He stated that that's
something that is probably more of a legal question than a citizen question as there are nuances
there that an attorney would maybe walk them through because it's interesting that both the
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Findlay ordinance and the Plain City ordinance we've looked at so far has not included an overlay.
And so, I don't know if there's a significance to that, but.
Mr. Sherley added that from what he has looked into, he sees it as the conditional use permit can
be in addition to the overlay. So, if there are certain things that we want to get in place that just
should be there, and even if they are specific to a data center then you can put certain rules that
are in there and still have other conditional use items. He added that he believes the overlay
district is more defensible in court than what a conditional use permit is and layering them
together would be the next step up. As we go through, this, and with things that we have heard
from our community, some of them may fall easier under an overlay district and if a data center
is going into this heavy industrial, then we put those regulations in place and still have the
conditional use permit in place. So, they may have to be breaking it into smaller categories as
we go. The Mayor agreed with Mr. Sherley and added that the standards that would apply
throughout, and how those are best written, and how those are put forward and get something
which is consistent. There's always the chance that, in the industrial park, someone could buy
some land, someone could take over business. I think there's a vacant warehouse currently in
the industrial park, so we don't know if that's going to be repurposed at one point. It very easily
could be, so I think you raised some excellent points about that which ties into where we probably
need some guidance and some feedback as to what the best approach for our community is.
Recognizing that a lot of the communities have done a lot of good work in this area, but this must
be customized to our village. I think that's first and foremost, and, you know, whatever we need
to do to make sure that we have something that fits our village and our circumstances is our
future.
Ms. Brown added that she pictures this as a package that you deliver to whomever we opt for
legal. Here's the community feedback, what they're concerned about, here are policies that we
like that are in place to protect us to the extent possible by law. The Mayor stated that that is
going to be an interactive process that will have engagement from the Planning Commission,
from stakeholders, public, whether that's neighbors in the Industrial Park, other people that we
identify as stakeholders, certainly this group and Village Council, will have involvement in that.
Council will be engaged throughout the process so it's interactive, real time. We're not going to
be just hand the finished product over and ask for a vote. Ms. Brown asked the Mayor if there
was ay concern from the legal groups that he spoke with the timeline and weather or not they
felt it was reasonable to get all of this together. The Mayor replied that every firm and agency
group he spoke with said they can work with our timeline, however, he thinks they all agree that
time is of the essence. So, there's certainly that line between, the moratorium in place, we've
spent some time already as a community identifying this. No one was feeling panicked, but also
all recognized that we as a community want to move forward with this and have things in place
sooner rather than later.
Ms. Brown presented her proposal for providing a feedback form for the community. Essentially,
if anybody has something that they've researched, that they've found, that they're concerned
about, that we need to look at as planning commission, village council, village solicitor. She
believes this is an opportunity for the person who might not be able to attend the meetings. And
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to get us much public input as possible to supplement what will already be given to legal. Ms.
Collene noted that the form could be put on our website. It can be printed, fille out and then be
emailed or dropped off at the administrative office. Ms. Brown described it as a working
document in which as the individual is researching it and looking at different articles, they could
jot down notes. She also stated it would be important for individuals to know that this would be
a public record, so if you fill it out, make sure any of the details are not private or sensitive
because that's something that could be shared larger with the community. Ms. Collene asked,
because of the number of phone calls that she has received, if this could also be an avenue for
questions, whether we can or can’t answer those questions. If the form could be tweaked to
have a comment and or questions notation, she could then point them to this form. Once it is
ready, it could be posted quickly.
Mr. Morrow asked if all this data that we're getting, should there be a submission email that
everything can be sent to it and we can all access it. Ms. Collene asked if he was referring to one
email that they all had access to or individual emails. Mr. Morrow responded that everyone
would have their own email. Mayor Galea added that we could possibly set up a distribution
setup for the Planning Commission which would push it out to all five members. Discussion
regarding mailing and emailing the question, answer form. Ms. Collene will gather information
regarding what the cost for the mailing is and the percentage for the online.
Ms. Raftery asked if there were any comments from the audience.
Mr. Ken Underwood asked Ms. Collene if she had received his email from today. Ms. Collene
replied that she had.
Mr. Scott Summerlin stated that he would like to reiterate about the best available technology
being used and he also came across some information about the community energy impact fund
which would require a large data center to contribute money based on additional electrical
demands that it creates. That money would be dedicated locally to offset the community's energy
impacts. For example, helping residents with electric bills, energy efficiency upgrades, home
weatherization or local renewable energy projects. The idea is that if the project creates
extraordinary demand on the electrical system, the community should receive a direct benefit
from that impact. Two Ohio gubernatorial candidates, they're both saying basically the same
thing. Ms. Ashton goes much broader with that, and Vivek talks about benefit zones where it can
either impact around a surrounding area to village, cities, or even up to counties depending on
the size of the data centers and I think that's something that should be looked at. His only other
major concern is the proximity to the school and he believe it's called LGNs or LFNs, electrical
humming that you can't hear that can affect the kids that really concerns him because out west
in Texas cattle ranchers are seeing birth defects and less birth by cattle that are close to data
centers. Mr. Summerlin added that this is something, if done right, that Monroeville could lead
the state in doing this. He thinks the members have an excellent opportunity to put the
ordinances in that can lead the state instead of trying to find one or two cities that you can patch
work from but gather all of them. He stated that Monroeville has a unique opportunity to do
that. He thanked the members for doing it.
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Mr. Jim Ehrman then stated that at the beginning, a few meetings ago, the Commission noted
they were going to put some teeth in the ordinance enforcement. Do they have any idea of what
those teeth are going to be and how they are going to make them work. Ms. Brown commented
she feels that has to be deferred to legal because it must be something that's going to abide by
the law but then also goes up to the extent that we're able to enforce it. She has looked into it
and has gotten a lot of different things but without it being consulted about what we can do, she
does not have an answer to that. She continued that it's something that's a priority, it's something
that's listed multiple times but that would have to be advised. The Mayor agreed and added that
the million-dollar question right now is what communities do to put those teeth in there because
of traditional zoning rules. He added that the village always can get an injunction if necessary and
that's a powerful tool to go to the board and get an injunction against something is powerful but
does not know that any community has really answered that question in a good straightforward
way. Lots of communities have relied on development agreements and things like that to do it
and he has not seen an ordinance out there yet that really strikes him as this is not what we
should follow so we might be the ones to set that standard. As Mr. Summerlin pointed out, the
opportunity to both look at the best of what other communities are doing but also to chart our
own path as to what's the best way to do this. Mr. Morrow asked if we are going to make a
distinction between data centers and mining operations. The Mayor replied that, it may need to
be, as some of these classifications of data center would probably include mining but right now,
we're in the village and so we may need to consider whether both need to be addressed, whether
they can be considered as one, whether Bitcoin mining needs to have its own regulations what
would that look like, might be kind of an addition to the ordinance. Mr. Sherley added that also
if we're setting some of those things like noise levels and then just including both and kind of
pushing it toward that because data mining is more known for not having insulated buildings,
just running their noise at full blast and so it's a little bit different than your typical data center
but he thinks that if we're kind of setting those requirements at a level that's safe for the
properties around it then we could probably include both if we're hitting all of those things and
making sure that we've got it covered. Discussion regarding our ordinances as it pertains to the
industrial park and the need to look at industry in general as some companies start out under
one ownership and then are bought out by another, we cannot take for granted that the
corporate citizen that we have will continue to be that same corporate citizen.
Mayor Galea proceeded with the matter of hiring a zoning inspector. One of their main jobs is
to take, review and approve or deny zoning permits and applications which could include
conditional use permits site plans, commercial building, residential building permits, expecting
sites and enforcing our ordinances, attending our planning commission meetings and our zoning
appeals meetings and communicating with property owners and residents to administer our
zoning laws.
The zoning inspector does not need to live in the village, that is something he has been asked a
few times. The zoning inspector does not need to live here in town so if anybody knows of anyone
who might have any interest, might have some experience looking at buildings at construction
plans, anything like that we'd love to talk to that person so please spread that message far and
wide because this has been open here for a little while and we'd love to get our next person to
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come in and this is an important job in our community. If someone comes to mind who might be
fit, he encourages talking to them. Plant that seed. Word of mouth is great, we use social media,
we go online we do a lot of different things, but word of mouth is what he has found to be the
best way to get qualified applicants into our village.
There being no other business to come before them, the meeting adjourned at 6:54PM.
Respectfully submitted,
______________________________
Eunice A. Collene, Fiscal Officer
The minutes of this meeting were recorded by Administrative Assistant Ann Beck Planning Commission
Secretary, Elisa Brown examined them for both form and content and subsequently approved them as
transcribed.

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