The city of Wilmington will likely decide on a 30-year tax abatement for a proposed Amazon Web Services data center on Thursday. But many residents either still have questions or are against the project.
The $4 billion data center would be located on 471 acres in southwest Wilmington, near homes, businesses and farmland. It will create at least 100 jobs, according to city-provided documents.
The city council postponed the vote on the tax abatement twice, most recently at a meeting late last month.
If approved, Amazon will make payments in lieu of property taxes (or PILOT) to the city, Wilmington City Schools, Laurel Oaks Career Campus and the Clinton County Port Authority for 30 years for the years 2035 through 2064. PILOT agreements are essentially financial incentives; this agreement stipulates that Amazon would pay out 30% of what they would in annual property taxes.
Residents pack city council meeting
A data center houses computer systems and related hardware components to store, manage and distribute digital data, according to the Amazon Web Services website. Data centers are being rapidly developed around the country, especially because artificial intelligence requires the centers.
Wilmington City Council held a special council meeting in late November, where the Clinton County Port Authority gave a presentation on the proposed project.
“We actually think this is going to be [one of the] top five private sources of income tax for the city of Wilmington. And so putting it into that context, while it may be a drop in the bucket to a Cincinnati metro area community, it's actually going to be a significant contributor to the tax base here in Wilmington,” said Josh Roth, economic development director for the Clinton County Port Authority.
There were a number of negotiations the port authority made with Amazon before bringing the project in front of the council, including setbacks from residential areas, local infrastructural upgrades financed by Amazon, and a required noise study to measure sound impacts.
Many in the community say the project wasn’t publicly discussed until a Wilmington City Schools’ Board of Education meeting last month, where it approved the PILOT agreement’s terms.
Involved parties had to sign nondisclosure agreements until a commitment was reached “to keep valuable information from other competitors,” the port authority said.
At the meeting, Wilmington resident Kelsey Swindler said she’s alarmed the council is contemplating this agreement while many community members are still learning details.
“It's maddening to realize now in November that critical steps in this specific project were accomplished in April, June, July, August, and October. Before we ever knew a project was on the table, the land was annexed, the parcel rezoned, and essential language around data centers added in, alongside other myriad updates,” Swindler said.
Major water, electricity user
Many meeting attendees opposed the data center because of potential environmental impacts and energy burdens. Data centers are large water and electricity users to maintain and power equipment.
The city of Wilmington pays the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for water from the Caesar Creek reservoir. Roth said Amazon will buy water from the city at the same rate as residential customers, plus pay an additional fee for reserves.
“It's because we have that resource available that we can actually digest this project, that we have enough capacity within the community to provide water to this project,” he said. “And so this project is actually going to help the community defray a cost it already is incurring. This should help all of the rate payers on the water side.”
The local electric utility, AES Ohio, has been working with Amazon for more than a year to ensure adequate electricity capacity for its users, according to Roth.
'A no vote is not anti-growth'
But the safety of the data center’s wastewater and what procedures it will have during power outages are still a big question mark, said Wilmington resident Molly Boatman at the November meeting.
“The responsible decision is to vote 'no.' A no vote is not anti-growth. It's not anti-development. It's simply refusing to approve a deal with unresolved risk, missing protections, and unanswered questions,” Boatman said.
Amazon didn’t respond to WYSO’s request by deadline.
Wilmington city council is scheduled to vote on the tax abatement at their next meeting on Thursday.
