As Edgerton overturns its denial for data center project, a community fights against it

Edgerton, Kansas, is one of many towns in the Kansas City area processing a proposed data center development.

DAMAC Digital is the technical division of DAMAC Group with similar properties in progress across 12 countries. This is DAMAC Digital’s first data center on U.S. soil. The project will use artificial intelligence, cloud, and enterprise workloads. Construction is expected to begin as soon as plans are approved and surveying is complete.

While the project has had to clear hurdles to get approval, members of the community are fighting against it.

“Until that data center is in place, until this is finally gone through and this is done, there is still a fight left to be had and that is our goal,” said Kimberly Twente, a local resident who’s actively worked to protest for the community.

The $860 million project is set for the Logistics Park Kansas City warehouse at 31800 W. 196th Street. DAMAC was approved to merge three lots of land into one by the Planning Commission in May, but delayed discussion of the plan until a June meeting to better understand some of the unanswered questions it had before approving.

On June 9, the commission denied the plan, citing the city’s unified development codes that require exterior fuel tanks to “be located below ground.”

Chelsea Kulhanek, Director of Land Development and Acquisition at DAMAC Group, addressed the Planning Commission at the June 9 meeting. When asked whether the diesel generators would be above ground, Kulhanek said they would be, then asked for a five-minute recess when the commissioner moved to deny. Following the recess, Kulhanek said the team would welcome the shift.

“We will put the fuel tanks below ground, we’re happy to accept that as a condition to overrule,” she said at the meeting.

Commissioner Adam Draskovich said because it was not already established in the final site plan, he made the motion to deny, spearheading the 3-2 vote. The day after, DAMAC’s representation sent an appeal to the council.

A special meeting to review the appeal

Edgerton City Council held a special meeting Thursday evening to review DAMAC Digital’s appeal for their final site plan approval. The council voted unanimously to pass the final site plan.

The meeting started with DAMAC’s appeal, followed by statements by city attorney Todd Luckman, and then counterarguments from each. The council then held a 20-minute session to discuss the appeal privately.

The city council’s decision would have produced two results; If rejected, DAMAC Digital would have had to revise the final site plan to be reviewed in August. But since it was approved, the appeal overrode the planning commission’s denial of the final site plan, and the last step is reviewing the final plat in August.

Charles Renner, DAMAC’s representative at the council meeting, is a leader of the Development/Public Private Partnership Industry Sector Group for Husch Blackwell’s Kansas City office. His services include data centers, development incentives & tax credits and public-private partnerships. Renner said the denial was unnecessary, as the fuel tanks supported generators that were underground. He said the planning commission’s decision was only made because of people’s uncertainty with data center development.

“They found a problem that did not exist,” Renner said at the meeting. “We’re only here for one reason, and that is because for some people, a data center is an uncomfortable topic.”

Renner said the decision is based on whether DAMAC is following the city’s established procedures. DAMAC wants the opportunity to proceed with the project and the final site plan, and since they’re following the city’s codes, he said, the development should move forward.

“If we’re all saying we want to follow the code, the documents are there,” he said. “Your process is there to accept it.”

DAMAC Digital has made attempts to connect with community members. They held a meeting to answer questions, and have provided FAQs on a website they created for the development. Some residents said the questions at the community meeting were answered ‘in circles.’

Community says there’s ‘still a fight left to be had’

Twente, the local resident who’s working to protest for the community, spearheaded a nonprofit organization called Public Trust Collective, which works “for honest, transparent, and accountable local government,” and especially focuses on resident-focused practices. The nonprofit was created to fight developments like data centers that might interfere with the quality of life of residents.

“Until that data center is in place, until this is finally gone through and this is done, there is still a fight left to be had and that is our goal,” Twente said.

The nonprofit is raising funds to hire an attorney to fight the data center. They are selling shirts for anyone across the country fighting against data center development.

“We’re not going to stop fighting this until we have been told there is nothing else we can do,” she said.

Residents have raised concerns about conflicts of interest in the city staff, whether it be council members involved with data center construction or city employees who do not live near the affected area. One particular Facebook post pointed to councilmember Joshua Lewis’ job with Burns & McDonnell, a KC-based construction, architecture and engineering firm.

Lewis addressed the concern at the July 16 meeting, and said he was unaware of any projects that would create a conflict of interest between his duties as a public official and as a Senior Government Audit and Contract Analyst for the firm.

“I intend to participate in discussions and vote on matters related to the proposed data center project unless information comes to light that would require a different course of action,” Lewis said at the meeting.

Lewis made the motion to approve the appeal, and previously made a motion to deny a moratorium at the June 11 meeting. The 3-2 decision followed multiple public comments from residents, many advocating for the moratorium or generally against data centers.

Frustration about data center approval

After the meeting, residents convened outside the hall to discuss their next steps. They were frustrated with the approval, and particularly upset by the terms used throughout the meeting. When describing the fuel tanks, Renner said underground and below grade interchangeably. He later corrected himself. Kailey Dressler was one of the residents upset by the inconsistency.

“They could have said we need to differentiate between at grade and underground,” Dressler said. “They repetitively bounced back and forth between below grade and underground. Those things are not the same.”

Twente said the community expected the decision, and believes the misuse of terms and DAMAC’s back-and-forth with the fuel tank placement is just the beginning.

“It just shows what they’re going to do in the future,” Twente said. “They don’t care about the verbiage. This is just, ‘we need to get our foot in the door, and we can do what we want when we’re there.’”

Data center development is happening across the Kansas City area. Ezra Winslow has lived in Gardner most of his life until he moved to Edgerton three months ago. He’s continually seen these debates near his homes.

“I think people need to get more angry. I don’t think people are angry enough,” Winslow said.