Fiscal Court Votes To Draft Data Center Moratorium
File Photo: Kentucky State Seal in the courtroom at Mercer County Fiscal Courthouse.
Robert Moore
Herald Staff
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The Mercer County Fiscal Court has asked County Attorney Ted Dean to draft a moratorium on data centers.
At the fiscal court’s meeting on Tuesday, July 14, Magistrate Susan Barrington moved to ask Dean to draft an ordinance establishing a moratorium on data centers in Mercer County. Barrington’s motion was seconded by Magistrate Stephen “Pete” Elliott and passed unanimously.
Dean told the Harrodsburg Herald that he would have the draft ordinance ready for the fiscal court to vote on at their next meeting.
On Tuesday, Judge-Executive Sarah Steele clarified that, if approved, the moratorium would affect only the county, not the City of Burgin. At a special-called meeting last week, the Burgin City Council gave first reading to an ordinance annexing 10 properties, which contain nearly a thousand acres of real estate along Shakertown Road, Handy Pike, Maude Lane and Bailey Pike, for a proposed hyperscale data center.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Judge Steele said the moratorium would be null and void once the Harrodsburg-Mercer County Joint Planning and Zoning Commission’s ordinance dealing with data centers was in place. Steele called the moratorium a pause to give them time to work on the ordinance.
Following the vote, which came at the end of the meeting, there was applause from members of the group, We Are Mercer, who were in attendance.
“I thank you all from the bottom of my heart,” one member of the group told the fiscal court. “We will never forget you.”
