A Licking County Township Took Data Centers Out of Its Zoning Code in Eight Minutes. The Whole Record Is Public.

The sequence tracks R.C. 519.12 step by step, which is the reason it held.

The zoning commission initiated it. Under R.C. 519.12 an amendment to a zoning resolution may be initiated by motion of the township zoning commission, by resolution of the trustees, or by application from a property owner or lessee. Here the applicant listed in the county file is the St. Albans Township Zoning Commission itself. No developer application appears anywhere in the record, and no operator is named.

The county reviewed it. R.C. 519.12 requires the zoning commission to transmit the proposal with text and map to the county or regional planning commission "for approval, disapproval, or suggestions." The Licking County Planning Commission took it up as case Z-25-29 at its January 26, 2026 meeting in Newark. The staff report describes it as "a request for a non-binding recommendation for a proposed text amendment to Article 15: General Business District, Section 1502: Conditionally Permitted Uses in the St. Albans Township Zoning Resolution to exclude data centers and related other information services."

The zoning commission voted. On February 5, 2026 the commission recommended removal to the trustees, on a motion recorded 5 to 0, with the stated reasoning that the change is "to be consistent with our current comp plan of 2025 with concern over the effect of the large data center energy use, water use and light and noise pollution with little benefit to our community," and noting that the public "has made several comments in clear opposition to these uses in several public meetings."

The trustees held the hearing and adopted it. R.C. 519.12 requires the board to set its public hearing not more than thirty days after receiving the recommendation. The March 10, 2026 public hearing minutes state the purpose plainly: "The purpose of this public hearing is for proposed text amendment to Article 15, section 1502 of the Zoning Resolution to exclude data centers and related other information services." Chairman Mike Washington read the recitals and moved the resolution. Trustee Tad Vanness seconded. The roll call was Mike Washington yes, Randal Almendinger yes, Tad Vanness yes. The hearing adjourned at 6:08 p.m.

Under R.C. 519.12(H) an adopted amendment takes effect thirty days after adoption unless a referendum petition signed by at least thirty-five percent of the gubernatorial vote in the affected unincorporated area is presented to the trustees within those thirty days. The trustee minutes for April 14, 2026, which approved the March 10 hearing minutes, record no such petition, and none appears in the minutes through July 14, 2026.

The Licking County Planning Commission's review is non-binding, and it is still the most substantive document in the file. Staff recommended approval with two conditions: that the township "clearly establish a public record that explains the reasoning for the removal of particular uses from the zoning resolution," and that staff and county prosecutor comments be considered as part of the township review.

Staff also raised a planning objection the township did not adopt, and it deserves to be reported. Because the township has no manufacturing district where these uses might be more appropriate, removing them from the General Business conditional use list removes them from the zoning resolution entirely. Staff noted that keeping them as conditional uses "would give the Board of Zoning Appeals the ability to review proposals on a case-by-case basis," and recommended "maintaining some option for uses within the zoning resolution unless it is removed consistent with the ORC." The township went the other way. Both positions are in the public file.

The more consequential comment came from the county prosecutor's office, which reviewed the draft and warned that the zoning resolution provides no definition of "telecommunications," and that if the amendment "seeks to impose a blanket ban on any sort of telecommunications including wireless telecommunication providers, telephone companies, etc., that would exceed the Township's power under R.C. 519.211 (A)," citing Campanelli v. AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., 85 Ohio St. 3d 103 (1999), which holds that wireless telecommunications providers are public utilities and therefore exempt from township zoning regulation.

The adopted resolution answers that directly. Section 2 provides that nothing in the amendment shall be interpreted or applied in a manner that prohibits or has the effect of prohibiting the provision of telecommunications or wireless services protected under federal law, including the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and applicable provisions of Title 47 of the United States Code. Whether that savings clause does everything R.C. 519.211 requires is a question for a court on a live dispute, and there is none. What the record shows is a township that received a legal warning in writing and wrote an answer into the ordinance instead of ignoring it.

Our method is to check whether a document exists in more than one form, and here it does. The township posts its full zoning resolution as a single file marked Version 2026.2, Resolution 6-9-26A. Read it in two places and the two places disagree.

In Article 15, Section 1502, paragraph 4, the Information category now reads only "Publishing Industries, provided that the requirements for parking, loading, and unloading conform to those for industrial buildings; Broadcasting, including towers (applies to commercial stations and equipment only)." The removed categories are gone, exactly as Resolution 3/10/26 A directed. Article 15 also states that "all uses not specifically authorized as a permitted or conditionally permitted use by the express terms of these sections of the zoning resolution are hereby prohibited."

In Article 98, the North American Industry Classification System listing table, whose page footers still carry an adoption date of November 7, 2005, the rows for NAICS 516 (Internet Publishing and Broadcasting), 517 (Telecommunications) and 518 (Internet Service Providers, Web Search Portals, and Data Processing Services), including 518210, Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services, are all still marked GB-CPU, conditionally permitted in the General Business district.

We are not offering a legal opinion about which controls, and we are not suggesting anyone did anything improper. Cross reference tables in zoning codes lag amendments constantly, in every state. We are reporting it because the practical lesson is portable to every reader of this site: when you are relying on what a zoning code permits, read the district article and every table that cross references it, and if they disagree, ask the zoning inspector in writing which one the township applies. In Ohio the answer belongs in a record you can produce later.

Three honest limits on this entry.

There is no lawsuit. No resident, developer, or public body has filed suit over Resolution 3/10/26 A as far as any record we fetched shows. Nothing here is a finding of wrongdoing by anyone, and no company is a party to anything described on this page.

There is no project. No data center was proposed in St. Albans Township. This is a community changing its rules before an applicant arrives, which is a different fact pattern from every damages case in this tracker and from the approval fights in Ashville and Wilmington.

A use list amendment is not permanent and not unlimited. It is not a moratorium, which pauses applications and expires. It can be amended again by the same procedure, it is subject to the referendum in R.C. 519.12(H), and township zoning power over public utilities is constrained by R.C. 519.211, which is precisely what the prosecutor's comment was about. Ohio townships considering the same move should have counsel draft it.

We also note what the minutes claim and we do not: a trustee is recorded saying the township is "the 1st in Licking County and possibly the 1st in the state to make this change." We have not verified that against other Ohio townships and we are reporting it as a quotation from the minutes, not as a fact we established.

If you live in an Ohio township and the buildout is heading your way, this record is a template.

• Read your own use list first. Find the district that covers the parcels near you and read its permitted and conditionally permitted uses. Many Ohio township codes written before 2010 allow data processing and hosting as a conditional use in a business or manufacturing district without anyone ever having thought about it. That is what St. Albans found.
• Ask the zoning commission to open a text amendment. Under R.C. 519.12 the commission can initiate one by motion. That is a request you make at a public meeting, and it costs nothing.
• Get the county planning commission's staff report. It is non-binding and it is where the legal problems surface. In Licking County it is where the prosecutor's preemption warning appeared, in writing, weeks before the vote.
• Anchor it to the comprehensive plan. The recitals in Resolution 3/10/26 A do the work by citing a specific page of the adopted plan. A record built that way is much harder to attack than a vote taken because a room was full.
• Know the thirty day referendum window runs against you too. Under R.C. 519.12(H) an amendment you support can be sent to the ballot by petition within thirty days of adoption. Our Ohio citizen tools guide explains that procedure and the Open Meetings Act remedies in detail.

If a facility near you is already built or under construction and the problem is noise, dust, water, or property damage rather than process, start with our evidence guide, then get a legal read: our free case review connects you with an independent attorney in our network handling data center matters in Ohio. Our Ohio page collects the state's documented disputes.