(OUTAGAMIE COUNTY) NBC26 — Outagamie County is undertaking a major overhaul of its land use and development regulations. The County's Zoning Code was last comprehensively revamped in 1989, and county officials are deciding how, or whether, to include data centers in the new rules.
Kevin Englebert, the county's Development and Land Services director, said the rewrite is an opportunity to modernize regulations around emerging development types.
"We're looking at how do we approach data centers and how do we make sure our regulations are up to date to protect Outagamie County, our natural resources, and our population," Englebert said.
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Englebert's department has been working on the overhaul since 2023.
"Other counties are looking at ways to regulate or treat data centers; we are too in our code rewrite," Englebert said.
County Board Supervisor Steven Thiede said leaders are in the early stages of examining the issue, but that there is support for keeping data centers out of the new code entirely.
"What I see are people concerned about water usage, people concerned about land usage, and people concerned about power usage. And those are three very real concerns," Thiede said.
Thiede said the pace of data center development calls for a measured approach.
"Data centers are new, we've been going at lightning speed on this, and I think it would do us all some good to slow down and take a breath," Thiede said.
If the county decides data centers are not an acceptable land use, the restriction would apply only to certain towns within the county. Cities and other municipalities would remain subject to their own zoning rules.
Outagamie County is not alone in examining the issue.
Moratoriums on data center development are being considered in Shawano and Winnebago counties.
The county's code rewrite is scheduled to be adopted by the end of this year.
