Tooele County Planning Commission votes to table draft of data center ordinance

TOOELE — After more than four hours of discussion and public comments Wednesday night, the Tooele County Planning Commission unanimously voted to table the current draft of its data center ordinance.

The current draft of the ordinance, known as Chapter 34, was created to fulfill Tooele County Land Use Ordinance 2026-100, which called for the Tooele County Planning Commission to create a chapter for data center facilities. This was the third time the commission had addressed this topic publicly.

Reasoning for creating Chapter 34

Tooele County has not had a land use code for data centers, according to assistant county manager Brittany Lopez. She said Tooele County had chosen to take a proactive approach to handling data centers after seeing the impact they had in other counties and cities in Utah.

"Building Chapter 34 has been, and continues to be, a research-driven, collaborative and public process," she said.

The county has taken comments from across the county into consideration and incorporated them into the six different drafts of the ordinance, tweaking them each time.

According to Lopez, the Tooele County Council said it would not accept a data center application from developers until Chapter 34 was complete. She also said the county was aware that a developer had expressed interest in a possible data center in Tooele, but had no details on that developer's current needs.

"We appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read the draft and share their concerns," Lopez said, "and we encourage residents to stay involved as Chapter 34 develops in the public process."

Amendments to current legislation

The room was packed during the early hours of the meeting, which began shortly after 7 p.m. Multiple topics were under discussion during the meeting, but many of the early public comments brought up data centers before they were asked to wait until the topic was addressed later in the meeting.

When the topic of data centers was finally broached, the board discussed amendments to three sections of the Land Use Code, specifically in chapters 2, 17 and 17A, as well as creating Chapter 17B.

Alternate board member Richard Mitchell said he had looked at the proposed language and had concerns.

"As an aerospace engineer, I have looked at this. I will not be voting for any changes related to this data center until you fix the ordinance," Mitchell said, prompting a cheer from the audience.

Multiple people who had tried to speak before stood up again during the public comment section of the discussion, expressing their opposition to data centers. Two children also stood, expressing concerns about their future living in Tooele.

The board voted unanimously to table the amendments, prompting more applause from the audience.

Chapter 34 public comments

When the public comments section was opened for the discussion around Chapter 34, three hours into the meeting, members of TooeleCARES read a letter that had more than 900 signatures to the Tooele County Planning Commission board.

Public comments were limited to three minutes per person, prompting the first member to pass the letter to two others to read the entire letter. After the letter was read, many people who had already spoken during previous public comment periods stood back up to express their disapproval of Chapter 34.

Zell McAllister, who attended the meeting, said it was "refreshing to see rage" among the members of the Tooele County Planning Commission board who expressed concerns about the data center legislation. She publicly thanked the board for voicing their concerns.

"I think it has become clear that this is something that we need to bring in more experts on, that this is not something that a city council or citizens can decide on," McAllister said. "This is something that we need to fork out the money to hire scientists, to hire analysts. ... This is clearly not a decision — based on what we've been presented with 34 — that we can handle on our own."

Lopez spoke near the end of the public comment period, thanking the residents who showed up to the meeting to share their voices. At the end of the comments, Tooele County Planning Commission Vice-Chair Toni Scott called for a motion.

"I move that we table Chapter 34 until a time that we can come together and define what a data center is and to answer the questions that we have brought up in (the) previous two tables," Scott said.

The motion was accepted unanimously by the board, prompting a final round of applause from the audience. The meeting ended shortly after 11 p.m.

Moving forward

Members of TooeleCARES said they were "elated" that the ordinance was tabled for further discussion. The group also said there were many more items that needed to be addressed in the future.

"This is the board's opportunity to build trust within the community," the group said. "We are looking forward to the collaboration to ensure the ordinance is set for the residents of Tooele County and not developers."

The next meeting of the Tooele County Planning Commission is scheduled for Oct. 28.

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