A company wants to rezone 190 acres of northwest Jackson from residential and commercial use to heavy industrial. Sitting in the middle of that proposed site is a two-acre family farm. Surrounding it is the Presidential Hills neighborhood. And the community that would live with the consequences found out about the postponement of a key hearing with less than five business days' notice.

Saxum Investment Company is asking the Jackson Planning Board to approve converting nearly 200 acres near a residential neighborhood into a heavy industrial data center site. Residents packed the Planning Board meeting on May 27 to oppose the project. "Even if we wanted a data center here, even if we decided to do something like that as a city, this process has not been transparent," said Matt Casteel, whose family farm sits directly inside the proposed development footprint.

The concerns are real. Data centers bring significant noise, air emissions, and utility burdens. Jackson is already debating a six-month moratorium on new data center projects to give the city time to study their impact and establish proper standards. The city has committed to developing data center-specific regulations for noise, emissions, and utility strain. Those standards do not yet exist. Saxum is asking for approval anyway.

The economic case has been made. A data center of this size could bring $60 million to the city and more than $80 million to the school district over ten years. That is a serious number for a city with serious needs. But economic benefit does not excuse a process that bypasses community input, rushes rezoning of residential land, and asks residents to accept heavy industrial development before the city has even established what standards that development must meet.

We are calling on the Jackson City Council to pass the six-month data center moratorium and use that time to develop and adopt enforceable data center standards before any rezoning is approved. We are calling on the Jackson Planning Board to reject any rezoning application that does not meet those standards. And we are calling on Jackson's city leaders to guarantee that residents of Presidential Hills and surrounding communities have full, meaningful participation in every step of this process.

Jackson's future is worth getting right. Take the time to do it.