Two years ago, Joshua Milleson and his wife bought a plot of land in Luther, a rural town of roughly 1,500 people. Milleson, who works at the Devon Energy Center in downtown Oklahoma City, was excited to carve out an “oasis” about thirty miles away from city life, he said.
Just weeks shy of breaking ground on his house, Milleson’s excitement for the future became “utter devastation” on Friday evening, he said. He and his wife learned an energy company had proposed developing a data center on the property directly east of their home.
Milleson was among dozens of outraged residents who convened in Luther for the town’s Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday night. The board was scheduled to vote on an ordinance to create a specialized rezoning process for data centers and another ordinance that would have placed a moratorium on rezoning for data centers…