[0:15] - Josh, would you please take the role?

[0:17] - Bremmer? - Aye.

[0:19] - Here. Dreyer. Here. Iker. - Here.

[0:25] - Horton. Here. Kajabi. Here.

[0:30] Rosa. Here. Stalker. Here. Virgil?

[0:36] Here. We have eight. For eight. We have a quorum.

[0:38] - Good. We have quorum.

[0:40] If you're able, would you please stand and join me?

[0:42] In the pledge of Allegiance,

[0:46] - I pledge allegiance to the flag

[0:48] of the United States of America

[0:51] and to the republic for which it stands,

[0:53] one nation under God, indivisible, with LIBERTY

[0:57] and justice for all

[1:01] - Stankey.

[1:02] Next item is the approval

[1:03] of the minutes from July 14th, 2026.

[1:08] Entertain a motion to approve. Do I have a second?

[1:12] - Second. Second. - Okay, we have a motion to second.

[1:16] Any discussion? Any changes on those minutes?

[1:21] Okay, hearing none. All in favor

[1:23] of approving the minutes from July 14th, 2026.

[1:25] Please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed?

[1:29] Same sign. Okay. They are approved.

[1:34] Next item, citizen appearance and public comment.

[1:38] If anybody is here

[1:39] or in the audience for anything other than the

[1:44] data center discussion tonight, please come forward.

[1:48] Now, I don't see anybody and I don't hear anybody.

[1:53] Okay. No unfinished business.

[1:54] We will move on to new business.

[1:57] And tonight this is designated as a public hearing

[2:00] and is requesting approval of an ordinance

[2:02] to amend Title 19 zoning

[2:05] to define data center uses

[2:07] and enact a temporary moratorium on the consideration

[2:11] or issuance of zoning permits For that use, Josh,

[2:15] I'll turn it over to you please.

[2:17] - Stankey, worry about getting my screen shared.

[2:29] Here we are. So as you, you introduced,

[2:32] this is a public hearing for zoning ordinance.

[2:36] The effect would be to create a moratorium for

[2:40] data center uses

[2:42] and introduce a brief overview of the work

[2:47] of the our staff data center committee that's been,

[2:50] or work group that's been working on this

[2:52] for the past several months.

[2:54] And then kind of explain a little bit about how we got here

[2:58] and where, where it goes next.

[3:01] So at a high level, the data centers have been

[3:05] around in some form or function really sense.

[3:09] The telephone. The, the data center is kind of an evolution

[3:12] of the switchboard, where it's a place

[3:15] where all the wires go.

[3:16] When we, when we send a signal from our phones,

[3:19] our computers, et cetera, you're communicating

[3:22] with a computer somewhere else.

[3:24] That somewhere else is often a centralized location such

[3:27] as a data center where you're se sending a query

[3:30] to retrieve something

[3:31] or to connect you with a,

[3:33] with a subsequent computer somewhere else.

[3:36] Nearly everything in the digital cloud exists.

[3:38] Well, everything on the digital cloud exists in

[3:40] hardware somewhere.

[3:42] Again, whether it's a picture, it's a, you know, a book,

[3:46] it's your software that's running,

[3:48] that's extensively running on your computer.

[3:50] A lot of those things are communicating

[3:52] with an offsite source.

[3:54] And in particular, our phones are, a lot of the things

[3:57] that they do are communicating with the cloud actively.

[4:01] A lot of the computing

[4:02] doesn't actually happen on your device.

[4:03] It's happening in a server farm somewhere.

[4:07] The scope and power of these facilities have been growing

[4:10] geometrically for decades.

[4:11] So if you, if you look into this, the, the, both the, the

[4:16] computing power, the square footage, et cetera, has been,

[4:18] has been going up geometrically.

[4:22] And we've had data centers in this region

[4:23] for at least a couple of decades.

[4:25] The university probably even longer.

[4:28] What's really changed in the last few years is just the size

[4:31] and, and the amount of, of resources that they consume.

[4:35] Some of it's related to the change in

[4:39] how we're using the artificial intelligence,

[4:40] and some of it's due to other cloud-based functions such

[4:44] as Amazon Cloud

[4:46] and other similar services that are highly centralized.

[4:51] These are called hyperscale facilities.

[4:52] These very large data centers.

[4:57] There's no single definition

[4:59] for when one becomes a hyperscale data center versus others.

[5:03] This is a collection

[5:06] summarizing from several industry sources.

[5:09] Again, there's, it's fuzzy kind

[5:11] of like when you pass from one type to another,

[5:14] but it helps to kind of describe that.

[5:15] Yes, there are many different types

[5:17] of data centers out there.

[5:19] We, yes, we still are building things

[5:21] that are not the hyperscale ones, but the,

[5:24] but the hyperscale ones are the ones

[5:26] that are generally causing the attention.

[5:30] In recent years, these facilities can be hundreds

[5:33] of thousands of square feet

[5:35] and draw 100 megawatts

[5:38] or more, you know, for an order of magnitude.

[5:41] That is a power draw of a small city to run these facilities

[5:47] on the large, on the high end, some of the key.

[5:52] You have a question, Al Alder Virgil or Commissioner Virgil?

[5:57] - No, I apologize. - All right.

[5:59] So some, some of the key issues, resource consumption,

[6:02] both energy and water directly and indirectly.

[6:06] For example, depending on the type of energy

[6:08] or what the, what kind of either direct

[6:11] or grid based power they're using,

[6:12] there can be a pretty significant water consumption

[6:16] depending on what kind of power you're, you're drawing.

[6:20] There's nuisance emissions such as noise, vibration,

[6:23] lights and air pollution.

[6:26] Again, depending on what kind of power they're using.

[6:29] There's city and regional design challenges pretty similar

[6:33] to other large campuses in this effect.

[6:36] So they, the large data centers can, can require hundreds

[6:41] and sometimes thousands of acres.

[6:43] Makes it very difficult to function a city

[6:45] and region around these things.

[6:48] 'cause they don't want roads through them.

[6:49] So you, they have to route utilities streets,

[6:52] et cetera around them.

[6:54] Very difficult to do.

[6:56] Also makes 'em difficult to, to locate

[6:57] because they need a lot of, of contiguous property

[7:02] and then public sentiment.

[7:03] So unlike many other uses, some,

[7:05] some other uses we have in our region

[7:07] that consume significant power

[7:09] and significant water, they tend not to have the,

[7:12] the public sentiment associated with them.

[7:17] It's either, it can be directly related to

[7:19] what the facility is doing

[7:20] or it could be who owns the facility and,

[7:22] and kind of pe people's perceptions of those companies.

[7:25] So it can be very difficult to talk about the, these issues

[7:29] because it can kind of quickly goes into, so all the strings

[7:33] that are attached from a city of Sun Prairie perspective,

[7:37] many of these issues relate to our adopted plans

[7:40] and goals found in our comprehensive plan,

[7:42] our climate action plan.

[7:43] In other places, some

[7:45] of these things we know are in conflict.

[7:46] Some of these things are just, we're silent about

[7:49] because we have not considered planning

[7:51] for a facility of this type or size.

[7:55] Again, into our context, here is an image

[7:58] of the current transmission

[7:59] of the high voltage transmission in our region.

[8:02] You can go onto the American Transmission Company website

[8:04] and find a version of this.

[8:06] This is taken directly from there.

[8:09] As you can see, the northeast part of Dane County,

[8:12] the green lines are 69 kilovolt lines.

[8:16] The, those are the ones you, you see as you drive

[8:18] around the, and serve

[8:21] our typical users.

[8:24] What we would consider to be like the threshold

[8:27] of really needing anything besides a smaller data center

[8:30] or a smaller industrial user.

[8:32] Those would be like the black

[8:33] and the red lines, particularly the red wines.

[8:36] Those are 345 kilovolt. They're not near us.

[8:41] The, the closest one is either in Waterloo

[8:44] or up near North Madison.

[8:46] The, and for reference, the North Madison

[8:48] substation up there is where the QTS facility was proposed

[8:51] and it was proposed there because of the transmission, also

[8:55] because they had property,

[8:56] but the transmission was critical.

[8:58] They had the substation there,

[8:59] therefore they were proposing to locate in that location.

[9:03] So we could potentially support a, an industrial user

[9:07] that might require 10 megawatts, whether

[9:10] that's a food manufacturer or a small data center

[9:13] or something like that

[9:14] with these existing 69 kilovolt lines.

[9:17] But really anything much bigger than that,

[9:19] we don't have the transmission.

[9:21] So they'd either needed to go somewhere else

[9:23] or they would need to improve the transmission in our

[9:27] region, which takes a a very long time.

[9:32] So what, where we're at today is we're reporting out from

[9:36] the, the, the staff work group

[9:37] that's been working since about October

[9:39] or November of last year.

[9:41] And earlier this same year, there was a

[9:46] referral to consider a moratorium.

[9:49] So that's the particular item that's

[9:51] before you to vote upon.

[9:53] What would do you is not allow applications

[9:56] or issuances of zoning permits for, for up to 12 months.

[10:00] So moratoriums are uncommon,

[10:02] but it is an existing tool that is used seldom,

[10:07] typically in a situation similar to this one,

[10:09] where an issue has emerged might be moving quickly.

[10:13] And we're concerned that our plans

[10:14] or ordinances don't adequately address it.

[10:16] It allows us to pause until

[10:20] we presumably would update our plans

[10:23] or decide that we don't need to.

[10:25] The, there's been questions about what's the relationship

[10:28] between the zoning ordinance

[10:30] and the resolution that the city council adopted last week.

[10:34] The resolution is a policy statement.

[10:37] It has no force of law.

[10:38] So that's the council's publicly stating

[10:41] that they desire a moratorium to be brought forward.

[10:45] And in that resolution, there's ref references

[10:47] to several other things that the work group

[10:50] recommended get, be worked on.

[10:54] But it's just a, it's a policy statement.

[10:56] The zoning ordinance is where the actionable defensible

[11:02] ordinance would be created in, in the zoning ordinance.

[11:06] And as I said, it's pretty, it's pretty simple.

[11:07] Just defines what a data center is

[11:09] from a land use perspective.

[11:10] And then it says timeout for 12 months.

[11:13] It would automatically expire in,

[11:15] in 12 months after adoption.

[11:17] It would also be potentially replaced earlier if the council

[11:22] chose to make updates to the zoning ordinance.

[11:27] If you recommend it would go onto back

[11:30] to the city council next week for a second reading.

[11:33] If so, that would be when the one year clock would begin.

[11:37] There was other questions about why 10,000 square feet,

[11:41] for example, couldn't we handle a larger facility for yes,

[11:46] we could handle a larger facility.

[11:49] The 10,000 square feet is, is consistent

[11:51] with other communities in our region

[11:52] where they've put that moratorium.

[11:55] It ensures realistically we wouldn't get

[11:58] any sort of application.

[12:00] Other questions we've gotten is, hey,

[12:02] what happens if there's already a data center type

[12:04] of use in our, in our community, as with any zoning

[12:09] change, any, any use that exists today would be able

[12:13] to continue to function.

[12:14] So we don't have what I would consider to be a data center.

[12:17] There are server rooms in a number of different businesses

[12:20] around the city that someone could point to

[12:23] and say, hey, that kind of serves that function.

[12:27] The differentiation there is

[12:29] that those facilities are generally located

[12:31] to serve onsite type of uses.

[12:34] You know, for example, storage

[12:36] of city electronic material happens in this building

[12:40] and then we have an offsite facility elsewhere as well.

[12:44] But what the laboratorium also does is, as the city council

[12:47] and the community considers what

[12:50] ordinances you ultimately want to adopt, it ensures

[12:53] that we're not looking over our shoulder as

[12:55] to any day we could get an application.

[12:58] Anybody who might be looking around would have

[13:01] to look elsewhere if they're, if they want

[13:02] to pursue a facility in the short term.

[13:07] Other things that are in that resolution refer

[13:10] to public adequate public facilities.

[13:11] So the work group looked at our ordinances comprehensively.

[13:16] Anything that a large facility like

[13:19] a data center would touch.

[13:21] And we found some ordinances in other places

[13:24] that were either outdated, may

[13:27] or may not have even really relate to a data center.

[13:29] For example, earlier this year you adopted a short term

[13:33] rental ordinance.

[13:35] Our ordinances are not clear as to

[13:37] how you would address utilities when you're adding a second

[13:40] dwelling on a property where there's existing utilities.

[13:44] So there's, there's everything from the a DU

[13:47] to a large industrial facility, which there's gaps in our

[13:50] utilities, types of ordinances

[13:52] and also utilities change with technology they change

[13:55] with different state and federal regulations.

[13:58] Some of those areas

[13:59] of our ordinances are just need to be up, up to date.

[14:03] We also know that there's land use and development controls.

[14:06] Some of these are again, related

[14:07] to a large use like a data center.

[14:09] Others might be symptoms, for example,

[14:13] noise or light.

[14:15] Those things are, you know, symptoms

[14:18] of living in a built environment.

[14:21] Some of those regulations could be updated

[14:23] and then they would apply to any similar type of facility,

[14:26] whether it's a restaurant or an industrial type of use.

[14:32] With that, we just ask if you have any questions

[14:36] or anything else

[14:37] that you would need for your recommendation.

[14:40] - Stankey. Josh, any questions for Josh?

[14:45] - Of course, mark. So we do this

[14:50] moratorium and meta.

[14:55] Microsoft Epic decide that they want

[15:00] to build a facility anywhere and the city be damned.

[15:03] Does that put us in a position of that permit getting issued

[15:08] by a judge instead of us?

[15:11] - So our, our moratorium, we believe is legally sound

[15:14] that they would be denied.

[15:17] They wouldn't even, we wouldn't even receive it.

[15:20] We've looked at how moratoriums were adopted in the past,

[15:24] which were legally challenged.

[15:25] And so we believe that ours is defensible.

[15:28] Very likely if a large data center were interested in coming

[15:33] to our region, it would take them over a year of homework

[15:37] before they would even be applying for a permit.

[15:39] So if someone wanted to locate here, they could begin trying

[15:44] to figure that out knowing

[15:45] that we don't know what the rules are gonna be.

[15:48] They could find that the rules are not advantageous

[15:51] to whatever they want to do and then,

[15:52] then they're wasting their time.

[15:55] Or they may try to influence them in how, in

[15:59] however form or function.

[16:00] But if you were in a situation like Beaver Dam,

[16:03] which is approved to data centers, both meta

[16:05] and a, a smaller one more recently, those,

[16:10] those approvals already exist.

[16:12] So they could approve a moratorium or change the rules,

[16:15] but those, those facilities are entitled.

[16:19] So it would just give us this chance if the council wants

[16:23] to do that, to get some space

[16:27] to update those ordinances.

[16:29] If the council doesn't choose to adopt a moratorium,

[16:34] I don't know that that would change the circumstances

[16:37] significantly could,

[16:38] because we don't expect there to be an application to occur.

[16:43] But it takes that potential off the table for some time.

[16:50] - And that brings me too to the definition of a data center,

[16:55] which hits me as pretty vague.

[17:00] And again, an epic isn't gonna come to town and just walk in

[17:05] and say, Hey, gimme a permit.

[17:07] But I I would think an epic, a variety of other places that

[17:13] don't make product, their product is information

[17:16] and the processing of that information.

[17:19] Steve, when you were at the contractor for Oscar, would

[17:24] that building by Woodman's, would that be a data center?

[17:26] Because your, your purpose there was

[17:29] basically schlepping information

[17:31] and out you weren't accessory to,

[17:35] to making hot dogs or anything else? Yeah,

[17:37] - You're, you're right Mark.

[17:38] I think it all depends on scale

[17:40] and, you know, the scale that we're looking at

[17:43] for Beaver Dam is a lot different from, let's say we,

[17:46] you know, we could say we have a data center in the back

[17:50] of CITY HALL, you know,

[17:50] because we have some servers back there.

[17:52] So I think it all depends on the definition of scale.

[17:56] - So the, the way that it's defined here is we're, we're,

[17:59] it's consistent with the way Madison defined it,

[18:01] and that's intentional so that

[18:04] we don't have each community in the region defining a data

[18:07] center as something different

[18:08] that could be problematic in its own way.

[18:12] It's also later on in the, in, in the ordinance it does

[18:17] exempt accessory uses the kind of server room sense

[18:24] is some, could conceivably somebody have a server room,

[18:28] which, which is doing some kind of work offsite.

[18:31] Yeah, sure they could, but it's, it's gonna be accessory

[18:33] to whatever that primary function of that business is.

[18:37] And this other kind of challenge with,

[18:40] with the way zoning is typically practice is they

[18:43] base that on square footage.

[18:46] So if you have a 10,000 square foot office,

[18:48] could you have a 9,900 square foot

[18:51] air quotes data center on the same site

[18:53] and consider it to be accessory.

[18:55] You know, maybe. So that's,

[18:59] that's the way it's attempted to be controlled by the,

[19:02] the current moratorium at the very least.

[19:05] If there's another way to ki kind of control

[19:08] co-locating uses like that, it's not one

[19:10] that our current ordinance makes that distinction.

[19:15] So that this is kind

[19:16] of why you would do a moratorium would be to give you

[19:18] that time to, to figure that out.

[19:21] Otherwise, you know, we would,

[19:23] we would be in a challenging situation if someone were

[19:27] to attempt to do something like that.

[19:30] But there again, if you're trying to do a,

[19:35] a data center that's accessory to something else,

[19:38] that something else has gotta be huge

[19:41] and for not very likely to occur.

[19:44] So I, I would say that we'd be pretty safe to say that if,

[19:48] if your data center, whatever that is, server room needs

[19:52] to be smaller than, than whatever the primary use

[19:54] of the property is, very, we wouldn't get anything

[19:58] besides a very small use of that type.

[20:02] - Do we have any idea how many square foot of

[20:05] quote server room that am fam has?

[20:10] - No. I, I'm guessing

[20:12] the building inspection department in Madison probably does,

[20:15] but I do not.

[20:17] - And is this 10, this 10,000 square feet, is it the entire

[20:22] facility housing this data center

[20:24] or is it the data center itself?

[20:27] 10,000 sounds big, but it's a hundred by a hundred.

[20:29] It's not huge.

[20:31] - Right. So the way

[20:33] that we've applied this in other circumstances is

[20:36] it's the function of the space.

[20:39] So you could think of like a restaurant,

[20:41] you have a production space

[20:43] and then you have a serving space

[20:44] and those are defined by your health code.

[20:47] So similarly we, if there was some question about what's a,

[20:52] what's a data center use versus what's

[20:54] a, not a data center use.

[20:55] We would need to know down to the grain of the,

[20:58] of the building plan, how the, how that would be handled.

[21:02] The space where the hardware is kept

[21:07] is a definable space in that building.

[21:10] The other what what the other spaces are, restrooms,

[21:13] offices, whatever, they would need to be larger than

[21:19] that computer hardware area to be considered

[21:22] as accessory use. Yeah.

[21:23] - That, that's where this is hitting me is kind of vague

[21:25] 'cause it just says floor area greater than 10,000 square

[21:28] feet and

[21:31] what all is included in that Is that,

[21:33] - Yeah, that kicks, that would kick into the other rules

[21:36] about how area is computed in the zoning

[21:39] ordinance to be consistent.

[21:44] - I think to Mark's point, so for example, Royal Printing,

[21:48] they're expanding out in the business park.

[21:51] They have a lot of documents.

[21:53] So I imagine they have a number of servers.

[21:56] If their server space is over 10,000, would

[22:00] that impact them by this moratorium?

[22:04] It would All, theirs would be internal.

[22:06] I think that's the difference that we would say

[22:08] internal versus outside use.

[22:11] - It, it wouldn't because it would be considered

[22:13] to be an accessory use.

[22:15] Even if they are doing something in that server server room

[22:20] that happens to be primarily used

[22:23] for some o offsite purpose.

[22:25] We wouldn't, a we probably would never know

[22:26] because we don't track the bites.

[22:30] Secondly is, you know, that if it's small

[22:34] and accessory to their, to their use,

[22:38] unfortunately that's how com, how computers work.

[22:41] They're communicating with,

[22:42] with other devices all over the place.

[22:44] So the only way we can really control it is

[22:47] by land is by area.

[22:50] Again, it's our tools are, are limited

[22:53] and perhaps not well as well suited to this kind of

[22:56] concept as we'd like.

[22:59] - Okay. Stankey. Okay. Any other questions of Josh?

[23:04] DeRosa?

[23:06] - Stankey, Ms. Mayor? Josh, I'm just kind of curious,

[23:12] have you talked to other municipalities

[23:14] regarding the data centers

[23:15] and what kind of feedback have you received?

[23:18] - Yes, so I have been trying to get wise

[23:23] to this type of use for several years

[23:27] before even divorce had their proposal just

[23:30] because we could see it coming from a profession

[23:33] and primarily it was, it was initially morally academic,

[23:38] like just what, what's happening with this issue?

[23:40] Until we started seeing them pop up in WISCONSIN,

[23:42] then we knew that we needed

[23:43] to get wise to it pretty quickly.

[23:46] There's several groups that, both

[23:50] existing statewide groups who communicate on issues like

[23:53] this, such as the League of WISCONSIN, league

[23:55] of Municipalities, and then there's other relatively newer

[23:58] groups that have popped up.

[24:00] So for example, the, the city is a member

[24:03] of the WISCONSIN Local Government Climate Coalition

[24:06] working mostly on sustainability related issues

[24:09] and kind of peer to peer learning.

[24:12] And then sometime late last year we created

[24:16] a data center focus group.

[24:18] So there's several municipalities that we talked,

[24:20] have talked to each other about

[24:22] what are we doing around this issue.

[24:24] And they, they range from Dane County to Wasaw to to others.

[24:30] And again, they're looking at it from a particular lens,

[24:33] from, from environmental perspective, but,

[24:36] and then there's a variety of national organizations

[24:39] that are tracking it in American Planning Association.

[24:42] Among, among them the, the different, the challenges

[24:46] that some data center markets are

[24:49] what you consider to be mature.

[24:50] They've had data centers for a long time.

[24:52] They've had big data centers for a long time.

[24:55] And then there's markets like WISCONSIN,

[24:57] which are relatively new

[24:59] and looking for comparable projects

[25:02] and comparable ordinances is slim

[25:04] because there's, there's relatively little of it.

[25:07] So we've had to look at other commun, other places

[25:09] that have data centers

[25:10] and to understand how are they being regulated or not.

[25:15] The other challenge

[25:16] or benefit to Sun Prairie is

[25:18] that we have a municipal utility, electric utility,

[25:21] which gives us a significant layer of transparency

[25:25] and control that someone, a, a community

[25:28] that does not have a municipal

[25:29] utility vis-a-vis like deforest.

[25:33] Deforest was surprised when they learned

[25:37] that QTS was looking to locate there

[25:38] because QTS was coordinating with a, with a utility

[25:43] and the utility was private and

[25:46] therefore they didn't need to talk about it

[25:47] until they had to.

[25:50] Whereas if, if a use like that were attempting

[25:54] to locate here, we would know as soon, as soon

[25:57] as they were really in any sort of coordination

[25:59] with our, our utilities.

[26:03] So, so, so it's difficult to say exactly like how we would,

[26:07] who we would use as a benchmark right now.

[26:11] A lot of different ways to try to regulate these, none

[26:13] of them are perfect.

[26:16] It depends on kind of what you're trying to do

[26:18] and what you think the main issues are.

[26:22] The communities that we have followed have adopted

[26:25] ordinances that are very different.

[26:26] They're attempting to control similar things,

[26:28] so they're just going at a different way.

[26:30] And part of the conversation over the,

[26:33] the next several months will be which route seems to fit

[26:36] Sun Prairie best given our circumstances.

[26:41] - This may be kind of silly question, but who regulates? It

[26:46] - Depends on what you're talking about.

[26:48] So there's, you know, from a land use perspective, we do,

[26:53] but from a water storm water perspective we do,

[26:59] but from a power perspective it's, there's layers.

[27:03] So the, you know, okay,

[27:04] we don't regulate the, the transmission.

[27:07] We have a municipal utility

[27:08] and Jills here, so we have some more control than most

[27:11] jurisdictions would.

[27:14] But then there's, there's review

[27:16] by the public service commission of certain matters such as,

[27:20] you might, might hear about in the news, some

[27:23] of the rate cases where the PSC is going to rule in terms of

[27:27] how those rates are set, which determines who pays

[27:31] when these large users come into a community,

[27:36] what are they paying for, what type

[27:37] of equipment are they obligated for, how are,

[27:41] how is risk being mitigated?

[27:42] Things like that. There's no regulation at this,

[27:46] at the federal level on these type of facilities.

[27:50] There may someday on the technology they're using

[27:55] or the service they're providing,

[27:57] but at least as of today, there's no

[28:01] facility type of regulation.

[28:04] - Perhaps I miss misunderstood you,

[28:06] but you mentioned that Beaver Dam had several of them.

[28:09] - They have two, have two, well they, they have one

[28:11] that's under construction right now that's, that's owned

[28:12] by meta and then earlier this year they approved

[28:16] a second smaller one.

[28:17] Okay. I believe it's about 90,000 square feet.

[28:21] Let's see if I had my notes here. Yep.

[28:23] So they, in April they'd

[28:27] approved the zoning entitlements for a second facility,

[28:29] 90,000 square feet.

[28:32] In that case, the, the city actually owned

[28:33] the land and sold it to him.

[28:35] And I don't know if they've

[28:40] begun construction as yet, but,

[28:43] and then there, I believe there are eight

[28:45] or nine of them in Dane County that are operating right now.

[28:47] Some of them have been around for a couple of decades.

[28:50] - Okay. Stankey. Josh, I guess I'd like to hear from Jill,

[28:53] if you don't mind sharing a couple thoughts here.

[28:58] - So while Jill's coming up, JIRA has his stand

[29:00] - Up.

[29:01] Yeah, so Jira has his hand up.

[29:02] Yeah, can can we get to Jira first? I'm sorry, Jill.

[29:04] Oh, okay, sure. I'm sorry.

[29:06] But we will call in into Jill Jira.

[29:08] Do you have a question? That's okay.

[29:10] - Yes. Stankey, gosh, I know there are, there are a lot

[29:15] of mixed feelings about data centers,

[29:17] although as these things are popping up, you know,

[29:21] people have different feelings about

[29:23] them one way or the other.

[29:24] I personally don't have,

[29:27] but I, I really agree with pushing the,

[29:31] the pause button right now, Mike on to just, is the timeline

[29:34] that's been proposed for the moratorium itself 12 months

[29:39] is this timeline that is going to give staff the,

[29:43] the time to be able to figure out this

[29:45] unknowns that we're grappling with.

[29:48] Could we have, how did we land on

[29:50] that 12 month timeline or that year?

[29:52] Could it have been like 24 months,

[29:54] two years, three years or whatever?

[29:57] - So there's a few layers there.

[30:00] So moratoriums have to be temporary.

[30:03] The the longest moratorium that I'm aware

[30:05] of at a municipal level in Wisconsin's been 12 months.

[30:08] I know there's been some counties that have adopted

[30:11] 18 month moratoriums recently.

[30:13] I don't know that those have been challenged legally.

[30:17] Well there have been 12 month moratoriums in the past

[30:19] that have, that have held up, been held up in court

[30:21] for other, for other types of uses.

[30:25] And from a, from a, is this enough time?

[30:28] Really the question is how much discussion

[30:31] and what kind of public

[30:36] dialogue does the council desire to get to

[30:39] a proposed ordinance?

[30:41] Really the the challenge is not technical in nature.

[30:45] We can look to see kind of what we know what the issues are.

[30:48] Largely we've, we could see

[30:51] how other communities are attempting to regulate it

[30:54] and then decide which route is the best for us,

[30:56] it's the deciding which route is best for us.

[30:58] Really. That's the time consuming part.

[31:00] Otherwise we could adopt the WASA ordinance

[31:02] or the Middleton ordinance

[31:04] or somebody else's quickly if you chose to.

[31:08] Again, they're all, they all regulate similar things,

[31:12] just different ways to go about it.

[31:14] And also some of them can be more

[31:17] or less permissive depending on what,

[31:19] how the community feels about these

[31:21] as an economic development issue

[31:23] as a land use issue, et cetera.

[31:26] As staff, we're not taking a particular position on

[31:29] that other than yes, it's an issue.

[31:31] There are trade-offs. Our job is to propose

[31:34] or is to present you with options to try to address those

[31:39] trade-offs and then for you to direct us where to place,

[31:42] you know, where to place those standards.

[31:47] - Okay. Stankey. Now if we could have our,

[31:50] did that answer it Jira?

[31:53] - Yes. Stankey. - Okay. Stankey.

[31:55] Now if we could have our Sun Prairie utility manager,

[31:58] Jill Weiss, come forward please. Stankey,

[32:00] - I don't know if you have a specific question for me,

[32:02] but what I can share is

[32:03] that we have an obligation as a utility to serve. Excuse

[32:05] - Is the green button on? It's

[32:07] - On.

[32:08] - It's on. Okay. I'm not projecting.

[32:09] I haven't, I've got that feedback. So we'll get closer.

[32:12] So what I wanna share, I guess, and,

[32:13] and I'm open for any questions that you may have is,

[32:15] but as a utility we have the obligation to serve a customer.

[32:19] Now that does not mean that we don't regulate

[32:21] that customer though, or require very specific

[32:24] things from that customer.

[32:25] Our obligation is to actually serve our existing customers

[32:29] and then another customer comes along, they may need

[32:31] to have certain specific needs.

[32:33] We explore those specific needs with them

[32:35] and then they have the obligation

[32:36] to do the things in the manner in which we require them

[32:38] to do, for us to be able to serve them.

[32:40] For example, with a current development,

[32:42] say a subdivision comes in, we cannot extend those utilities

[32:46] for that developer.

[32:48] That extension must be done at their cost, our design,

[32:51] or at least our review of that design.

[32:53] And that would be the same situation here

[32:55] as we work together with this work group though we really

[32:58] took a, a further look at this

[32:59] and looked at our ordinances kind of beyond the idea of,

[33:02] okay, large data center, well what if we had a large food

[33:06] and beverage manufacturer that came here?

[33:08] What do we have an ordinance that makes it very clear

[33:12] for a developer of something like that, of what rules

[33:14] that they would need to follow.

[33:16] So for us, you know, say a data center did come in,

[33:18] we would require that they actually signed

[33:21] a reimbursement agreement with us.

[33:23] We would ask for very specific things from them.

[33:25] We would do a study, we'd take a look at

[33:27] what the needs they have.

[33:28] Maybe we have, you know, our utilities set up already

[33:32] to serve them directly.

[33:33] Maybe there's certain infrastructure

[33:34] that they would be required then

[33:36] to actually build at our standards.

[33:38] Maybe we would be building it.

[33:40] But we're, I feel like we're really in a good place

[33:43] by the regulations that we have

[33:45] through the public service commission.

[33:46] Everything with the water and electric utility is regulated

[33:49] by the Public Service Commission of WISCONSIN.

[33:52] And basically what I just kinda described there of

[33:54] how we have to treat a customer is based on those rules

[33:59] - On Rosa.

[34:00] Yeah,

[34:01] - Follow up question Jill, same question I asked Josh.

[34:04] Have you talked to other, you know, facility

[34:07] and got their feedback on this as well?

[34:11] - Absolutely. This is a hot topic in our industry for sure.

[34:14] But I would say that every at least close contact

[34:17] that I have, they're exploring it kind of like we are.

[34:20] None of them have had that data center roll in

[34:23] and actually gotten into the finish line.

[34:25] A number of them have worked very closely.

[34:27] I'm, I'm aware of a one utility that was down to one of two

[34:32] areas where they, and it was a very large facility,

[34:34] I believe it was 300 megawatts,

[34:37] but that eventually did not come together.

[34:39] But they basically went through the same exact process.

[34:42] They worked with that developer,

[34:43] they worked through all those steps.

[34:45] Ultimately they found that they could do,

[34:47] I guess better someplace else

[34:48] or that that wasn't a good fit for land use or otherwise

[34:51] and move to a different direction.

[34:52] But we're watching this very closely

[34:54] because it's definitely a hot topic in our industry.

[34:58] - Stankey so much. - Mark you must have a question.

[35:01] Two questions. First one is,

[35:06] if I build something

[35:08] and next into the city of Sun Prairie, am I forced

[35:11] to use Sun Prairie Utilities?

[35:12] If I can kind of deal with Reliant

[35:15] - Not on the electric side.

[35:16] Electric is very different than the water. Water basically.

[35:20] Basically you have to be in the city

[35:22] to actually have municipal water, you know,

[35:25] utility unit water service electric is very different.

[35:28] There's service, service territories.

[35:30] I dunno how much time you have

[35:32] because I could go into the whole nuances

[35:34] of service territories, but there is actually customers

[35:36] of Alliant within the city limits of Sun Prairie.

[35:39] We actually do have a few customers that are

[35:41] outside the city limits of Sun Prairie.

[35:43] The electric is quite different on

[35:46] the service territory rules.

[35:47] So it's very possible that something can be built,

[35:50] they could annex into the city.

[35:51] They're gonna remain that other utilities customer,

[35:55] they wouldn't become ours just by annexation.

[35:58] - And then if you know, who is our largest

[36:01] power consumer right now and what's their demand,

[36:05] - I cannot tell you off the top

[36:06] of my head what their demand is.

[36:09] I, I do know the largest customer,

[36:11] but we can't share customer information

[36:12] so I can't tell you that unfortunately.

[36:14] Okay. But I can definitely follow up

[36:16] and tell you what our largest customer's demand is.

[36:18] I can give you their usage, I just

[36:19] can't tell you what customer that is. I'm

[36:21] - Just trying to get my arms around what, what this

[36:25] a hundred megawatt.

[36:28] - Oh, okay. For context a hundred megawatts is huge

[36:31] Right now on the hottest day we've had,

[36:34] which actually I think we peaked this year in July

[36:37] with our biggest demand here.

[36:39] So basically the whole city,

[36:41] everybody's using their

[36:42] air conditioners and everything else.

[36:43] I believe it was 74 megawatts. Okay.

[36:45] So if we got a hundred megawatt data center it would be,

[36:49] you know, and that's gonna be pretty much base load.

[36:51] The data center typically has a kind of a run it when it's

[36:53] how many it's going and it doesn't fluctuate tons.

[36:57] So that would be a very significant load to us.

[37:01] - Stankey, Stankey,

[37:03] - I appreciate you Jill.

[37:05] Not outing the Bremmer residence is the

[37:07] largest consumer of power.

[37:11] - I like my house at 64. It's nice. Yeah.

[37:15] - Okay. Any other questions?

[37:19] Okay, if not, this is designated as a public hearing,

[37:23] so it is 7 37

[37:26] and I will open the public hearing to anyone who would like

[37:29] to come forward and ask any questions.

[37:39] I don't think there's anyone out in the audience here.

[37:46] Looks like everybody's a panelist.

[37:53] Okay. So hearing none, I'll ask again.

[37:56] Anyone would like to come forward for the public hearing?

[38:00] Please state it now.

[38:05] Okay. It's 7 38 and we will close the public hearing

[38:10] and bring it back to the commissioners.

[38:12] So what you're looking for here, Josh, as a recommendation

[38:14] to go to council, correct?

[38:16] - Correct. Yep. They would potentially take action on it

[38:20] Tuesday of next week.

[38:22] - Okay. On September 1st? - Yes. Okay.

[38:27] - Okay. So look for a motion

[38:29] to the recommendation. Some move.

[38:32] - I'll second it. - Okay. Any discussion?

[38:37] Okay. All in favor of sending this

[38:39] recommendation to the council.

[38:40] Council for September 1st. Please signify by saying aye.

[38:45] - Aye. - Aye. Opposed? Opposed. Same sign? No. Okay.

[38:53] Okay. Stankey commissioners.

[38:56] Okay, we'll move on to staff updates.

[38:59] - Your Honor, we are looking forward

[39:01] to our regularly scheduled plan

[39:03] commission meeting on September 8th.

[39:05] It'll be a longer agenda than we've had in a while.

[39:08] I don't have a a slide that, that lays all of those out,

[39:11] but we not, I don't know

[39:14] that anything is particularly heavy of a topic.

[39:17] Just a lot of things that have been moving

[39:20] for the past few months

[39:21] and they're all just kind of coming together right now.

[39:24] So I will, we will get that agenda out

[39:27] to you. I believe it'll be next week.

[39:30] - Okay. Stankey, Josh? Okay, moving on.

[39:33] Are there any referrals?

[39:35] I okay. Hearing none.

[39:39] Any announcements? Alder. Dreyer.

[39:44] - Yeah. So not really planning related,

[39:46] but school starts on next Tuesday.

[39:48] So welcoming back all the students this morning we had the

[39:50] convocation at East High School, which was very nice

[39:53] and looking forward to the school year.

[39:57] So it's time to get the kiddos to bet on time.

[39:59] Start to get that schedule back

[40:01] and also like to ask our audience about, just to make sure

[40:05] that we're adding a couple minutes to our commute,

[40:07] especially if we have a bus stop on the way

[40:09] and respecting the buses.

[40:10] Stop sign. We would all appreciate that. So Stankey? Yeah,

[40:14] - Stankey for that.

[40:15] Very good. Anything?

[40:19] Okay, we will move on to adjournment.

[40:23] I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So move second.

[40:26] Okay, we have a motion. And second. Any discussion? Okay.

[40:30] All in favor of adjourning please signify by saying aye.

[40:33] Aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Stankey. We are adjourned.

Plan Commission Meeting, 08-25-2026

Transcript