[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.