Should data centers be in rural areas? What Sedgwick County commissioners say

Some Sedgwick County commissioners voiced opposition to allowing data centers in rural parts of the county Wednesday.

Commissioners instead pushed for the centers to be in areas that are already zoned for industrial use.

“I don’t think it belongs in rural settings. I think that’s pretty obvious,” Commissioner Stephanie Wise said.

The county is in the middle of a moratorium on data centers, set to expire June 11, and working to craft regulations for the centers.

Residents brought up the same concern about allowing the centers in rural areas at a town hall Tuesday evening.

Wise, who represents the area where tech companies are buying land for potential data centers in the western part of the county, said she opposed having hyperscale data centers.

Hyperscale centers, according to county documents, can be at least 10,000 square feet in size. They can have a minimum of 5,000 servers, which require a large amount of energy and water to run and cool.

Wise had concerns with whether there were enough water and energy resources in the county to allow for the centers’ use.

“If we were to have a limit of what we think our county can even handle, as far as, if we understand what the usage is, and electrical demand and in water,” she said, “I don’t know if we can handle having more than one at all.”

Commissioner Ryan Baty said he did not support allowing data centers in rural areas, but stopped short of saying he opposed hyperscale centers.

“I think part of this process is bringing clarity to the community of what these things really are and what they do and the potential,” Baty said, ”but I am very much for some very tight and restrictive regulations of what they are, what they can do… building policy based on what we expect the performance to be and where they will be located.”

A majority of commissioners seemed to support offering a tiered approach to regulating the centers based on size: The larger the data center, the more regulations it would have to follow to be approved by the county.

Commissioner Pete Meitzner, however, cautioned against overregulating the centers.

“As a community elected leader, I think it’s really dangerous to send a message that we don’t like, quote, data centers,” Meitzner said. “And you can go to Butler and go across the line and go down to Sumner and whatever, and put it right on the border, and you use the same water without regulations, because water doesn’t stop at the county line. It’s a bad rabbit hole from my opinion.”

County staff clarified that existing centers in the county, which are much smaller than the potential centers out west, would not be subject to those new regulations.

The commissioners’ discussion Wednesday will help guide the Advanced Plans Committee to craft regulations and policies for data centers. That committee meets April 9.

The recommendations made by that committee will then be moved along to the full Metropolitan Area Planning Commission board, other citizen boards, and then on to the county commission and Wichita City Council.

Multiple options for regulations could be provided to the commission to consider this summer.