ONEIDA TWP. — Township trustees in this community of about 3,900 people near Grand Ledge didn’t wait long to act once a local farmer told them around the start of the year he had been approached by a data center developer.
“He was upset by that,” Supervisor Rick Jones said. “He didn’t want a data center on his farm. When we found out about that, we acted. I felt we should get ahead of this issue and make sure we took care of our residents.”
Trustees unanimously supported, 7-0, a six-month data center moratorium on Jan. 13. This month, township planning commissioners began reviewing some newly drafted rules such as requiring potential physical, environmental and operational threat assessments and decommissioning plans with each application…