Dozens of people spoke out against a proposed data center this week in Charlestown. (Aprile Rickert / LPM)A roughly 55,000-square-foot data center in Charlestown’s Shadow Lake Business Park is moving forward, despite many in the community who say they don’t want it or don’t like its location .The Charlestown Advisory Plan Commission voted 4-3 Monday to advance the proposal, after hearing from dozens of community members at the often tense, standing-room only meeting.The vote was not on the merits of a data center in the city, but whether the development plan fit the city’s current zoning requirement for light industrial. Building Commissioner Tony Jackson found it met the current criteria, and the board’s job was to vote on whether they agreed with his assessment.But before that, residents shared concerns about water and energy usage, harm to children and wildlife, and disruption in a community that they consider peaceful.“This is not an empty piece of land sitting far away from homes. This is where families live, children play and people have invested their life savings,” Jordan Flaherty, who lives less than 100 feet from the site, said in public comment.The proposal for Charlestown's Shadow Lake Business Park, a mixed-use space that includes light industrial zoning, drew community criticism when news of it came to light a few months ago.Mayor Treva Hodges previously said she knew there had been some interest from people looking to build data centers, including larger-scale developments. But she didn’t know this one was being pursued officially and said she was surprised that the private land sale for it happened before it had formal approval to move forward.She asked for the process to slow down and for the developer to provide more information at a community meeting last month.Tampa-based Qlever LLC and ION Louis LLC are in charge of the project and said the facility will not be used for artificial intelligence.They said the facility will use up to 5 megawatts of electricity at full build-out and a closed-loop water cooling system, and that it will be quieter than typical industrial sites. They said it won’t negatively impact regional electricity and that any utility infrastructure upgrades will be borne by the company, not ratepayers.Lauren Nichols criticized their use of subjective terminology like “small” and “low-impact.”“Let me tell you that this isn't low-impact to those who live around it,” Nichols said.She said she’s concerned about damage to homes during construction and ecological disruption from artificial light and constant noise.“Between the unaddressed liability damages, the total disregard for local wildlife and the impact to our properties, this project simply isn't ready to be approved without fully understanding it,” Nichols said.Sarah Zehnder said more than 800 people signed a petition against the center — close to 10% of the city’s population. She brought more than half of those signatures to the meeting in a box delivered to the board. Others signed online.“I'm not going to spend any time expressing how much the people of Charlestown deeply do not want this,” she said, adding that a moratorium should have been in place before this development was ever proposed.Charlestown is in the process of updating its Unified Development Code and could be moving toward a moratorium for new data centers, but that wouldn’t affect the current proposal.Other local governments in Southern Indiana are taking steps to address data centers in their zoning laws, or looking to pause new construction  until they can.Community members initially challenged the two-minute limit given for each participant, and pushed back when the board closed the public hearing with more people wanting to speak who hadn’t signed up. They applauded and cheered for speakers and yelled from the audience when an official or developer said something they disagreed with.Hodges said she would have liked the developer to provide more in-depth information before public comment and that the plan commission president should have held more accountability for people speaking.“This has been very frustrating for me as mayor because my community is scared and my community is hurting, and I've done everything I can that I'm legally allowed to do to provide all the information I can for them to answer any questions and to provide facts to combat those fears,” Hodges said.She said misinformation has been spreading online and that, “Because the developer didn't take the time to repeat all of the correct information before the public comment started, it just makes the meeting go completely off the rails.”The board’s approval came with stipulations, including an eight-foot berm with trees, blasting surveys and an environmental study.Coverage of Southern Indiana is funded, in part, by Samtec Inc., the Hazel Walter T. Bales Foundation, and the Caesars Foundation of Floyd County. ...read more read less