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Logan County Board
June Zoning and Economic Development Committee Meeting
[June 02, 2026]
On Monday, June 1st, the Zoning
and Economic Development Committee of the larger Logan County Board
held their monthly meeting in the first-floor courtroom of the Logan
County Courthouse at 6:30 p.m.The meeting was attended by three of
the five committee members, Interim Chairman Dale Nelson, Vice
Chairman Kathy Schmidt, and Joseph Kuhlman. Hannah Fitzpatrick and
Bob Sanders were absent.
There were no items under old business, so the committee moved on to
the three items under new business. The first was the data center
ordinance the county has been working on for the last few months.
Nelson informed the committee that there were six recommendations
made by the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA). Before he got to those
six recommendations, Nelson suggested adding wording to the
ordinance requiring an independent study to be conducted on any data
center projects before the board votes on approving their project.
This motion was made and passed.
Zoning and Economic Development Officer Al Green stated that other
counties were adding language to their data center ordinances that
would require the data center company to pay for the study and would
give the county the power to select the company to do the study.
Nelson made a motion to add this language to the ordinance, and this
was also passed.
Next, Nelson got to the six recommendations from the ZBA, with the
first being the Logan County Health Department having been contacted
about the results of annual wastewater test that would be required
by the ordinance. This recommendation was accepted by the committee
and added to the draft ordinance.
The second ZBA recommendation was regarding noise restrictions and
needing clarification in the verbiage of the ordinance. Nelson
suggested that they use the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) restrictions for wind farms. This update was accepted by the
committee.
Third was a recommendation on how
far a data center would have to be from residential properties. The
draft ordinance stated 500 feet minimum, but the ZBA recommended
making it a 1,500 foot minimum. Nelson opposed this change, stating
the distance could be set in the conditional use permit (CUP), or
the document that would set the exact parameters a data center would
have to follow if the county board ever approved one. Kuhlman asked
Nelson if he would be against increasing the minimum at all. After
some discussion, the three members agreed to get rid of the minimum,
instead replacing it with whatever distance the board agreed upon in
the CUP. This was then added to the draft ordinance.
Fourth was a small verbiage change regarding changing that the owner
of the data center should be defined as a “person or entity, not
simply a person.” This was accepted and added. After this was a
recommendation about tile drainage and updating it to have the same
requirements they currently do with county ordinances on wind,
solar, and battery storage projects. This was also accepted.
The final ZBA recommendation was regarding decommissioning plans for
any data center companies. Decommissioning plans are plans for how
the project is going to be torn down, how it is going to be paid
for, and how the land is going to be restored after the life of the
project. Nelson stated that there is currently a separate data
center ordinance being worked on for decommissioning plans
specifically, so he recommended rejecting this recommendation for
now. The committee decided to reject the recommendation. Before
moving on to the next item, Nelson stated that he wanted to see
about having a special meeting this Thursday at 6:00 p.m. to get the
ordinance finished. He stated that the meeting would likely be held
in the first-floor courtroom.
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This brought the
committee on to the second new business item in regard to the
county ordinance on wind farms. According to Nelson, there have
been many complaints that the wind farm companies in the county
are not following the ordinance. He stated he wanted to talk to
Green about how to enforce the ordinance. Green stated that they
did get an enforcement ordinance in place, but that it is only
in effect for Top Hat. All other wind farms in Logan County were
approved before the ordinance was changed, so they cannot
necessarily issue fines. He stated that the “nuclear option,” or
pulling the company’s permits so that they could not operate in
the county, would be an option.
Nelson asked Green to get him the
contact information for the various wind companies around the county
to see if they could get them to come to a county board meeting to
ask them about the violations.
This moved the committee on to the third and final item under new
business regarding hiring a part time assistant in the Zoning Office
to assist Green. Green stated that he would have the person helping
to file, bring computers up to date, and store things. Up to this
point, Green stated, he has not needed the help, but that is
changing. He also stated that Logan County Engineer Bret Aukamp’s
son just graduated high school and stated that he would be
interested in the job for the summer. Green stated that he had
already interviewed him.
Nelson stated that he looked into the budget and saw that $12,000
had been budgeted for this position. They agreed that they could
have someone work a few hours, a couple of days a week and pay them
up to the $12,000 budgeted amount. A motion was made for this and
passed.
Next was the Zoning and Economic Development Officer’s report. Green
stated that several permits had been issued last month, including
cell tower renovations, homes, and rooftop solar. He stated that he
has been having issues with Pike Creek continuously requesting
partial permits. According to Green, they are requesting the permits
without the rest of the properties being approved. He believes they
are doing this to try to show that they are getting some
construction done before their funding runs out.
Green also stated that he confirmed with State’s Attorney Brad Hauge
that the permits would have to be all or nothing, and that no
partial permits could be issued. Green stated that Pike Creek is not
“fulfilling their obligations” in regard to getting the work done
for their permits.
Green mentioned that there is another
community solar project looking to be built near EATON in Lincoln.
He stated he received a phone call about a 180 megawatt solar farm
that is being looked at for property near Latham. He stated that he
had not heard about this project before that phone call, so that is
something that may be “coming down the pipeline.”
Green ended his report by stating that Lake and Henry counties had
reached out to him about getting copies of Logan County’s data
center ordinance, as they were looking to copy it.
This then brought the meeting on to public comments, of which there
was one. A young man stood up and stated that Hut 8 might not be
finished in Logan County. According to this commenter, their
lobbyists might be working with people who are running to be on the
county board.
After this, the meeting was adjourned.
[Matt Boutcher]
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