Record · Local legislation
City of Sidney Ordinance No. A-3219 — adopting amendments to the Zoning Code, including the creation of the "Warehouse – Data Center" use and its definition, passed 2025-04-28
2025-04-28-ord-a-3219-data-center-use-created
Fields
instrument
City of Sidney Ordinance No. A-3219 — adopting amendments to the Zoning Code, including the creation of the "Warehouse – Data Center" use and its definition, passed 2025-04-28
ordinance_no
A-3219
body
Council of the City of Sidney, Ohio
body_kind
city_council
subject_matter
zoning_text_amendment
adopted
2025-04-28
outcome
approved
definition
- tag verified
- read text-layer
- locator Exhibit A, GLOSSARY – USES, letter w (sheet foot "SIDNEY, OHIO ZONING CODE 145")
- verbatim Warehouse — Data Center. A facility used for the remote storage, processing, or distribution of large amounts of data that is greater than 50,000 square feet.
- transcription_note The text layer inserts a stray apostrophe ("A 'facility used"); an independent 300-DPI render has none, so it is an extraction artifact and is excluded from the quotation.
- is_new [verified] The whole definition is rendered in RED UNDERLINE, and the exhibit's own legend reads "Red Underline = NEW / Red Strike Through = REMOVE". The ordinance is the adding instrument on its own face.
- ⚠️_the_floor
- threshold_sq_ft 50000
- note A data facility of 50,000 sq ft or LESS is not a "Warehouse – Data Center" under this code, and no other listed use covers it. What such a facility would be permitted as, and where, is [open].
permitted_use
- tag verified
- read 300-dpi page render (the cell is illegible in the text layer)
- locator Exhibit A, Chapter 1103 use table, p.2 (sheet foot "SIDNEY, OHIO ZONING CODE 22 UPDATED THROUGH NOVEMBER 25, 2024")
- finding The row "Warehouse – Data Center" carries a single entry — P, permitted by right — in the "Industry/ Innov./Manuf. Zone (IIM)" column. All eight other district columns on that row are BLANK.
- districts_on_the_table
- R-1
- R-2
- R-3
- CC
- NC
- HC
- IIM
- CSD
- TND
- both_marked_new [verified] The row label AND the P are both in red underline, i.e. NEW under the exhibit's own legend.
- how_the_column_was_identified Against the rendered header band, and cross-checked against the P's of "Warehouse - Large Format", "Storage - Contractor" and "Storage - Commercial Gases", which sit in the same column. ⚠️ The column was NOT inferred from the filename or from the ordinance title.
- consequence [inference], and the reasoning is the code's own scheme: a P is by-right, so a data center in the IIM zone requires no conditional-use permit, no variance and no BZA hearing. This is why there is no BZA or Planning Commission record of a data-center approval to find. Report it as a structural absence, never as a corpus gap.
the_sequence
- tag verified
- note Every date below is content-verified from the instrument's own passage clause, so the ORDER is solid. What it means is not asserted.
- entries
- date 2025-04-28
- event A-3219 creates the "Warehouse – Data Center" use, P by right in IIM only
- date 2025-06-16
- event The Planning Commission declines 0-4 to recommend zoning the campus IIM
- date 2025-07-28
- event A-3225 annexes the 243.092 acres and A-3226 zones them IIM
- date 2025-09-08
- event Res. 69-25 adds the thirty-year megaproject exemption tier
- date 2025-10-27
- event Res. 80-25 authorizes the CRA Agreement at 30 years / 100%
- ⚠️_it_names_nothing A-3219 names no project, no company and no parcel — and a Commission member asked on the record why the category was needed at all (see `deliberation`). Whether it was drafted with this campus in view is [open]. The chronology is a fact; the motive is not in any document read here.
deliberation
- tag verified
- source
- file data/documents/sidney/planning-commission/Planning Commission Minutes March 17, 2025.pdf
- case PZCA2025-0002
- the_question A. Sakhalkar asked for clarification on why the proposed code is specifically calling out data centers when the code currently lists warehouse- small format and large format; noting that a data center should fall under one of those existing uses.
- the_answer T. Hurysz replied that the city is being inclusive to different types of uses that may or may not come into the city. Data Centers was not a specific use listed before, but the proposal is to add it. He also noted that the terms for warehouses- small and large format pertains to the literal storage of physical goods and materials. Since a data center stores information, staff feels the distinction needs to be added.
- note [verified] This is the only recorded deliberation on why Sidney created a data-center use, and it names no project. The Commission recommended the amendments; Council adopted them six weeks later.
subsequent_amendments
- tag verified
- finding SIDNEY HAS NOT REVISITED THE USE SINCE. The two later zoning-code amendments in the City's Ordinances container — A-3236 (2025-09-22) and A-3255 (2026-02-23) — carry ZERO mentions of data centers between them.
- sweep The negative rests on a full enumeration of the Ordinances container's 2025 and 2026 year folders (49 and 22 documents), of which the zoning-code amendments were opened and read.
- both_committed
- data/documents/sidney/ordinances/A-3236 - Adopting Zoning Code Amendments.pdf
- data/documents/sidney/ordinances/A-3255 - Amending Zoning Code.pdf
cross_site
- tag verified
- note Van Wert wrote "Data Center" into its own code by Ord. 26-05-029 on 2026-05-11, alongside the annexation and zoning of ITS campus the same night. Sidney's definition precedes Van Wert's by about twelve and a half months, and Sidney's definition precedes its own campus zoning by three. TWO SEQUENCES, WRITTEN SEPARATELY. Nothing here supports a claim that either city was responding to the other. See data/extracted/van-wert/council/.
- ⚠️_the_briefed_negative The research that produced this file was briefed with Van Wert as the network's example and the implication that Sidney had none. That was wrong, and it is recorded here so the next reader does not inherit it.
vote
- roll_call_recorded no
- outcome_recorded no
- note [open] The RECORD OF ORDINANCES page carries the enacting clause, the passage date and the Attest line only. The Council minutes of 2025-04-28 are on the same portal, unpulled.
what_this_instrument_does_not_establish
- ANY CONNECTION TO THE CAMPUS. It names no project, no company and no parcel, and predates the campus's annexation by three months.
- WHAT A DATA CENTER MAY DO once permitted. The use table grants the use; operating conditions — noise, water, generators, hours — are elsewhere in the code or nowhere, and this ordinance imposes none. ⚠️ Contrast Van Wert, whose conditional-zoning ordinance carried a landscape mound and nothing else: neither city attached operating conditions to a data center.
- COVERAGE BELOW 50,000 SQ FT. See `definition.⚠️_the_floor`.
⚠ Gaps in the record
- The governing use-table cell is ILLEGIBLE in the text layer (`!:`) and was read from a page render. Any future re-check must render the page; a text-layer read of this ordinance cannot confirm or refute the by-right finding.
Where it connects
sidney/council/2025-04-28-ord-a-3219-data-center-use-created.resolution.yaml · p.1 · sidney