00:00:05,300	Jordan Reddy. It is 530, so I will call the Mandan Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for August 24th to order. Roll call please. Roll call. Commissioner Huber. Here. Veda Hammond. Here. Commissioner horn. Commissioner Mudder. Here. Mayor Froelich. Here. Commissioner Lang. Here. Commissioner Renner. Here. Commissioner Smith here. Commissioner McLean here. Commissioner IntVeld. Here. Chair. Robinson here.

00:01:00,800	And I would like to make an announcement on on the roll call. Uh, I did receive and reluctantly agreed to, uh, resignation today from Commissioner Gardner. So, next item would be consider approval of minutes from our July 27th meeting. Questions? I can move to approve. Chair Robinson. I’ll second. Motion by Commissioner McLean.

00:01:45,370	Second by Commissioner Hammond to approve the minutes of July 27th. Any questions? None. Roll call. Vote. Commissioner Mudder. Yes. Mayor. Froelich. Yes, Commissioner Lang. Yes. Commissioner Renner. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Yes. Commissioner McLean. Yes. Commissioner IntVeld. Yes. Commissioner Huber. Yes. Commissioner Hammond. Yes. Chair. Robinson. Yes. We do have quorum.

00:02:22,500	And next item I’m going to before we go into, uh. Uh uh, staff presentation, I’m going to kind of go over how the evening will flow. Uh, we have a lot of people here and, and, uh, uh, certainly don’t get this kind of attendance at our normal meeting. So I’d like to go over how it how expectations are going to go for the meeting.

00:02:43,630	Um, city staff will present the ordinance to the commission and the community tonight. Uh, PNC commissioners will then submit questions to the staff and recommendations to the staff prior to opening it up for public comment.

00:03:04,900	Um, just so for the record, submitted comments to the city inbox that has been out there. I’m not sure for how long. Uh, a month and a half. Uh, have been received by the commission commissioners in their package. I don’t know the count. We did receive a think about 4 or 5 more today. Uh, prior to the meeting. Uh, side note, they were largely constructive.

00:03:25,270	Uh, they were both respectful as staff and commission. And, uh, some of the, some of the emails did provide, uh, much appreciated detail. Um, after we get through the commission, uh, uh, has its questions for city staff at that point. We’ll open up for public comment. Uh, public comment.

00:03:46,300	We’ll have a three minute time limit. Um, I will want you to state your name for the record. The microphone is over on the lowest level. The highest point of the lowest level. Up right over there. And there’s also a sign up sheet. Uh, next to that.

00:04:05,800	So if you are speaking, in addition to stating your name for the record, sign in on the sign up sheet. Uh, comment period is not a Q&A event. Questions may be posed in city. Staff will address them after closing the open period. Uh, we do need to keep the process moving tonight.

00:04:29,170	Um, I do reserve the right to shorten the three minutes, see if the speaker is way off topic. Uh, or if we, uh, somehow go through accusations, insults, that kind of thing. Uh, I will interrupt you and ask you to just return to your seat.

00:04:53,470	Um, uh, in other words, if somebody tells me the Minnesota Vikings that have three Super Bowl championships, if it wasn’t for these data centers, I’ll have to stop you. Uh, we’ll have no repeat commenters. Uh, we’ll do it. The open segment will be open for one hour. Uh, the expected behavior will be courtesy, obviously, for everyone. Uh, attending and commenting and commissioners and city staff. Uh, no shouting comments from the audience. Be mindful of the commenters.

00:05:22,470	Uh, the comment box was open for about 6 or 7 weeks. Um, like I stated, there was a lot of good comments in there, and, uh, you got to be mindful that they’re there. Uh, we’ll be trying to add to this ordinance tonight, uh, with their comments.

00:05:47,000	Uh, public comments are expected to be directed to the draft ordinance. Um, and comments again will be received just on the main floor at that location. Uh, once we get through that process, uh, roughly an hour, we’ll close the public comment. Um, and then we’ll return the draft back to the commission for further discussion with city staff and among the commission.

00:06:11,800	And once we get to that point, this board does make a the motion is basically a recommendation motion. So our recommendation is to the city commission. Um, so obviously obviously there’s another step before this ordinance does get codified. Uh, in the main ordinance.

00:06:38,930	So with that, I will turn it over to Jarek and Jordan. Uh, I believe Jarek’s going to start with, uh, presentation. Thank you very much. All right. Can anybody hear me? Just fine. All right. Um, we have a quick presentation up front.

00:06:57,200	Um, this will go over a lot of the process that we used to create the ordinance. Um, started July 6th ish. Um, and then we posted it on August 6th. So it was about a month of work I did attend. Um, the public meeting at the Veterans Library over in Bismarck. And we also did attend the meeting here. Um, on August 6th.

00:07:21,200	Uh, we reviewed a lot of comments, and, uh, we feel pretty good about what? The process. All right. Why are we talking about this now? Um, we have been working on a land use code for the last three years. Since 2023. In that land use code, we did have four lines designated for data center regulations.

00:07:43,400	Um, with the rumors kind of going about and the North Dakota Planning Association releasing their model ordinance, we did replace that with about four pages of ordinance based on that model ordinance. And then after that, we replaced it with 19 pages of very thought out intentional ordinance.

00:08:08,670	Um, that was based specifically on the feedback they were hearing from the community. Um, and the reason that we have special ordinances for data centers is because they are they can be developed at such a massive scale that the regular land use code is insufficient to regulate them. So that’s why we’re here tonight.

00:08:28,570	Um, a lot of questions that we’ve been hearing, uh, cost to residents. Can the power grid handle it? What about our water? What happens to the land and buildings after a data center? Uh, what does it look like? What will what could a data center look like? And then what will neighbors hear and feel? Uh, cost to the

00:08:45,830	residents. Large facilities can increase demand for power and strain infrastructure, leading to higher utility rates and added cost for residents. Um, our approach to this was to protect, uh, residential users. We don’t have authority to dictate electrical utility rates.

00:09:05,570	That would be the Public Service Commission and or MDU and or or whatever power supplier there is. But as part of our ordinance, we are, uh, requiring utility providers to verify capacity and then disclose how an applicant’s project would affect utility rate structures or how they would fit in the utility rate structure relative to residential users.

00:09:30,470	So while this ordinance is very general, um, when a specific project comes along, they would have to disclose that to us and therefore disclose it to the public for public review. Um, and then we also have fund 110%, 110% of the estimated upgraded or new utility and transportation infrastructure up front.

00:09:51,670	So that is how we address that. Can our power grid handle at once? Again, this is something that we have limited control over being part of the city, but we are, uh, requiring, uh, declarations and statements made from utility providers and the applicant to verify available power generation, transmission distribution capacity, and then requiring them to fund the

00:10:15,400	upgrades before operations begin. So if they are requiring expansion of electrical or gas facilities, they are going to be, um, they’re going to be paying for that, those upgrades. And then once again, uh, statements, uh, verifying that there’s no adverse impact on existing customers.

00:10:40,000	How will our infrastructure keep up with it? This is something that we have a little bit more, uh, control over. We are allowed to regulate it because we control it. Um, we are requiring low water demand. Closed loop systems or non portable evaporative cooling methods.

00:11:00,170	Um, the non portable evaporative cooling method would be a stretch where, uh, some applicant might be close to our wastewater treatment facility and maybe they could use wastewater, um, reuse in a situation like that, they would not be allowed to dig wells and they would not be allowed to inject their, um, wastewater. They would have to likely haul it to an off site facility rather than dispose towards us.

00:11:18,500	Um, we can’t really answer specifics around what wastewater or water requirements would be without an application in hand, because that’s where we would learn a lot of the specifics about a project.

00:11:46,530	What happens to the land and buildings long term? Um, we are requiring, a decommissioning plan with decommissioning bonds for 125% of the estimated decommissioning cost, updated every five years. So they would have to provide that upfront. Um, naming the city as the, uh, as the recipient. And then, um, we all also have a lot of language in there that is, uh, geared towards promoting reuse of these facilities.

00:12:11,000	Um, our thought process was that decommissioning costs and therefore bonding requirements would go down with reuse declarations and reuse plans. So, um, that would be mutually, mutually beneficial.

00:12:32,100	I don’t think even if it was returned to the natural state of the land, I think everybody would still see that as wasteful to to put up $1 billion facilities only to tear it down a few years down the road with the decommissioning bonds. Um, trying not to be wasteful, um, but still trying to be protective. Uh, we do have minimum floor area ratios built in here. What? We don’t want, um, for these sites also is to become massive roadblocks in our community.

00:12:52,200	We already have a lot of massive roadblocks in our community with the railroad, the interstate, um, the Hart River, the Missouri River and topography. So we don’t want this to just be another roadblock for us to get transportation or utility infrastructure from one point in our community to another.

00:13:10,100	So what will it look like? Um, in our existing ordinance, we have something called the, uh, Gateway Overlay District. This gateway overlay district has a lot of aesthetic requirements and a lot of screening requirements associated with it as well already.

00:13:30,000	Um, we use that as kind of a, a model to piggyback on top of, um, we don’t want massive concrete buildings, uh, that are eyesores to be, uh, impacting neighboring properties. So we have at least 50% of each facade includes architectural treatments. That is up from 20%, 30% in our gateway district. Height limits are as are applicable to zoning, district lighting standards.

00:13:55,200	That’s something that people have talked about quite a bit. We used the, um, Dark Skies model ordinance that would prevent light trespass onto neighboring properties and would require down lighting, and would specifically restrict up lighting. Um, so, uh, used a lot of, uh, tools that are already in our toolbox to manage appearances.

00:14:20,200	What will neighbors hear and feel? This is probably where we spent the most time and the most technical. Uh, research, um, enforceable noise limits. Uh, we have specific, uh, a weighted and c weighted noise limits for residential properties, commercial properties and industrial properties.

00:14:42,730	We also have limits that are related to what the ambient baseline was prior to development. So they will also be restricted. Um, if they are in a particularly quiet zone, they would only they wouldn’t be able to go all the way up to what their limits are. They could only go up by a certain amount. Um, we have vibration limits.

00:15:01,400	Uh, once again, split by the sensitivity of a property. Somebody sleeping in their home at night is more sensitive to vibrations than somebody working at Cloverdale, for example. So, um, we have a really intentional limits associated with noise and vibration monitoring. We have a language in here that would require continued monitoring that would ensure compliance.

00:15:25,700	And at the end would, uh, be at the beginning of startup, startup of operations. Um, no facility would be able to operate until they had field verified. Um, noise and vibration. Uh, thresholds met. And then we also have community engagement.

00:15:53,200	Um, any applicant would need to engage with, uh, neighbors within a half mile as part of the special use permit, but there would also be notification requirements that are inherent to conditional use permits. Um, zone changes, uh, future land use updates. We have a lot of other mechanisms in place that would require, um, public notification.

00:16:13,770	How do we know what actually works? Once I guess this, I got ahead of myself here. Um, for facilities, uh, to begin operations, they would need to verify what their what their stated model performance was, and they would have to meet infrasound requirements. They would have to meet SAE weighted requirements, light requirements, vibration requirements, a weighted requirements.

00:16:38,300	And then for facilities that are constructed in stages, we have it split for those requirements and verifications to happen at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the master build outs. Electrical capacity. So for a 1000 megawatt facility, they would have to, uh, well, they would have to do an acoustic verification at the very beginning just to get compliance.

00:17:04,870	But then they’d have to do another one at 250 megawatt capacity, 500 megawatt capacity. So we have a tiered like that. And, um, those would be a really good stages to to have interventions. What happens if standards aren’t met? Um, we would identify issues likely through, um, our own observations, random testing or through public input.

00:17:33,470	Um, immediate if they were found to be outside of compliance, we would we have immediate throttling required. Um, and then the throttling would be to bring them back into compliance. And while they are throttled, they would be making corrective actions to come back into compliance.

00:17:55,170	And then they would be allowed to go back up if they could to verify that the corrective actions were effective. If there were continued violations, the special use permit would be suspended and they would no longer be able to operate at that point in time. Um, I know that we have been talking about fine structures.

00:18:13,100	Fine structures are really hard for us in this particular situation because of the scale that these, uh, corporations operate at. Um, we have no idea if $1 million a day would be anything. You know, we don’t we don’t have. It’s hard to it’s hard to, to, to do that.

00:18:33,830	So we felt like the most effective, the most effective punishment or the most effective consequences would be ceasing operations. And then that would naturally scale with how big the facility is. They would have they would it would be lost revenue. So we felt like that was a pretty good way to do that.

00:18:51,900	Who pays for the impact? Um, did mention upfront that they would be required to pay for the infrastructure that they need. Um, to, to build the facility. Um, we are also requiring them to analyze and make improvements to the roads required for construction.

00:19:13,470	And we are requiring the testing, all of the testing that we’re that it’s associated with the special use permit to be paid for by developers. Um, but administrated by the city through independent third party consultants. And then site reclamation. They would also need to be putting up money up front to handle site reclamation through, uh, through a bond.

00:19:39,570	Um, the goal here is to insulate Mandan residents from any of the costs associated with this and to mitigate as much impact as possible. Um, preparing today for tomorrow. Yeah. We are. We are currently trying to encourage, um, infrastructure that is appropriate for long term performance. We are trying to make sure that the financial assurances are are made ahead of time and not after the fact.

00:20:03,870	And we are trying to make sure that everything is restored responsibly in the case that this this all fails. So. Um, and then as far as public engagement during a special use permit process, half a mile notice is kind of the radius that we had landed on for the ordinance.

00:20:26,100	There would be public hearings associated with our regular planning and zoning commission process. Um, the applicants are required to have public liaisons, human public liaisons, and they are required. They would be required to have 48 hour responses to inquiries from the public.

00:20:52,470	So right now, uh, what happens next? This is a draft, um, this ordinance, it does not approve a data center. This is not about a specific data center. It’s not even about a specific location. It is about, um, and a process through which we regulate data center development anywhere inside city limits or the ETA.

00:21:16,370	Um, and then tonight is an opportunity to consider whether these proposed standards adequately, adequately address Mandarin’s needs and concerns. Mandan needs and concerns. Um, so, uh, public input process tonight we want to get public input. We’ve got a lot of public input. Um, we have I mean, as staff internally, we have suggested, suggested additions and changes.

00:21:39,370	Um, that we think are would be good changes as, as a result of the public input that we’ve received so far. But, um, we are we are we’re kind of open ears tonight and we want to hear everybody’s concerns that have read the draft and want to influence it.

00:21:58,630	So, um, I’ll turn it over to Jordan here if I think he was going to go over the ordinance, unless anybody on the commission wants to comment on kind of the process on how we got here. Questions for Eric Robinson. Eric, how did you come up with the half mile? The half mile was in the planning or in the Planning Association’s model code? Um, that was originally a setback.

00:22:20,000	Um, what we felt was what we translated that to, uh, we got a lot of comments that were like, well, a half mile is too short. It should be one mile. Bismarcks is 1000ft. Um, a lot of people said, well, it shouldn’t be half a mile. It should be ten miles.

00:22:35,270	Then the city of Mandan is nine miles wide. So, um, we landed on that. We kind of stuck with that half mile. But then what we what we shifted to was rather than, um, be entirely reliant on noise to dissipate over a distance. We want them to. prove that noise will dissipate over a half mile.

00:22:57,600	And if it dissipates over a half mile, everything a mile out should be protected. Everything ten miles out should be protected. So we shifted from a distance based performance standard to to a results based performance standard.

00:23:19,200	What happens if the half mile does not work? Do you think of increasing it a little bit more? Um, I think that we I mean, we could look at, um, expanding what we consider to be the sensitive area that needs to be considered, and the modeling up front, I don’t think that would be an issue. I think that it’s all fairly, uh, dynamic modeling wise.

00:23:45,270	Um, and then but we we do feel that, uh, the most sensitive properties would end up being closer rather than further away from whatever proposed, uh, development there would be. But certainly we could look at expanding that. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions at this time? All right. I’m going to go through the ordinance.

00:24:13,370	The first half is going to take more of the technical sound stuff on the back end. But, um, we’re just going to kind of run through it. And then, um, if you guys have other questions and things that you want to ask after we’re done, we’re not reading this line by line, but just gives a good description.

00:24:31,270	I know Jarek had a great presentation on this, but, uh, just starts at the beginning from the authority general framework of this ordinance. And we have definitions. Obviously, the different sized ones, pure tone, different engagement processes for that, uh, applicability. See, data centers are classified within industrial group B and permitted in the mWBE and zoning districts with an approved conditional use permit.

00:25:03,100	Um, you guys know this, but I just want to back up a second and show the process by which the city goes to to this. So as staff, our hope is to at some point have an ordinance that we work with.

00:25:25,270	And once we have that, after that is through this process, through the City Commission and their process, we would have an ordinance of some sort adopted at that stage. That is the starting point for any, um, anybody that would want to come forward with a data center. So, uh, up on this screen.

00:25:45,500	We’ve got our land use application process, which includes the conditional special use process. So within that process is the fact that, okay, we have this ordinance in place now we can come through the special use permit process, which includes coming to this board with a application. And that would fall in line with everything that’s in front of you tonight.

00:26:07,670	And then after that, well, what conditions do we have on it? What what pieces are we going to put on that application? And after that, um, then it would go through P and Z, and then we have the flowchart of yes, know what their decision is, end up at city commission for their either approval or denial.

00:26:28,770	So this is not this is not the last hearing for anything that will happen. Data center related. This is just the start. And for us it’s it’s this first.

00:26:48,070	And then we would move on to the special use permit process, which includes another hearing from this board, a full application received to the city from an applicant, whoever that might be, and then working with us as staff, all the inner workings, making sure that we’re following everything that we would have in an ordinance. So I just that is they’re classified in that. And currently we have no agricultural zoning within that.

00:27:10,670	So there would also be a zone change, which would again require this board’s approval process and continue on that stage. So just to bring that forward, I know we’ve had a little bit of confusion on that, but we have no application for you. We have nothing.

00:27:30,200	So ordinance is what we’re focused on and honing in on, um, the entitlement process review, public review. Number two, the conditional use permit is required in order for any of this. Uh, if construction number one hasn’t commenced within three years, the permit, then that shall automatically terminate. They’d have to bring it back and go through that process again.

00:27:52,200	Permit modifications, be anything that gets changed within, um, any of the site specifics that we would consider a major change would have to come back and do this entire process all again.

00:28:15,470	So an increase in the total number of accessory structures on a development parcel or the expansion, structural modification or additions that increases a building more than 5% of its originally permitted footprint. Um, any modification, alteration, expansion of the boundary lines, all of these things. And then the layout, structures, utility providers, um, any, any building change of any kind or the site in general is going to have to come back through the special use permit process.

00:28:39,070	So the other one, c permit transfers prior to any change in ownership of any data center, that will also have to come back through an application should be made to the board requesting transfer of the conditional Use permit process. Approval of that shall be conditioned upon explicit written agreement by the new permit, and be attached to the original permit with approval.

00:29:01,470	So there again change. Change ownership. We need approval again or we go back through this process. Public notice Jarek talked about that. We need someone um, within that time window that can be a liaison for the project general development requirements and submittal requirements.

00:29:24,800	A lot of the things in this proposed project identification, a lot of these things, um, for staff are kind of our normal things. There were things added, the cooling methods, emissions description of the wastewater, waste disposal, water, all of those things will have to be submitted. Site plan details, um, through the whole thing there.

00:29:42,800	Again, just looking at all of those and I want to point out to that within the site plan details and the and the site specific things that we look at, there are a lot of things that are referenced, and one of them, and I think Jarek’s got it pulled up, but one of them is number 12, stormwater management

00:29:59,630	components. Well, that’s not just one piece. That entire process is already up and running at the city. That that is a 16 page document. That is a checklist that needs to be followed. So it’s not just, okay, we looked at the stormwater. We’re good. No, we have this process in place.

00:30:19,670	And you’re going to have to follow the city of Mandan stormwater app. You know process within that. So there’s a lot of referencing of things that may be outside of this specific ordinance that you say, well, where is that? We have it.

00:30:39,400	And there are other processes as well that includes state, um, federal things that may have their own process. We’ll get to those in a second. But just to just to give you a heads up, we have other processes. Stormwater is one of them. There’s a lot of other things that we look at.

00:30:53,270	Um, you may say, well, this is missing on the list. It may not be. It may be somewhere else. And not that we’re specifically hiding it, but, um, Jarek and their team in the engineering department have worked really hard to get that stormwater management process up and ready to go.

00:31:09,630	Not just for this, but in this whole zoning process. There’s a lot of things that we’ve been moving and trying to update in order to get this, um, where it needs to go. So it may look like we’re doing it for data centers, but really it’s been a three year process for us as staff trying to get everything updated and ready to go.

00:31:25,370	The the next one, stormwater emergency plans, hoping I’m not not sorry I went too far. Jarek. Um, receptor mapping mapping. Obviously we want a map of all of these things.

00:31:47,200	If there would be one, the city and staff would like all the spatial data, everything topography, building equipment, footprints, buffer zones, all of the all of the data that they get. We want we want to be able to use it in either by third party or ourselves.

00:32:02,630	Look at all of the the data and be able to use that with our systems, that we use our GIS, pro, CAD, civil, 3D and things like that. Uh, there’s the environmental assessment prior to scheduling of the hearing. We need to have the studies biological study, comprehensive pre-construction inventory, archaeological study.

00:32:27,000	Uh, the big one on this is the additional pieces, which is the submitting of other agencies necessary for project compliance with all applicable state and federal law statues, rules, regulatory standards and anticipated schedule for that. That’s that’s part of that process that in our world that includes FEMA, that includes all of the necessary things that we need to look at in that utility verifications. Jarek went over that description of that and how that happens.

00:32:51,270	Um, and then the stormwater emergency plans, we have a, I think a really good stormwater, um, setup that goes through all of that. And then I’m going to back up, which section did I have that, uh, in the entitlement process, I skipped over it. But permit modifications.

00:33:16,100	Uh, number four, any alterations to the structures, layout, utility providers, engineering methods utilized for energy procurement, electrical supply, water supply. Did talk about that. Sorry. And then we have. Site did I get through everything that I wanted and stormwater. I don’t think there is um but that’s the first half of it. I’m letting Jarek take over all of the technical side of things.

00:33:48,270	Yeah, we’ll see where this all goes. Um, I guess pausing right there. Is there anything that, uh, Chair Robinson or commissioners that you’d like us to expand on or go over again? Questions at this time? Uh, Jarek, I got a. Real quick question.

00:34:07,100	Um, I noticed we’ve got we’ve got we separated the the data centers for sizes and stuff like that, and I’m just I pulled the information out here a little while ago that Minneapolis, the old Minneapolis Tribune in downtown Minneapolis is going to become a data center.

00:34:23,500	Are we do we have any ordinance about stuff like that? Are we going to just leave that half mile in there for situations like that? If it’s a micro data center? Um. Chair Robinson. Commissioner. Uh, we do have specific exceptions for very, very small scale data centers, quote unquote, data centers.

00:34:51,930	Um, and those those are, those are handled through, uh, specific allowances for, these micro and major micro and minor data centers, which would be at a at a scale that would be a much less impactful. Yeah. And then the second question, because of these big data centers, and I know how much construction and stuff like that do they do we have rules and regulations for them.

00:35:09,000	So so they don’t get carried away about. And I’m, I’m thinking of dust and stuff like that. Is there any um, we have any rules and regulations that we’re going to take care of that type of stuff. Thank you. Commissioner Roger. Yes.

00:35:28,000	Um, we would have, uh, rules specifically related to nuisance noises, nuisance lighting. Um, road damage. Uh, dust control is something that is very common on other construction projects where we require them to, uh, use watering trucks to keep dust down or add some sort of dust palliative to keep dust down.

00:35:49,730	Um, we also, uh, have our stormwater ordinance, uh, handles a lot of the, like, mud track out, um, control. And we, we do have, uh, it is something that we should look at just because our stormwater ordinance, fine structure is something that, once again, might prove to be ineffective for something at this scale.

00:36:12,530	But in general, we we can handle construction activities with our current ordinance at a, at a fairly large scale. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Chair Robinson? Jarek. Uh, my question is just a little bit about the setbacks. Um, I know that around the country kind of setbacks have been they’re setting what linear feet, whether it’s 500 or 1000.

00:36:35,170	Have you guys had discussions about changing that? And that kind of goes hand in hand with, uh, your decimal levels at the setback range, which if your setbacks are at 500, whatever. I know that the Morton County right looks at it. They’re looking at about a 45 decimal level at the setback or at the property line.

00:36:55,100	Is that something you guys are looking to maybe match that? I know right now we’re at the daytime levels of 55 in this zone. Ordinance. Um, chair, chair. Robinson. Commissioner. Um, we I mean, absolutely we’ve we’ve been discussing it and then, uh, like a a setback distance, a minimum setback distance on top of performance requirements.

00:37:14,100	I think I would view as some sort of safety net. Um, and I think that would be a good, a good addition. Um, acknowledging that, um, like the setback requirements in Stutsman County and Morton County and other, uh, rural municipalities or political subdivisions might not be appropriate for an urban

00:37:33,530	environment, and we would likely be measuring it in feet rather than miles, or, in my opinion, um, and then as far as what what an appropriate decibel level is, we did, uh, I mean, included in our user friendly version of the report.

00:37:52,700	We did include a lot of, uh, references at the back end of this. Um, and, uh, the protective noise levels, uh, document here is kind of where we had landed on what is acceptable for residential, um, noise limits. A lot of this is around a weighted noise. And we all know that data center noise can be, uh, can generally trend to the lower side of things.

00:38:14,470	So we do also have C weighted noise limits that are in line with I would say, uh, what the professional community, uh, uses as like a relation between DBA and DVC noise limits.

00:38:35,800	But um, as far as going to 45 or going to 50 instead of 55 and 50, that might be something that we could we could absolutely look at. We’re not closing our eyes if that’s the actual right number. Yeah. Then just one follow up. I just want to thank you guys. I know that you guys did a tremendous amount of work, and it’s a lot of research and, uh, hard work. So thank you for all your work. You did put into this.

00:38:52,470	I appreciate it. Jarek Jordan, I got one question. I know we’ve had a lot of discussion around landscaping in the past around variances and such. Um, how do you see the landscaping plants fitting in for data centers into our current plan, or would that be something totally different for data centers? Jordan. Yeah. Chair. Robinson. Commissioner.

00:39:13,000	You know, I think we have the types now with our new ordinance, I think they’ll follow. Great. One of the added benefits of adding that extra layer of the gateway, um, on top of that, which would be the gateway overlay that’s normally reserved for your downtown corridor or your major arterial

00:39:34,370	roads that we have within the city. So adding that as an extra, I think would, um, benefit quite a bit. And, and a lot of times on a landscape plan, there’s things that we’re looking at, uh, specifically like, uh, I mean, if you’re, if, if you were planning to put all ground shrubs, you know,

00:39:54,370	in, in rocks along something like this, we would we would definitely say, no, that’s that’s not what we’re looking for in this, in this type of a plan. So.

00:40:14,270	Chair Robinson, if I might follow up to that question, it does specifically state a type C buffer as described in article 13 landscaping. And I was wondering if you could just just describe a read for us what a type C buffer, uh, is just to give a little bit more expectation on that. Yes, I was you. You read my mind. I was just trying to pull it up.

00:40:29,000	I know that the commissioners can’t see it here, but I did look in our, um, zoning code update document, a type C buffer. It’s called an an opaque buffer. And it’s designed for lots in higher intensity districts bordering lower intensity districts, providing substantial visual and sound barrier. Um, it is highlighted by a 20 foot wide vegetated buffer with 80% opacity.

00:40:56,300	Um, so it is it is something that is once, as Jordan mentioned, defined elsewhere. I do have it pulled up on screen. Um, I don’t have it memorized, but, uh, it is it is the most restrictive buffer that we have in our ordinance. Thank you.

00:41:12,830	And then I would also like to say, on top of that landscaping, I would imagine that a developer’s landscaping would be a multi-purpose. I think that they would be using a lot of landscaping for sound buffering to meet our performance requirements. So I imagine that they would have to go above what we require. One more question if I might chair Robinson.

00:41:36,600	Um, so absent an ordinance like this, if an application would have come forward to the city of Mandan in the in the last, you know, year or so, let’s say, um, what would have guided that, uh, would it have been industrial? Uh, zoning, the highest level of industrial zoning? And how

00:41:56,570	might that compare contrast to to the, um, 20 page document that we have before us? Um, yes. I’ll Jordan might be better equipped to answer this, but I can say I would say that we would have been, uh, we would have not had I think that we would have been standing on,

00:42:14,770	uh, not standing on solid ground as far as regulating goes, because I don’t know if we would have that defined properly as a a use group. I don’t know if we’d be able to fit something in nicely. And, um, there would be a lot of, uh, legal ambiguity, um, trying to regulate it.

00:42:35,870	And then even then, our, our most restrictive industrial regulation still I wouldn’t have captured some of the nuisances that are, uh, associated with data, large scale data center development. So we would have we would have been in a bad spot. I would say.

00:42:58,270	And, uh, just to add to that, to within the three year process of us updating the zoning code, um, we had a few lines, but up until recently, there wasn’t a lot in there for that.

00:43:22,570	So, um, credit to League of Cities and other jurisdictions and groups and public for engaging in this and kind of giving us, um, a gauge of what we need to be looking at and for. So taking all of that in and, and bringing, um, just the draft copy of what we have now, but, uh, I probably would have said it on the planners desk, which we don’t currently have a planner at in the office. So it would have sat there the, the application. So.

00:43:41,000	Well, thank you. And I, I echo the appreciation for the hard work on this. And I can comment on the ordinance as a whole. I don’t know how many years I’ve been on this commission, but it’s close to 30. And and keep in mind, the ordinance that we’re updated.

00:44:02,370	It was when single family homes had single stall garages and among other very dated items in there. So, uh, this whole process has been needed. Chair Robinson, should I continue going through? Yes. Okay. Continue. Um, yeah. Jordan went over that front end, uh, acoustic impact report.

00:44:25,300	This is honestly where we started and where I think that we have spent the most time, um, not to go over. We have, you know, 15 sub items in this, uh, in the requirements for an acoustic impact report.

00:44:54,600	But generally, uh, it is a it would require a developer to establish a baseline, um, ambient noise at identified sensitive, uh, receiving locations within a half mile of a proposed development. So and then they would, uh, use their design data to model their projected noise impact to that ambient baseline. And they would have to show compliance for, uh, uh, here, let me I’ll go to the, to the performance table because it’s in a separate section.

00:45:19,770	They would have to show compliance that, uh, changes for residential districts, commercial and mixed use districts and industrial districts, um, based on a weighted and C weighted requirements, they have to be meet both. So it’s not an either or. It’s both. And then we have daytime limits that are five decibels higher than night time limits.

00:45:46,200	Um, after they model, uh, or they including included in their modeling. So this is something that got brought up by the community quite a bit. Um, they would have to show us the spectrum of the noise that they’re producing, and we have definitions for tonal noise, and they would receive automatic penalties to their modeled scores if, uh, tonal

00:46:11,530	noise is modeled and then on the back end, if tonal noise is detected as far as, uh, acoustic verification, um, we also have limits. Uh, if for residential receiving properties, even if they meet that 5550, um, a weighted decibel performance, if that residential property was at 40

00:46:37,070	to begin with, they cannot go beyond 45. They can increase it by more than five decibels for a weighted or C c weighted, uh, performances. Um, we have that set up for residential properties and we have plus ten or plus ten DBA DBC for commercial and industrial receiving properties.

00:46:56,900	Um, and then we do have a specific, uh, allowance for particularly quiet, quiet performing zones. If it, if it’s in a it’s if it’s an extremely quiet zone and um, it’s predicted to be still extremely quiet. It doesn’t it’s not it doesn’t.

00:47:19,870	The developer wouldn’t need to adhere to, um, what would be unrealistic increased standards at that point in time? Um, see here we have a lot of, uh, we have a lot of kind of we tried to close every loop, every gap, everything that might be pushed against if a if an ambient noise is already in excess of our strict limits, they would be allowed to go three above

00:47:45,270	what the three decibels above what? What is already out of compliance. So, um, I guess in a nutshell, that’s what we’re requiring, what we’re requiring, um, as in front of an application, they would need to provide, uh, proof of performance as part of the application process itself, although it would all be predictive at that point in

00:48:10,730	time. But it’s the best we can do at that stage. Um, we can keep going on here pre commencement agreements. Um, there are items that we see, uh, belong in a development agreement.

00:48:38,100	This would be where we, uh, make definitions for infrastructure improvements, expansions or rehab that would be required as part of a development, a proposed development. And we do have funding at least 110% upfront funding of at least 110% of the estimated engineering construction costs. We want to have that money in hand just in case. Um, capital contribution, uh, allocated directly municipal departments for emergency response equipment or monitoring equipment. Um, and then here’s a big one.

00:49:04,770	This is, uh, we did get this from, uh, Morton County’s ordinance. Uh, the city commission may, at its discretion, in reviewing the nature, scope and specific details of the proposal require the applicant to enter into additional agreements for the purposes of the purpose of organizing the location and type of either temporary or permanent housing that will be

00:49:24,670	developed to support construction and operation of the project, and to develop, in consultation with the applicant, approaches to mitigate the effects of data center facility on infrastructure and or the community at large. Um, this would be the community benefit agreement that we hear at the meetings all the time.

00:49:44,930	There are items that we wanted to have specifically outlined in the ordinance as part of a development agreement, which we feel are, our are so inherent to the construction of these properties that they can be part of an ordinance. That they can be legally tied to an ordinance. Anything beyond that community benefit agreements.

00:50:06,700	We feel, are more appropriate to handle on a case by case basis. We would love to. We would love to tie it to this, but we want to make sure that we are on a good legal footing in those situations. So this one’s doing a lot of lifting right here.

00:50:30,470	This line right here, the the the additional agreements line, um, building and site design standards. Is this something that you would want to go over okay. Yeah. We are. At five. Yes. Building site standards Jarek kind of went over the cooling evaporative. Um, type scenarios.

00:50:59,270	What what would happen with that? Um, they would also be constructed along with our building and fire codes, which we constantly update. And there’s been a little bit of things with, uh, size of buildings and things like that recently, but nothing too out of the ordinary HVAC. We know there’s a lot of cooling that is associated with these, uh, noise screening, all of those types of things.

00:51:21,100	These are all pieces we need. We need to know how. It’s how it’s working, how how you’re using it. Um, within our gateway overlay district, it needs to be screened all you can. You can’t really have it out in the open. It has to be behind something. So another piece.

00:51:37,200	Why we added that, uh, extra component in there, uh, to minimize waste. Talks about micros, and then it gets into the gateway overlay district. One of the the other things that I know Jarek worked hard on was some of the light, um, and how that facing downward motion dimming fixtures, maintaining those ratings, all

00:52:01,000	of the technical details on those pieces, including the, you know, with the LED lights, we have like different temperatures and not exceeding that 3000 K, which is more of a yellow, not that bright blue lighting. Uh, and then and then just picking this 30 foot above ground level for lights.

00:52:22,930	Um, I know we have interstate lights that are quite a bit higher than that. And, you know, projecting that light out further, we want to keep it down and closer, which also includes making sure that we don’t have more than point one foot candles at the property line.

00:52:41,170	And if and if you want to get into that detail, you’ll you’ll have to talk to Jarek about that one. But, uh, the other, the other piece of this, the landscape buffering type C as described as Ellen pointed out.

00:52:59,400	So a lot of those things and um, we, you know, with the, with the building standards too, I know I think it’s later on, but I’ll just talk about it now with the, the added piece of, I know we talk about how do we get all of these, um, scenario, how do we know how much sound is going to be produced.

00:53:17,770	And, and the currently what’s happening is you have buildings that are getting built in other parts of the country, obviously, but a specific one that we looked at was in Ellendale. What they’re doing is they’re bringing the operation up to 100% of what they use.

00:53:37,870	And, and the noises and all the things that they create and what they’re doing on the building side is creating a temporary, um, certificate of occupancy that’s only good for 30 days. And in that time frame, you need to prove what temporary what? Um, not temperatures, but what sounds. What lights. All of those things are doing.

00:53:56,530	And a lot of these facilities in the, in my building world that I’m looking at, they’re so big that they’re separate buildings. So we we don’t just have one building that’s going to get, uh, a certificate of occupancy for my office. You have probably five, maybe six buildings that are actually one building, um, that are that are separate.

00:54:14,170	A great example is the one that you’re sitting in right now. I don’t know if you knew this, but this auditorium is a building. When you walk out that door, that’s another building. So there’s there’s, I think five in this, um, in this school facility alone.

00:54:34,400	So when we look at that temp co, make sure it’s operating at what we’ve described in this ordinance as the correct standards. After that’s approved, then we can give them the certificate for that section and move on to the next section. And that’s currently what is happening at the at those facilities. I spoke with building people that have permits and things like that.

00:54:50,700	So I, we added that in. I know that’s probably later on in the in that conversation, but I just wanted to throw that in. I’ll let you do. Um, yeah. I guess we’re down to performance tables if we’re following along in the ordinance.

00:55:10,200	This is we did separate performance requirements out from specific sections of the ordinance so that the other sections can refer back to the performance tables section. So this is where you would find specific, uh, decibel limits related to daytime, nighttime, residential, commercial and industrial properties as well as the debug.

00:55:32,100	Uh, this is g weighted infrasound limits that would be associated with a special, um, low frequency and infrasound audit. Uh, that is, uh, our right to, to do, um, as a part of the conditional use permit.

00:55:57,000	So, um, the reason that that isn’t, uh, part of the modeling piece up front is because that because equipment manufacturer data often doesn’t include that, and we would get pushback from applicants saying that we are we have unrealistic, um, ordinances that they would need to comply with. So we’re trying to keep everything in the realm of possibility while still closing all regulatory gaps that we possibly can. Um, nothing, uh, super groundbreaking in here.

00:56:21,730	We do have specific, um, language in here that would say, you know, mixed use zones are going to be treated as the more restrictive residential zone, um, something that we should probably include. I think that schools would fall under commercial zoning district right now.

00:56:42,300	Um, that’s a change that we think that we should make is, uh, schools would be considered under the more restrictive residential zone. So that’s a, that’s maybe a suggestion for if we have a contingent motion today, that would be maybe a good one to, uh, think about. Um, we also have, you know, just as a catchall noise generated from the facility also has to comply with our existing noise nuisance requirements.

00:57:03,470	Um, in the rest of our code, um, in here, we also have vibration, displacement or vibration displacement limitations. These are from the Federal Transit Agency. Um, associated typically with railroad construction. So these are long, long time vetted numbers here. And they are pretty representative of residential, commercial and industrial, uh, vibration limitations.

00:57:33,170	Um, we do have an exception for emergency operations. And we specifically call out that emergency generator testing is not considered an emergency operation. That’s something that that’s a loophole that many developers use to get around some of these, uh, performance requirements, is they have emergency generators that are being tested. Uh, day round, year round.

00:57:55,370	And they consider those quote unquote, emergency operations and should not be subject to performance requirements. So we are explicitly stating that they are subject to the performance requirements. Um, commissioning and acoustic verification. This is basically where we take what they modeled as part of the permitting application.

00:58:15,730	They go through the development process, and then when they’re trying to start fire, when they start firing things up, um, we’re going to go back in there and verify. And if we find that they’re out of compliance, throttle until you are in compliance, and then institute, um, improvements that show that you will become compliant, and then you’re allowed to try again, but nobody will be able

00:58:34,170	to allow or nobody will be allowed to operate until they’re in compliance. Um, ongoing enforcement and oversight. Um, we have, uh, measurement standards defined here that would kind of, uh, show what kind of, uh, spot testing, uh, would be done to, uh, check compliance throughout the life of the of a facility.

00:59:02,700	Um. Routine operations. This is for emergency generator testing. Once again, just defining, uh, you know, they they can test one at a time. They can test for at a time, as long as they are meeting performance requirements.

00:59:22,200	I know that some people will say, well, we want them to we want them to test all of them all at once and get it over with. And that’s better than having a generator being tested every single day, every single second of every single day. And being a constant issue. What we’re saying is that it’s up to you.

00:59:38,370	As long as you are meeting our performance requirements, we’re not going to tell you what to do. Um, continued verification enforcement. We have, uh, yeah, at the discretion of the city, a special audit may be ordered to verify sound. Verify sound, infrasound and vibration compliance.

00:59:55,270	So this is where we are doing our spot checks. We don’t have any sort of annual, uh, predictable timing on that. We want to be able to do it whenever we feel it’s necessary. Um, and we want to address issues that might come up and then end of life.

01:00:14,900	This was in our comment period, the most popular section, the end of life section. Um, decommissioning and abandonment. Uh, we have uh, the 125% bonding requirement. Um, associated with the decommissioning process. We are requiring them to bring the land back to its original state. Um, with the caveat that we want to encourage plans for reuse.

01:00:47,100	So our our thought process is by requiring that decommissioning bond, uh, reuse plans would reduce the bonding requirement and therefore be mutually beneficial for the community and for a developer. So that’s a we tried to include language to to strike that balance.

01:01:11,300	Um, and then yeah, something you know, we there’s, there’s, there’s still a lot that maybe could be talked about is 12 months right. Is six months. Right. Um, it’s 125% of the engineer’s cost. Right. But, I mean, we’re we’re through the, the the meat of the ordinance right now, and I can try and answer any questions that you might have left. Questions? Jericho or Jordan. Mr.

01:01:38,370	chairman, this isn’t so much a question, but a comment on discuss the development agreement. And I think that was one of the most important additions that you added to this ordinance. Um, the development agreement is enforceable legal document, uh, gives the city great flexibility to deal with any particular project if there’s issues that come up that aren’t specified in the ordinance.

01:02:02,270	Um, this provision allows the city to enter into an agreement that covers those issues and even if the applicant could satisfy every other provision in in the ordinance, if they can’t get an agreement with the city, a development agreement, they cannot build. So I think this is a huge provision.

01:02:26,730	That I think probably sometimes gets overlooked. But, uh, I’m glad you included it. Um, I got a real quick question. If I get an icon to come and build cameras in a manufacturing, are we going to use the sound? That sound? Um, the noise for other manufacturing besides data centers? Um, chair Robinson, Commissioner Rutter, um, we

01:02:52,570	don’t I mean, this is the only place that would have these specific requirements. Um, in our ordinance. But, I mean, I think through this process, um, it’s been kind of, uh, eye opening in that maybe we should bolster other pieces of our ordinance to, uh, have similar protections.

01:03:17,000	And I think it makes sense that if you’re going to treat one developer one way, it would make sense that you want to treat other developments in a similar fashion. So I, I agree. Thank you. And I attorney Oster do you is this okay with you? Chair Robinson.

01:03:39,800	Commissioners, are you referring just to the ordinance generally, yes. I have reviewed the ordinance. And, um, participated in the drafting of the ordinance as well. Thank you. Could you walk us through if, uh, let’s say today you come out in my sound is out of compliance.

01:04:11,800	What, uh, can you walk me through what that would look like starting tomorrow? Um, starting tomorrow, it would be. We would send a letter, um, requiring mandated throttling. So we would continue the sound observation and, uh, require throttling down to the point where we are observing compliance at that point in time, a 60 day cure period would start in which they would make likely physical

01:04:34,870	improvements to their facility, putting up, uh, sound walls, uh, planting trees, changing the location that equipment ejects air or sound. Um, just once again going back to we’re not dictating means and methods. We are dictating. We’re demanding performance.

01:05:01,400	So, um, how they how they come into compliance would be up to them. Um, and then if, if they are, if they have continued violations or they’re refusing to do that, we would be pulling the permit and then we would it would be that’d be a lift. That would be a different situation beyond the scope of this ordinance. I would say.

01:05:18,100	And how about timeline is is there a hard date or is it, uh, as long as I’m putting an effort, you’re I’m still operating. Um. We have a 60 day cure, period. Um, that would be.

01:05:41,100	That would be the requirement or the expectation that they care within that 60 days, while they are mandating or while they are throttling to be in compliance during the 60 day cure period. So they are not out of compliance during that year period. Thank you. Chair Robinson. This is going to be monitored. continuously or only if there is a request from the public or something.

01:06:04,000	About excessive noise. How are they going to determine, you know, it’s. Supposed to be points for points north, south, east and west around the property line. If they’re going to be monitoring that continuously, how how real time are they going to say, okay, wait a minute. This one just went over the decibel limit.

01:06:26,000	Now we’re going to have to throttle down. Or how how is that going to work? We. Um, chair Robinson. Commissioner Renner, we do have it tied to spot checks. Um, but a yeah, a continuous quote unquote spot check would be, I guess maybe we would have to, um, make that determination.

01:06:51,470	We are trying to give ourselves latitude to do those, to do the the checking in compliance checking at our discretion. Um, and continuous monitoring. I don’t know if we would end up at that point, but it’s something that we’ve talked about. Yeah, something worth considering.

01:07:22,100	And so when you go into when you utilize a third party, uh, entity to measure this, who do you order that up? Is that through the city? Um, Chair Robinson, the I think the language specifically says paid for by the developer and selected by the city. And if it doesn’t, it should. So. We’re ready to move on for now. Again, I’ll reiterate a couple of points here.

01:08:04,900	Uh, state your name for the public record. Uh, sign in, please. Um, again, we’re not at this stage at a Q and a, uh, section, so questions will be, uh, noted by the city and answer them after the after the comment period. Um, with that, Mr. Neubauer, are you my clock? Okay.

01:08:40,000	And with that, we’ll move on. I will now open it up for public comment again. Three minutes and for an hour. Hi, my name is Eden Streamer and I live in Mandan. I support a moratorium on building data centers until we have an ironclad ordinance that will protect our city, people, wildlife, natural resources, and land.

01:09:21,730	The proposed ordinance is much better than the initial draft, but I do have some concerns. Um, page three. Section one B defines types of data centers by their electrical capacity as defined by the ordinance. A minor data center has a designated electrical capacity between 100 and 6000kW.

01:09:47,830	A data center operating at 6000kW for any length of time uses enough electricity to power nearly 5000 average US households for the same length of time, and this, according to the ordinance, is only a minor data center. US data centers or sorry, US census data from 2025 shows that Mandan only has 10,465 households.

01:10:09,700	One minor data center could use nearly the equivalent amount of power of half of all Mandan city households, skyrocketing our electric bills. I ask that the commission add an electrical capacity cap to the ordinance capping proposed data centers at 1000kW. At the very least, we must prohibit major data centers from being built.

01:10:32,370	Page six, section three B sets a minimum floor area ratio, but does not set a maximum. If we absolutely must allow data centers to be built in our town, the goal should be to limit their size to keep them small enough to mitigate the damage they will cause to our community and environment. Nobody wants a hyperscale data center in their backyard.

01:10:48,200	I propose that we include a maximum building size of 20 to 50,000ft. Page 12. Section 48.6 A talks about developing temporary or permanent housing for construction workers.

01:11:10,530	If one of the benefits of building a data center is the construction jobs it provides to the community, those jobs should be limited to the community meeting local companies and local workers only. We should not be building manned camps for out-of-state workers, nor should we allow an influx of out-of-state workers to drive up our rental and housing markets, as has happened in Williston and Ellendale.

01:11:37,670	There should be a requirement within this ordinance that short term and long term jobs will be filled by local workers. I also have some comments that I did not see addressed in the ordinance. Data centers must be prohibited from applying for tax exempt status. The setback from residential zones or potential future residential zones must be at least one mile.

01:11:55,100	Any electricity generated by the data center company for the site must be generated from renewable resources. Asphalt and concrete at the site must be limited, with native flora planted instead to minimize ambient heat and dustbowl conditions, and and finally, I demand the prohibition of NDAs. Signed between private entities and public officials. Public officials work for the public, not for the billionaire class. Thank you for your time.

01:12:19,730	Thank you. Good job. And go. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joe Robinson. I’m a resident of man here. First off, I’d just like to thank everybody here for just showing up and the ability to have an opinion and have a voice on this matter. Obviously, people in the community care about this.

01:12:53,670	Um, I just wanted to bring up a quick point about, uh, World Health Organization and the American National Standards Institute that have done studies that have shown that classrooms should not exceed up to 35dB to maintain optimal learning conditions. Now, obviously, this data center is going to be fairly close to two schools.

01:13:16,500	I don’t know how we do studies to maintain or prove that we’re going to be able to keep these classrooms quiet enough, and an average data center is running at about, according to El CERs, which is an abbreviation for some scientific stuff. But 60 to 80dB at a constant time.

01:13:41,870	Um, with that being half a mile to one mile range, audio audible frequencies, which you’re hearing it at. So the biggest concern, I guess I have as a resident here is especially with a child who will be attending these schools with that and the Frontier’s study that was done in Northern Virginia, where 70% of the world’s internet traffic runs through, where most data

01:14:08,070	centers are in the United States, has shown that these decibel levels have impacted just from 2019 to 2023. Learning and cognitive development in children in the surrounding area. This is new studies. Obviously, this is the first of its kind for a peer reviewed study.

01:14:29,000	This isn’t something that’s had a lot of time to be looked into, but it is a point of entry to look into this as something that’s concrete and peer reviewed.

01:14:51,670	And on a second, less environmental point here, I think it is a point of concern for this company to be owned by a foreign country, having access to our data. Now, depending on who they sell the server space to and who has access to it, they’ll be able to see much more information.

01:15:16,800	But even if it’s just broad information, they can see your IP address, they can see your metadata, they can see how much information you’re using at what times of day. And they can build profiles off of you even if you’re doing nothing wrong. This is still a privacy concern. This is not okay. That’s all I have. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

01:15:38,370	Hi, my name is Jennifer and my husband and I, Jim, live in the extraterritorial zone and the extraterritorial zone, I think has a particular vulnerability to it. Just because those of us residing in that zone don’t have a right to vote on city matters. Um, so that’s really important to us.

01:15:56,370	But I did want to mention that North Dakota law says that zoning regulations must be made in accordance with a comprehensive plan. Um, and I know that, um, many, many great people in this community have worked on comprehensive plans for the city of Mandan. Um, the city has spent millions of dollars working with contractors to come up with comprehensive plans.

01:16:19,670	Um, and it’s very important that we follow those comprehensive plans. Um, also is very important is that we have a city planner and we do not have a city planner. I don’t know if any of you guys realize that or not. It’s been vacant for a very long time.

01:16:33,470	I also went out to the website today just to check for the heck of it on my way over, and human resources. Still no city planner posting, no job posting out there for a city planner and a city planner. Shouldn’t be contracted, shouldn’t be a contracted engineering firm person with the city.

01:16:50,570	Um, it really should be an employee of the city. And that’s a very, very important job. So I’m just asking that the city please take that into consideration. It needs to be done.

01:17:12,600	Um, also, in an inner North Dakota century code, it says that, um, the that when property and zoning is identified, it should be given reasonable consideration to the character of each district and its peculiar suitability for that particular uses. So, um, if you’re considering an area that has agricultural land, established homes, acreage, residential properties, pasture, existing open space, trails, wetlands, drainage areas, wildlife habitat, parkland or potential parkland, um, productive soils, rural roads, relatively low density

01:17:42,270	development, um, those areas are not an empty industrial site waiting for use. That’s an existing land use environment with established agricultural, residential and open space characteristics and industrial zoning would fundamentally change the character.

01:18:05,570	And if you had a city planner, they would likely say that, um, industrial zones butted up against a school district is not a against, um, 2 to 3 schools is probably not the best idea of a city plan. That’s it. Thank you. I’m Seth Owens. I am a conservation photographer and a outdoor educator. I live in Mandan.

01:18:37,400	Um, like, I’ve talked about at the last couple meetings that I’ve seen a lot of you guys that I’m here to talk for, the wildlife that can’t show up here, fill seats and talk for themselves.

01:18:55,900	Um, I am adamantly against the center going up, but if it has to, I think our ordinance currently has a good framework that can be expanded upon to benefit wildlife and the people that call Mandan home. I’d like to see an expanded form of the environmental assessment section, which I believe is three e one uh, the word comprehensive is holding a lot of weight there, and I don’t think that comprehensive is nearly specific enough to talk about what we need.

01:19:12,900	We need to include North Dakota Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey Service, and third party surveys in that matter, expand wildlife impacts across property lines. We know that things move. Um, a deer doesn’t respect that it’s going to stay on this property for the rest of its life.

01:19:28,200	And migratory birds fly over the Missouri River corridor all the time. I’d like to weigh the presence of sensitive, threatened and endangered species into these plans as well. The Missouri River corridor holds at least three species year round that are on the threatened and endangered species list, and we have several others that fly over just the Mandan Bismarck

01:19:47,170	area. Um, and then include environmental impact for water cycle, the availability of carbon sequestration through prairie grasses, and the loss of habitat, a lot of which is native untouched prairie. I’m very happy to see under some of the lighting standards, uh, like five a, three B, um, with shielded lighting and a certain temperature. That’s fantastic.

01:20:14,900	It’s a great start. I would urge that we have rules in place to protect lighting. Even more specifically, during migratory seasons, light and noise can have huge impacts on waterfowl migration, which North Dakota is called the duck factory for a reason. We produce more waterfowl than just North Dakota boundaries and the entirety of Canada.

01:20:34,400	And I like to duck hunt. A lot of people do, and it’d be a shame to lose that. Um, for the vegetative buffers I’d like to see expanded on that to also include some regulations for reseeding. I’d also like to see that vegetative buffers also include native prairie plants. Uh, in those facilities.

01:20:57,270	Under the community improvement or mitigation section, I’d like to I’d really like to see a section be added that requires the permit to directly invest in wildlife habitat improvement programs in the Morton County area, Prairie ecosystems are on a dramatic decline globally, and North Dakota has already lost about 70% of its native

01:21:14,270	prairie. Um, a direct loss of habitat due to data center construction must be remedied elsewhere. Permits must be held accountable for the environmental impacts that they have on habitat for wildlife, and must offset their damages on publicly accessible grassland landscapes in their region. Building on our pit. Thank you very much. Thank you.

01:21:43,200	Hi, my name is Prisca Greg and I also, um, live in mandates, extraterritorial zoning area. Although we are directly affected by your decision, we cannot vote for the city commissioners. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I’ve written several letters already, but I want to come back to one fundamental issue zoning.

01:22:05,700	When we bought our two acre lot four years ago, we knew it was zoned residential. We never imagined building a commercial carwash on the rest of our property and asking for a conditional use, a conditional use permit. We would have been told no immediately because that use would be incompatible with the surrounding neighborhood. That is the purpose of zoning.

01:22:28,900	Zoning should mean something. Except I’m so nervous it separates compatible land uses from incompatible ones and provides predictability. Homeowners rely on zoning when making one of the biggest financial investments of their lives. The land west of highway 1806 includes agricultural land.

01:22:55,870	While many of us expected that someday it might become residential, as maintained grew, we never expected it could become the site of a massive industrial scale data center complex. Conditional use permits are intended for uses that remain compatible with the surrounding area.

01:23:22,930	When certain conditions are met, but if a use requires extraordinary setbacks, extensive noise mitigation, lighting restrictions, and other significant protections just to reduce its impact, then I believe an important question must be asked is it truly an appropriate conditional use in that zoning district? If if every agricultural parcel can become a potential industrial site through a conditional use permit, then the agricultural designation itself begins to lose its meaning.

01:23:55,170	If $1 billion developer options agricultural land, they know exactly how that land is zoned before they do. So shouldn’t the zoning itself guide developers toward appropriate locations rather than asking established neighborhoods to adapt to an incompatible use? This is not a matter of being for or against progress.

01:24:17,930	It’s a matter of how that progress is implemented and where the ordinance you adopt will establish a precedent for years to come. I ask you to carefully consider the long term interests of homeowners, future residents, and the character of our community alongside any promised economic benefits. Please leave this community better than you found it. Protect the things that make people choose Mandan in the first place.

01:24:40,770	I respectfully ask you to make these decisions with great care. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to have this public forum. My name is Sue Zeeman. I’m a retired nurse and a lifelong resident of Mandan. I went to school here.

01:25:11,470	My husband and I have raised our family here and now our grandchild is growing up here. I’ve already submitted my recommendations for changes to the proposed ordinances, so I won’t go through that tonight. Instead, I want to explain why getting these ordinances right is so important. I’ve seen Mandan through good times and bad. I stayed because this is my home and this is where my heart is.

01:25:36,370	I live in an established neighborhood near the proposed site. My neighbors and I never imagined something could be built near us that might change our quality of life, or make people question whether they still want to live in their own homes. That is why these ordinances matter.

01:25:58,470	Once this facility is built, the ordinance becomes our protection. As a retired nurse, I look at this from a health perspective. A hyperscale data center could operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For decades.

01:26:20,870	What will continuous noise mean for sleep, stress, and quality of life? What will low frequency and tonal noise mean for the nearby families and the children in our schools? What pollutants will backup generators release into our air? What happens to the wastewater and how will we know our groundwater remains protected? But perhaps the most important question is what don’t we know? When I started researching, I discovered communities across the country putting moratoriums on data

01:26:46,800	center development, and I questioned why Linn County, Iowa, had already passed a data center ordinance. Just months later, it imposed an 18 month moratorium to determine whether its regulations were strong enough.

01:27:12,270	As more information became available, other communities are asking the same questions about noise, water, health, homes and quality of life. They aren’t necessarily saying no to economic development. They’re saying, before we build, let’s make sure we get this right. Mandan has that opportunity today. Economic development is important, but it should not require the people already living here to sacrifice their health, their homes, or their quality of life.

01:27:35,930	Please write these ordinances for the people who will live with this project for decades. Don’t write them for the best case scenario, write them for the day something goes wrong because after it’s built, we can’t go back and wish we had done more to protect Mandan now while we still can. Thank you.

01:28:03,600	My name is Mavis Wahl and I have already submitted my six pages of recommended changes. Every recommendation I made was based on an ordinance already approved by another city or another county. They are not blue sky ideas. They are existing real world protections. Tonight I want to emphasize one thing.

01:28:33,270	Every word that you put or fail to put into this ordinance will shape the future of our schools, our children, and our entire community for generations. After attending the Stark Power Open House, I became aware of a very clear and present danger.

01:28:58,100	When I asked what noise standards would be followed and what would happen if the actual noise was louder than predicted. The answer is simple we will do whatever the ordinances require. The ordinances will set the fence lines for this corporation. Strong fence lines will protect us. We need fence lines full of gaps will leave everything we value unprotected.

01:29:25,600	We will be at the mercy of a foreign developer instead of having the protection of our laws, economic growth, jobs and development are important, but they must not come at the price of our children or the quality of life of the people who already live here.

01:29:48,300	Now we have heard that if the ordinances are too strict, the city could face legal challenges. Maybe there will be a fight. But then really, the question becomes who will you be fighting for? Will you fight to make it easier for a foreign corporation to build what they want? Or will you fight for us?

01:30:08,570	Will you fight to ensure that if they come here, they will follow rules strong enough to protect our children, our neighborhoods and our future? Years from now, none of us should ever have to say, well, we knew there were risks, but we were afraid to make the rules too strong.

01:30:32,370	Please make this ordinance strong enough that we never have to say those words. And to end, if there is going to be a fight, make sure the commission is fighting for its people, not a foreign corporation. Hi, my name is Jake Schmidt.

01:31:03,870	I’m here to, uh, respectfully urge you to vote no on the current draft of section 100 1-1112 or send it back to the drawing board as it’s written. Data centers are intensive industrial uses. They require large amounts of electricity, often supported by on site or nearby generation, and can produce continuous, low frequency noise and infrasound that travels far beyond typical industrial sound.

01:31:29,730	The draft allows these facilities in the RM and RM districts with a conditional use permit. Notice goes only to property properties within a half mile, and the proposed noise limits for residential areas 55 DBA or 50 for daytime, 50 DBA for nighttime, with the corresponding DVC and 90 DB. Infrasound ceilings still leave nearby homes.

01:31:58,270	Schools and schools exposed to constant background noise that many residents find disruptive to sleep. Concentration and quality of life. The potential site under discussion sits less than a mile from Mandan Middle School and Mandan High School, with homes in between that proximity raises legitimate concerns about noise, traffic during construction, and long term impacts on children and families.

01:32:23,100	I acknowledge the draft includes positive elements prohibition on using municipal potable water or groundwater for evaporating, cooling required acoustic studies and enforcement provisions. But these protections are not yet strong enough. I ask you to require three specific improvements before any further consideration a minimum setback of at least one mile from schools, residents, and residential zoning.

01:32:47,930	Stricter continuous noise and infrasound limits with independent third party verification before and after construction. Clear location restrictions that direct these facilities away from growing residential school areas towards more suitable industrial land farther from the community core. This ordinance will shape Mandan future. For decades. The current draft does not adequately protect public health, safety and the character of our neighborhoods.

01:33:14,300	Please vote no tonight and or send this back to the drawing board. Thank you. My name is Sheila Froelich. I want to say thank you to all the volunteers who helped and circulate this petition, of which I have 1460 signatures.

01:33:50,930	Thank you to all the citizens of Mandan who took the time to stand up and sign this petition. I have already emailed it to all of you commissioners. We, the people of Mandan, North Dakota, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our

01:34:18,470	posterity. Have created and signed this petition. Today I present you the voices of these 1460 citizens represented by these signatures. We respectfully ask that you hear our voices and take action to protect the future of our community by placing a temporary moratorium on all data center development, as requested in the petition.

01:34:46,930	Alternatively, we ask you vote to prohibit data centers. But if we could at least get the moratorium for you to give us all a chance to look at the ordinance, etc. on behalf of the citizens of Mandan, we ask that you do your due diligence carefully.

01:35:06,870	Consider these concerns of the people you represent and do everything within your authority to protect and serve our community. And as long as I still have a little time left, I have also been going through the ordinance matching the Mandan one to the Morton County one. Uh, Mavis, well, made some great points.

01:35:29,100	We do need to put a lot more teeth into the Mandan one. If you could start by matching Morton’s switch it what you need to for the city, and then I don’t know all of Mavis the suggestions, but I’m sure they’re excellent. We need a lot more teeth in there.

01:35:51,370	Um, as far as the. Well, I’m going to jump to one of the things that I noticed was that in the Mandan one, it says that they have to be built in zone and B and M or m x. I didn’t see an RM on the map.

01:36:14,000	And the map that I looked at said it was zoned residential. The area that we’re talking about. But then I just found out tonight that that area was rezoned last week at the city meeting for residential. EG. Is that a stepping stone? And I may be wrong on that, but that’s what I was told. We’ve had three minutes. Pardon. We’ve had three minutes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

01:36:46,270	What do you want me to hand these two. Can I bring them up okay. Thank you. My name is Terry Lee. Marcel. We have been residents in Mandan for 44 years. And business owners of the on the strip for 44 years. Outside my front door is past year.

01:37:09,530	And that pasture is the proposed data site location. I hyper data center is to be put on brownfield ground, not pasture or greenfield. This site is near three schools Mandan High School, Mandan Middle School, and Red Trail Elementary.

01:37:35,070	It is also next to many beautiful homes on old Red trail and new developments in apartments in the growing North Mandan area, and all the businesses and hotels. My question is, why would you even consider having a data center in this inappropriate location? The ordinance draft is very weak on page ten, it has a table that allows continuous noise of 100dB in industrial districts, decibels of 85 to 96 are loud enough to cause permanent

01:38:16,300	hearing damage in under two hours. Without proper protection, that means we could go deaf. In addition, this causes nerve damage, anxiety, and other illnesses. They use tonal noise in prisons for torture.

01:38:38,670	Do you really want to do that to your students and population? The setback of half a mile is not enough. It should be more like 1 to 2 miles away, or even more than that. Our homes will be worth nothing because no one will be able to live in this area.

01:39:08,830	How much water will this data center take? How much will our electricity bill go up? Also, in regard to zoning, the land should stay agriculture and not be changed to industrial. In other words, we really don’t need a data center. There is one being built 25 miles away in center. The ordinance draft needs much improvement.

01:39:32,530	Please vote for a moratorium to do more research and environmental study or better yet, a permanent ban of data centers for this location. We have been blessed with our God given natural resources of clean air, clean water, and peace and quiet for our souls. Why should we give our very breath and soul to a data center? In conclusion. Terry. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening.

01:40:11,600	Members of the Commission. My name is Shawn Stevenson. I’m a union steelworker and very familiar with dangers in the workplace. And so I fight for safety every day. I think we need time to study the serious risks of of this project poses during our severe North Dakota winters.

01:40:29,670	First, we face winter gas supply strain during extreme cold snaps, regional heating demands skyrocket. If this facility gas supply is curtailed during a freeze, it will switch to massive diesel. Massive diesel backup generators pumping heavy emissions directly next to Mandan High School. Second cold, dense winter air acts as a megaphone.

01:40:52,270	The persistent low frequency hum from generators and cooling fans will travel much farther and sound significantly louder, and surrounding neighborhoods and classrooms, especially since we lose all natural foliage buffers in the winter. Finally, the massive amount of moisture released by the facility will instantly freeze in subzero temperatures.

01:41:17,730	This creates localized ice fog fumes right next to the major high school and Interstate 94, creating a severe visibility hazard for student drivers and school buses. School buses give Mandan time to demand rigorous winter operations studies and secure legally binding protections. Let’s protect our students and our community in all four seasons. This is not Phoenix, Arizona. This is Mandan, North Dakota.

01:41:54,570	Robinson and members of the Planning Commission. My name is Kimball Banks. I live just north of where that data center is proposed to be set up now more than ever because of the push to develop these centers, local communities such as ours need to protect themselves by ensuring that these centers are

01:42:12,070	sited and constructed in a manner that ensures that protection. Given that, I have three suggestions. The first concerns setbacks. When I went through your draft ordinance, I could not find a reference to the half mile setback. So that’s new.

01:42:28,170	If you’re going to do it, you got to put it in the ordinance. But I also think that you ought to look at the setback that is in the Mount. Morton County proposed Morton County ordinance, and that’s three quarters of a mile. In assessing the setback, you have to look at the siting of that data center.

01:42:46,600	It’s right on the below the breaks of the Missouri River above the Missouri River, so that the sound sound, their sound issues, there are going to be different than, say, at Hanover or Ellendale. The second is about the proposed environmental asset assessment.

01:43:09,100	Section three, a I suggest the city require the developer to hire a third party contractor to compare, prepare a socio economic impact study with the city retaining approval of the contractor, the city and residents need to know what the potential socio economic impacts will be from an independent third party, Not just from the developer. The public needs to know. He also needs the opportunity to review the comment.

01:43:31,000	You are acquiring a biological study and an archaeological survey, which is commendable, but those are not the only environmental impacts. There will be socio economic impacts such construction, such as how construction operation will affect our police force, fire and rescue schools, health, infrastructure, housing, traffic and other aspects of man’s infrastructure.

01:43:55,400	Construction will undoubtedly require a large number of temporary construction workers for several years. This influx and their departure from after construction will impact Marsden’s infrastructure and the need. Need. The city needs to plan for these impacts. The proposed data center will go in an area surrounded by residents and just north of the new high schools and two other schools.

01:44:18,000	The high school is on 1806, which will most likely be the access for during construction. Interruptions, interrupting access to and from the school and the surrounding neighborhood. Finally, the third concerns decommissioning. Abandonment. Section eight A section, subsection A2 specifies a performance bond should be updated every five years.

01:44:49,270	The city should specify that it will levy a penalty against the developer operator. If the city finds it is out of compliance. Penalty could be revocation of the permit until the compliance issues are corrected. Go ahead. Time, please. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chair Robinson and members of the Mandan Planning and Zoning Commission.

01:45:19,170	My name is Sidney Snodland and I live just north of Mandan. Thank you for holding this meeting in a venue large enough to accommodate the hundreds of Mandan residents determined to develop a data center ordinance strong enough to address our concerns about Stark Power Limited proposed data center and power plant. In our quiet Mandan neighborhood.

01:45:40,700	Last week, I sent you my specific comments on Mandan Draft Data Center Ordinance, to which I hope you gave due consideration. My first concern is the siting of a data center and power plant in Mandan. Regarding zoning districts. It is referred to on page four under C at. Applicability.

01:46:02,370	The current City of Mandan zoning map does not include RM zones, which is land used for heavy industrial establishments. In fact, the Mandan Wharton County approved plan for the Bismarck Mandan Regional Land Use Plan shows industrial development outside of Mandan and not in residential areas. My second concern is the noise allowed under this ordinance.

01:46:27,700	The World Health Organization recommends that nighttime noise outside bedroom windows be under 40 DBA to avoid waking or shifting to lighter sleep stages. This is to prevent negative health effects and sleep disruption. In fact, 30 to 35dB is the acceptable range for acceptably quiet, rural or suburban bedroom. Yet this proposed ordinance sets the acceptable nighttime noise limit at 50 DBA in a residential district. On table one, page 13.

01:46:55,470	This is way too loud for restful sleep. My third concern is the lack of designated. My third concern is the lack of designated setbacks from homes and schools. The draft Morton County Ordinance specifies a three quarter mile setback. The first draft of the Mandan ordinance had a half mile setback. This ordinance has none. This is unacceptable.

01:47:21,870	I suggest you empower a subcommittee to draft the next version of this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My relatives. Mumbling number. My name is Two Eagles. I’m a pipe carrier. And the prayer that focuses the holy pipe that owns me has to do with healing the sacred hoop.

01:47:54,700	And after massive amounts of time spent examining this, I can tell you right now there is nothing in this that heals the sacred hoop. Nothing. Everything that the data center affects is physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional. More than that, it affects all the other species that live here.

01:48:30,730	Because I had three corporations and one is Indian made products whose land is precisely on the east side of a barbed wire fence set back. What’s that? Back? And the church I had, which is non-denominational and non-sectarian. Um, worships by helping others. Meadow larks populations are in sharp decline across North Dakota due to habitat loss.

01:49:00,370	The western meadowlark is threatened by intensive agricultural and industrial practices. Tilling, early haying, and destroying nests, fledglings, and and adults. Um, we have several kinds of bumblebees on our land. Bees can recognize humans faces. Um, and they are all critically endangered. You know, if you marry in haste, you will repent at leisure.

01:49:26,270	And my thought, as we we tell you, that we want you to protect us, is if you don’t fight for us, who are you fighting for? Whose side are you. On? You don’t have to like me. And I do not care if you do. I have a job to do and I will die doing it.

01:49:49,500	Probably with a smile. But you will hear me, and you will remember everything I say. Because once you know a thing, you cannot unknow it. Be careful of this. This. I am the CEO of these organizations. That’s the chief visionary officer. Because nobody goes anywhere good, bad or indifferent, without a vision in place. First.

01:50:20,470	This proposed set of regulations is nowhere near strong enough, and most of who you will hurt are people who can’t or don’t speak for themselves. They are the energy oyate, the standing up nation. What grows from our Holy Mother, the earth, the oyate, the winged ones and so on. Thank you. Thank you.

01:50:54,100	My name is Steven Jacob. I’m from Mandan and I’ll try and make this quick and relatable. The current decibel readings that you have up there, at least according to my research, are about the same as human speech.

01:51:17,070	You’re going to have students trying to do calculus and nurses working a night shift, trying to sleep with those decibel readings. Please do better for our community. My name is J.C. Benesch. I’m from Mandan, North Dakota. I’m going to go against the grain and say I’m not against data centers. I think they’re part of progress.

01:51:38,270	Everybody in this room, 95% of you have cell phones that you save stuff on every day. What your daughter ate, what your mother did. That’s what data centers are for. And that’s what they do. That’s part of progress. Anything that was ever developed in this county, in this city, was probably zoned agricultural before it got rezoned to industrial or commercial.

01:51:54,670	That’s how progress works. Do I think those sound decibels out there right now? I think they should probably be a little lower than 55. I don’t think we need a one year moratorium to go forward for this community, this country, this city, or this county.

01:52:10,570	We do need to take time, but a one year moratorium is not going to give you time. What is it going to do is kill the opportunity in North Dakota. Right. In North Dakota right now, there’s 0.82 people for every job. So if you’re going to build anything, whether it’s a data center and a center or it’s a data center here in Mandan, you’re going to have out-of-state workers.

01:52:30,730	Now, I’ve worked every construction for 25 years. I’ve been an out-of-state worker. We’re not the devil. We’re part of the progress. We spend money in your community. They’re going to spend money in your community. That’s going to make some of you very wealthy, or that have businesses that they’ve got to rely on. That’s what business is for.

01:52:48,270	That’s what construction workers do. Now, you’ve done a good job starting with your plan here. I like a lot of it. I think it’s a good start. You may have to tweak a few things, but it’s workable.

01:53:03,070	Now, if you’re just against technology and progress, well, then I can’t help you. But there’s a lot of people that don’t have time to come to this meeting that work. Blue collar. They’re still at work at five, six, 7:00 at night. The problem? You can make a lot of money, build these things. And, hey, us workers need jobs.

01:53:17,630	You can have your two acres of heaven. But this school is built across the street from an oil refinery and next to the interstate. And those aren’t quiet things either. So if you make this thing the technology and the science is there to make it quiet enough, not like the one in Williston that was built.

01:53:32,670	Wild West rodeo, but it can happen. They can be good things, but the leadership does have to do their job. I think you guys are on the right track.

01:53:49,470	Moratorium is not going to help anything if it’s a year long, all it’s going to do is take these people to take your stuff to Georgia or Ohio. And if you think what we got in North Dakota, some Ohio’s got some about 80 times what we got here in the Dakota corner right now. Don’t want that much. But for our state and our infrastructure and our economy, this is the good thing.

01:54:04,070	This will give us more tax revenue than all of them. One and a half acre, two acre little piece of the Heaven people developments. We got north and April 6th ever will for this town. Those developments are actually bad because they’re low density housing, no tax base in them.

01:54:19,900	Counties and cities go broke on that. So this is the opposite. So that’s my opinion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being understanding. In my opinion. How happy to talk energy. Mellow. My name is Joseph White. I come from the Cheyenne River reservation. I’m just downstream.

01:54:48,800	This water is just as much mine as it is yours. I work for an environmental nonprofit called Honor the Earth on there. For those of you that are really against data centers, we have all the information you need. I’m going to keep this really short and simple.

01:55:04,900	First off, I’m going to start by saying it’s not these current or proposed data centers running my phone. Uh, he was right. We don’t need a one year moratorium. We need an indefinite moratorium all across the United. States. Um, there’s a there’s three points I just want to talk about.

01:55:24,930	One is the governance over the data that will be stored within these data centers? I haven’t seen that talked about in here at all. Um, when talking about the types of data, will it be safe? Who’s liable for the illegal data being stored? When I talk about illegal data, these companies will hold child pornography just like they hold our information that we have in our phones, our photos, our texts, our chats and everything

01:55:43,170	there. Who’s going to be liable for that? I would like to see something written in here that would talk about who’s liable for the illegal data that would be stored, uh, for other folks, uh, in relationship to data center build out.

01:55:59,900	I think one thing to be mindful is that this data center will not be beneficial for this community, especially when talking about surveillance, militarism, authoritarianism, privacy rights, and then nuclear energy usage related to data center build out, which would lead to coal phaseout, which would lead to the coal phaseout, leaving those who love the so-called clean coal without jobs.

01:56:20,000	Other things that weren’t really touched on were tax revenue generation for the community. What does that look like? Can that be also added in here? Um, governing these multi-million or billion dollar companies on what types of investments they should have into this community? Um, can the city of Mandan incorporate that into this plan? Other things are around water standards.

01:56:39,000	Where is the water coming from? What pipes will it tap into? Commercial, agricultural? Industrial? Will they have their own water line? What is the baseline on both water quality and quantity of usage? Does it cover chemical spills? What are the rules for discharge, water storage and water management when not only talking about these chemicals

01:56:59,370	being released? Uh, we also have to take into consideration consideration the water temperature that will be released back into the area here. What legal mechanisms will be used to clean up any of the PFAS or pollution that will be discharged from these data centers? I encourage this commission to pass a minimum one year moratorium.

01:57:19,470	Um, until you all can figure out what you want or even, you know, push for a permanent moratorium. Um, I’m asking that you give these residents some ease, a peace of mind that they aren’t being invaded by a multi-billion dollar corporation while they’re simply just trying to live.

01:57:35,900	I want to leave you with this question is, do you really want to turn your people into the new Indians? Nowhere to run, nowhere to go, left to fight for what little they have left to call their own? So thank you. Thank you. My name is Juanita Locke.

01:57:58,500	I come from standing Rock, and in 2016, we were held at gunpoint by Morton County, North Dakota, and Energy Transfer, a corporation just like that’s coming to your community right now. And the easement wasn’t even granted. It was illegally constructed and illegally operating right now.

01:58:23,530	So I wanted to remind the Mandan residents to hold your ground, to know that standing Rock is standing with you guys and protecting your community. I also would like to request from the committee that you have free and informed prior consent of your constituents before you allow IT infrastructure to come in. They’ll be detrimental to their community, their drinking water and their environment and their air quality.

01:58:54,600	I also do request a moratorium because there’s so many questions that we that are unknown out there. I, an indigenous environmental network, also has a page honor the Earth has a page. These are all environmental justice orgs that are local from this land historically. So please include us.

01:59:13,800	Also reminding you, I saw that you guys have you have federal agencies as part of your policy up on this screen that does include federally recognized tribes. So please contact them and let them know and contact their CBOs. So they’re part of their surveying and cultural surveys of this project. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Carlene Sol.

01:59:43,400	I am a citizen of Mandan and I have submitted some comments and questions to the Planning and Zoning Commission already. And I’m here to expand on a few points toward the acoustical impacts. The assessments must be considered beyond the property line. Sound doesn’t no property line barriers. The reverberations and weather conditions affect sound travel.

02:00:20,530	Sound corridors can pop up in our varied terrain and a single assessment is not going to take these into consideration, especially when the geography of the site has so many different elevations. Multiple assessments must be conducted to account for all of those. Very all of those variances. A reporting process for individual homeowners must be established.

02:00:46,530	And a community remedial remediation fund should be established by the developers for the unique situations where a specific home, neighborhood, street is being affected by the acoustics of a data center to mitigate traffic and to reduce the demand on our infrastructure, I suggest that we require a railroad spur to the construction site to bring in all of the the construction elements and packaging should

02:01:17,100	be returned to the manufacturer so that our resources are not overwhelmed, especially our landfills. When it comes to all of the components, a civic assessment should be conducted to ensure this community can absorb such an acute level of growth. Considerations must be made to existing businesses and their employment needs.

02:01:41,000	The civil servant needs of the community and funds should be established in advance to help grow those. Those departments in advance, not in in hindsight, the the current stark Proposals timeline suggests that the environmental assessments are already occurring and they’re beginning the utility interconnection process. This was based on their boards at the meeting this last week.

02:02:14,700	Uh, mid-stage development is to commence this fall. It is almost this fall. So I respectfully request a moratorium be implemented so that the city is not unduly influenced or pressured to finalize an ordinance from potential developers or suitors. With 1500 to 2000 new project projects currently planned, this 1st May end up being scrapped.

02:02:42,270	And then our city is just going to be left with the rubble to clean up. Thank you. Tom. Thank you. I am Shawn Lingenfelter. I’m a resident of Mandan. Um, we’ve had a lot of really great speakers talking about, uh, decibel levels and whatnot. One thing that your ordinance fails to address is electricity costs.

02:03:06,470	MDAs, uh, proposed rate hike of 14%. Uh, ceased public comment today, and the Energy Information Administration of the United States government notes that post data center, you’ll see a raise in your electric bill of over 90%. That means that your electric bill can be expected to double should this data center go through. Um.

02:03:29,170	Furthermore, your ordinance some people have addressed, uh, is not strong enough to deal with corporations. You are assuming that your corporations that you’re dealing with will react with you in good faith. They will not. Corporations have one motive profit. They do not care about us. They do not care about you. They will come here. They will take what they need.

02:03:54,870	They will leave us devastated. The previous speaker that mentioned tax revenue, tax revenue does not affect my electric bill. I am already at a negative deficit working my job. I work 40 hours a week. I’m an adult. I have a real job.

02:04:16,370	I have the cheapest house in Mandan, quite literally, and I’m underwater and you’re going to double my electric bill. This is an affront to me and everyone in here. Furthermore, um, I think that the evidence of 12 different police officers in this room show that, you know, this is unpopular, that to even consider.

02:04:47,100	To even consider this as an option shows that you are willing to use the threat of police violence to intimidate us into trying to silence our voices. You are cowards. It is that simple. I cede my time. My name. Is Ross Lang. I’m a resident of Mandan and I left my notes in the balcony, so you’ll have to apologize.

02:05:13,900	There’s won’t be as detailed as I had planned, but I will start by saying, um, I am not entirely anti AI. I in fact used it to understand some of the documents that have been up on the page throughout this meeting. A lot of technical and legal language that I would not have been able to, you know, really wrap my head around otherwise.

02:05:31,000	That being said, I do appreciate that there’s been some effort, it sounds like, to close some of the loopholes. I appreciated a comment that, you know, the school, um, school should be explicitly under the residential limits. And I firmly agree with that.

02:05:50,370	Uh, 55 to 65dB doesn’t sound like much until you realize that decibels are logarithmic, which means 65 is literally double the sound of 55. So keep that in mind when we’re thinking about these types of numbers. Um, one of the other comments, though, I also heard was something along the lines, and I apologize, I don’t have the exact wording of that.

02:06:05,170	If we make things too restrictive that the industry might find them realistic and or unrealistic and not build here, which personally, if they can’t meet our needs, then I think I’m actually fine with that. I also have concerns about enforcement, some of which have been raised by the people that have spoken before me, so I won’t go too in depth.

02:06:27,630	Uh, a couple of things that I noted in the draft, though the pre-construction noise assessment, um, as I read it, it will be done by a, by a professional hired by the applicant.

02:06:45,770	So the person, the the company building the data center, which I feel leads directly to a potential conflict of interest and not getting us the the reliable information that we need before the construction is completed. And then, as the previous commenter noted, once a giant building multi-million thing is done, there’s going to be a lot of pressure. Hey, we didn’t meet our needs. Oh well. Right.

02:06:59,830	Um, and I also noted a lack of proper deterrence. Things like a 60 day cure period seem very inadequate when it comes to multi-billion dollar corporations. I think some meaningful fines, not a $50 slap on the wrist, would go a long way to actually encouraging good behavior from the corporations that are looking at building data

02:07:19,870	centers in our backyards. Literally. Uh, and I know that this hearing is not about a specific location. It’s about this proposal. Um, so I won’t go into that side of things too much.

02:07:38,300	I will just note that when we are considering proposals such as this and defining our rules and regulations, that we should also keep in mind that we are a city of people, not just a city of businesses and corporations and tax revenue to be raised. Thank you. My name is Jean Klein.

02:08:03,900	I live in Mandan, and, uh, I just have one point to make briefly, uh, after listening to some of these amazing testimonies that only reiterates it more. But what I want to say is, I think our first speaker, this young lady in front of me here, referenced it toward the end of what she was saying was a complete lack of anything I’m seeing about forbidding NDAs.

02:08:26,170	I think any man entity, municipal committee member, politician, or anyone should be strongly urged to sign an NDA with this, uh, corporation. So that was all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. We are now at our. You’ll be our final speaker. Hello. Thank you. Uh, my name is Isaac Pidcock.

02:08:47,700	I’m 20 years old. I’ve lived in Mandan, North Dakota my whole entire life. Not only lived here, I’ve grown with Mandan for the last 20 years. I’ve seen a high school get built. I’ve seen a sports conference get built.

02:09:05,470	I’ve seen so much growth in this area that it just devastates me to hear that we are looking to even have the conceptual idea that we’re going to put something as harmful, because we hear all the information that every single person here has said, we hear it. It’s harmful, we know it’s harmful. Now, I do just want to applaud you guys. You’ve done a great job putting this up.

02:09:23,730	Something to regulate, something as awful awful as a data center. But must I remind you that a medicated cancer is still a cancer? You can’t. You can’t sit here and you can’t put all of this together and try to stop something as awful as this. We know that it’s going to be in our backyards.

02:09:41,700	We know that these things are going to be hurting us. And a lot of people out there are saying we have a lack of information. We have a lack of knowledge to what these data centers are doing.

02:09:58,170	So maybe we should do 90 days to figure it out, but we have enough information to know that it’s putting out harmful energy waves, and we’re just okay with that. I mean, of these people sitting up here, how many of you have kids, kids, any anybody have kids? Anybody have kids here? Would you just put a bomb right next to your kid and just hope one day it might not go off? It might not sit here

02:10:21,870	and cause any harm to us. I have to ask you, sitting up there, how many dollar bills sit a company not of this state, not of this country, but all the way across the world.

02:10:44,370	How many zeros behind a dollar bill amount that they have to put to even make this a considerable, considerable thought to move forward on. I don’t want I don’t come here with anything written on a piece of paper. I didn’t even think I was going to come up here and speak. All I hear is a number of people sitting in these stands, coming in line, speaking concerns. That’s all I see, and that’s all I hear.

02:10:59,770	That’s the voice of the people telling you this is not something we should even consider putting regulations on. This is something we should consider not doing at all. That’s all I have to say. I hope that each and every one of you make the correct decision. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, sir? Yep.

02:11:30,270	No. We, uh, we hit 20 speakers, and, uh. would you allow. the next. Three to speak? Are we just have three in the line? Okay. Go ahead please. Thank you. Hello, Committee. My name is Heather Metcalf. I’ve been a member of this community for ten years now.

02:11:51,530	I’m a child care provider and a mom of five. I urge you to straight up ban any data centers in our city. Set the example for other towns and cities in our state to do the same.

02:12:11,400	There is not enough data on the safety of this being around schools, daycares, nursing facilities and other sensitive spaces, let alone residential homes. What effects can this have on our growing children and teenagers at school? Are you willing to take responsibility for those harmed from this being built, built so close by? We just had this beautiful high school built, and who wants such an obnoxious

02:12:30,830	eyesore right nearby? I have a child in middle school, one in high school, and triplets who will be starting school in a couple of years. What irreversible damage could this do to them from attending schools right nearby? And what about the noise and environmental concerns and enjoying the outdoors for residents here, how loud will

02:12:49,300	this be for kids events? Our sporting events? Think of the children. Think of all our futures. Vote no and put a ban in place. We don’t need one in our city. My name is Tom, resident Mandan. Um, my, um, input is basically dealing with, uh, like cash bonding.

02:13:21,070	I think there should be a cash bond. I think the bond should be held by North Dakota, Bank of North Dakota. I think if there’s a bankruptcy, it should be forfeited. I think with the time frame for violations, I think it should be 24 hour period.

02:13:39,700	I think it should be regardless of weekends, weekdays, holidays. If there’s a violation, it should be handled. I think the fine should be handled immediately. A non-refundable fund fine. Um. I think, um, there shouldn’t be. If there’s any court cost involved. I think the data centers should be responsible. I don’t think the city of Mandan should be sued.

02:14:05,600	If there’s any problems. Uh, I think that we should get the state involved for compliance. People. And with the violation, who’s going to enforce that? Who’s going to stand up is, you know, is a chief and is a city engineer going to be responsible for it? What happens if he’s on vacation?

02:14:24,070	Who’s responsible? What happens if there’s going to who’s going to have the ability to shut down the data center if there’s violations and they’re not compliance? Um. I think that’s pretty much it. I think we should have more, um, oversight. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Allison Schultz. I live on Beretta Street.

02:14:56,400	That would be right south southeast of this data center. Um, we have been in a construction zone for the last, probably at least five years now, if not more. Um, I’ve been hearing construction from this high school being built. Um. Oh.

02:15:23,830	What’s the sports complex? That story on being built now? Um, all these housing going up across literally across the road from me. And now this data center is going to be just kind of northwest of that. Um, I will be looking at it through my front yard. Finally, this year, we have geese in our yard again. We have deer. We have not for five years.

02:15:47,300	Um, I get really sorry emotional about this because I moved out there for a reason to quiet peace. Dark. Okay. If I wanted to live in the city, I’d be in the middle of the freaking city. I didn’t want that. I don’t want the lights. I don’t want the noise. I want quiet.

02:16:14,370	When I moved out there, we were county. We were forced into being annexed into this city. And this, um, we didn’t have a choice. It was all said and done before. We. Even if you want to call it voting, whatever the case may be. But my other concerns are environmental.

02:16:38,000	Um, with the, you know, anybody ever heard of Legionella disease? Um, AI uses hot water. Um, and cooling towers, which produces condensation. Um, which at some point has a bacteria that can grow and it’s produced by spores in the air to inhale that. I am right southeast of that. Which way does the wind blow? Comes from the northwest.

02:17:05,570	Correct. All that stuff. The pollution, the fog, whatever will be going right into my yard, into my home. Um, I live on the north side. Races are on the south side. Sounds like the races are in my backyard at times.

02:17:31,370	Um, so I’m just concerns that for my peace and quiet and everybody else that lives in that area come sit in my yard one time and and tell me your thoughts. Thank you. That that was our final speaker. And, uh, at this point, I will close the public comments. And return it back to the Commission. They asked a number of questions.

02:18:20,270	Did you take notes on certain ones to address readdress? I sure did, yeah. Okay. I guess, um, starting at the top of the list, um, Joe had mentioned that 35 decibel level inside classrooms being kind of the level that you’re targeting for, um, uh, no impacts to learning. Uh, that is something that we researched a little bit on.

02:18:42,170	Um, most of the research was targeted at the, uh, sound change between, uh, indoors and outdoors related to open windows. Uh, windows that are propped open and windows that are completely open. And they ranged from a 13 decibel decibel reduction to about a 27 decibel reduction. So what we’re what we’re what we include in the ordinance would be, um, outdoor requirements.

02:19:11,270	And then um, in like a school, school situation, you know, maybe you would want them to be able to have school with windows open. You know, you’d work backwards from there. Uh, maybe that would be 43 decibel at the very, very or not 4348 48 yeah.

02:19:36,200	Um, decibel requirement right outside the window. Um, it’s something that we could take into consideration. Maybe we could regulate, um, decibel levels at the exterior of buildings rather than at property lines for school specifically. That might be something that we could incorporate. Um.

02:19:59,270	Somebody had mentioned, uh, and I think I do have it written down somewhere, but somebody had mentioned that we’re afraid of, uh, putting in unrealistic regulations because we’re afraid that data centers won’t come to town in that situation. I think that more, more of our approach was unrealistic. Regulations would be, could be, could expose the rest of the ordinance to legal challenges.

02:20:26,400	And I think that our, our we wouldn’t want the ordinance in its entirety thrown out due to, um, overregulation. Um, another another point that gets brought up a lot tonight is the moratorium conversations around a moratorium. Um, a lot of people talk about we should have a moratorium until the largest state legislator gets through their legislative session in from January to April.

02:20:54,530	Right now, what we have is local control. We can we can control what happens in our municipality without a whole lot of interference from the federal or state government.

02:21:22,600	Um, I would be or I guess my from my position, I would be afraid that the results of the January to April legislative session is seeing communities around the state in in stating moratoriums and then saying, we’re not going to allow that and take some of our local authority away from us. So that’s that’s another kind of, um, I don’t know, thought process to toss out there right now.

02:21:45,800	The federal government has streamlined permitting activities for data centers, and the state government has, um, given sales tax incentives to data center developments inside the state. So with both of those political subdivisions encouraging data center development, I think that we are in a unique position to regulate, um, to the to the extent that we want to and we and we can do that without a whole lot of interference at

02:22:05,300	upper levels of government. So that was one of the thought processes there. I can I can jump into, uh, chair. I know there was talk on just some of the. And the mWBE zoning and the maps specifically those none of those maps, none of the changes, um, have been made.

02:22:23,470	We’re still between first and second consideration with the city commission. Um, after the second consideration, those will go into effect. Now, that doesn’t include any of the zone changes.

02:22:44,270	And I know we spoke about this at the last PNC meeting, but all of the zone changes that are going to happen, whether you’re in an existing, um, group. I know we talked about the downtown, that downtown fringe district, a lot of those along that area turning into a different district are our regular R7. That plus all of these other areas need to be changed yet, and that has not come. That obviously is coming.

02:23:05,870	So those maps have not been updated yet. So what what is there is what is currently there until staff, um, continues in this process. So. Yes, I do have I do have a document that I prepared for the meeting.

02:23:33,530	Um, I did I did say that we had, you know, some changes that we had kind of identified ahead of the meeting, ahead of the public hearing that were, um, something that we thought should be ready for the, um, commission to consider. Um, Sheila, she didn’t mention it today, but she had mentioned at a legislative session that we should be regulating PFAS in wastewater.

02:23:56,600	Uh, from these data centers. Um, I think that that would be a reasonable addition to this would be to require PFAS free coolants. Very realistic. Goal 3MI think, uh, is a coolant manufacturer and has recently switched to all PFAS free manufacturing. Um, uh, I can’t remember who brought it up. The NDA ban.

02:24:17,870	Um, that is something that we’ve been hearing a lot about since our, uh, since we started working on it. Um, and attending those meetings. An NDA ban is something that I think we should consider, including in the ordinance itself, as well as subsequent development agreements and possibly community benefit agreements down the line.

02:24:38,670	This is language that might have to be included in several documents and not just the ordinance. Um, supplementary minimum setback. We had talked about. Um, we switched to a performance based standard because there’s a lot of people that are talking about, well, the it should be half a mile.

02:24:54,730	It should be a mile. We’re in a valley here. Sound changes. Uh, we’re in the snow environment. Sound changes. We’re on a river. Sound changes. Um, that’s why we did switch to that performance based requirement. But in a supplementary minimum setback might be appropriate as a sort of safety net.

02:25:15,200	And, um, so we had a draft. I drafted language just to, to try and work that in or have that. Yeah. Something something for consideration tonight and then strict school thresholds. We had talked about that as well.

02:25:33,100	Schools should be treated in the most strict performance standards and possibly different than I have at related here. Maybe we should be regulating at the exterior of the building at window locations rather than, um, at a generic property boundary. Um, so we can really hone in on that 35 decibel indoor classroom learning environment. Uh, goal. A follow up question on that.

02:25:59,000	I think you need to regulate on both the property boundary, for you have a defined decibel level because you can have other areas where there is no residents or anything to compare it to. So you have to have a a fine line. But that goes back to what you talked about earlier.

02:26:19,670	Um, Commissioner McLean brought up is the 55 to 2 high. We’ve read, um, like Oracle was advertising at their property lines. They’re at 45. Um, so if Oracle can do 45, why shouldn’t we? Um, Commissioner, that makes a lot of sense. A lot of this was based off of data that we were able to find, um, through EPA documents.

02:26:41,630	But if there’s something, if there’s some better empirical evidence, um, that we should be working off of. Absolutely. We we want to get the right number. And, um, this was the best the the the data that I had was anything below 55. You know, you’re diminishing returns, I think regulating beyond that. But we don’t know what the right number is.

02:27:05,470	There’s a pretty big difference. So I mean absolutely. My new dishwasher is 40 and you can’t hear it eight feet away. So yep. Sorry. I have a question. So in the acoustic impact report, um, there’s a line in here about project sites at 35 acres or less.

02:27:37,900	If it’s less than 35 acres, there’s only one monitoring site. Do you think we could add in there that we monitor all sites on a four point north, south, east, west? Yeah. I think there’s just a lot of room there size wise. So I think that’s something that I think needs to be included. We need to be doing these studies on all north, south, east, west.

02:27:59,270	Commissioner, I agree. I think that it’s almost, uh, negligible on the scale that we’re talking 35 might not 35 acres might not even be a site that we ever see. Um. 35 acres is that’s a big. Yeah. Big jump.

02:28:19,270	And then, um, I think that, uh, specifically for, like, the modeling effort that would be associated with an application, those modeling efforts, they’re going to be it’ll be like, it’ll be like a contour map. So it will be, you know, uh, at more than just the four locations. Um, and I did have a hard time.

02:28:40,270	Maybe defining that because really, it could be infinite locations during that modeling phase. And then what we would be able to do is identify hotspots that the model comes up with and place those, uh, receiving locations at those hotspots for the subsequent acoustic verification. After construction. But I agree, keeping it. Just keep it simple at four. Might as well.

02:29:11,800	Robinson I guess I got to ask kind of clarification, what we’re actually going to do here. There’s obviously many changes that the city is even talking about. It’s on. There we go. Thank you. Uh, obviously there’s so many different things that want to be changed. I, I’ve got a whole list.

02:29:33,470	Ellen’s got a list. Everybody’s got a list of things that they would like to see change. How do we do this at this point? Do we do some kind of a subcommittee to work with the city staff and try to come up with something different? What do we I guess I’m confused.

02:29:48,630	What we’re actually going to vote on tonight, because obviously I don’t think anybody feels comfortable on voting with it just the way it is right now, because there are changes that need to be made. So is that in our ability to request a subcommittee to review this, I need clarification. Maybe from Amy here.

02:30:11,630	I guess I, I, if I understood correctly, there was a at least a handful of things where he he took some of the suggestions or changes that we talked about today that would ward or could she be added into it? Um, is a list too long to actually put

02:30:32,270	together something in the form of a motion tonight? Probably. I guess you can confirm or argue against that. I my my intention was to put together a list so that we could make a motion tonight.

02:30:54,200	I would hate to kick kick the can down the road forever and make and be indecisive, but, um, we don’t want to be making, you know, we want to be making the best decision we can also. But I was trying to equip the commission to be able to make a motion without saying that it has to be the exactly as it’s written right now. Yeah, that was my intention. But. Okay.

02:31:17,000	Chair Robinson, can we do our best to outline what that list would look like and then ask for it to be brought back at the next meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission? I mean, we can, but but at some point, we gotta get something

02:31:35,730	in the in the code. We do have to do that. I I’m, I’m very leery of of the moratorium for a couple of different reasons. If you look at the last session, uh, a couple different House bills, House Bill 1427, they actually, um, reviewed language to give the Public Service Commission, uh, to

02:32:02,400	regulate siting, compatibility, which pretty much word for word is exactly what you went to last week. But that’s what the state was looking at. Uh, the other, other reason is House Bill 1239. Um, language they used is an individual may not be prohibited, restricted or otherwise prevented from participating in digital asset mining.

02:32:32,200	Um, in an area zoned for residential. I mean, this is language. This is exactly the kind of language they were looking at that you spoke against tonight. And this is probably going to come up again in this coming session. I think, uh.

02:32:54,200	They’ll probably approve some low hanging fruit, uh, cooling systems, that type of thing. But I think there’s going to be more language like this considered in this coming session. Uh, uh, the governor spoke against moratorium, uh, uh, representative or senator from here. Keith Baim said it’s a bad idea. And and they would know more than us.

02:33:20,670	I think the state session is not, uh, uh, going to do you any favors, us any favors. Uh, Chair Robinson, if if we if we move it forward and. The state. Still does a. Moratorium. Does that mean they can override what we do here, then today or next month or whatever? I mean, for us, there two options today.

02:33:52,000	Approve as is approved with modification or probably table it as. Suggested. Chair Robinson, if I might um, you know, so I think going into this, uh, you know, first thinking this public hearing was going to be in July and then, uh, the, you know, the city staff heard a lot of that public input took more time,

02:34:15,370	put something together with more teeth. But approaching this, I’ve been just praying for a lot of civility and respect and compassion and the strong sense of community that that Mandan has always been known for. And so, please, let’s keep that decorum this evening and allow for a continued, respectful discussion. If we could please.

02:34:35,930	Um, I think there isn’t anybody, um, in this room that doesn’t care about this community as a place to to live and to work and to do business, or at least in some subsection thereof.

02:34:56,170	The people sitting at this, uh, table have either been elected by the citizens or they volunteered to provide their service at no compensation. And I don’t think there is anyone that has ever been asked to participate in a nondisclosure agreement. But if that would give comfort, certainly I would be in favor of of something like that being added to the ordinance. I think it’s very important that we separate process from project.

02:35:15,600	And so this is really just about trying to get the rules right before any application or proposal for any location whatsoever, of any size or shape ever comes before the city of Mandan for consideration. And I think we’re trying to work very, uh, in a very collaborative manner between the city and Morton County.

02:35:36,900	The two political subdivisions have always had a strong relationship, and I think we want to continue that. I personally would not be in favor of a moratorium. And here’s why. What you’ve only if you’ve seen one data center, you’ve seen one data center.

02:35:57,630	And so, for example, in Bismarck, we’ve had Dakota carrier network that was established, I believe, in about 2016. That is a collaboration of 13 independent broadband organizations in North Dakota. And so for anyone then the extraterritorial jurisdiction that’s getting your broadband or internet service from either West River telephone or Bec communications, it’s because a facility like that exists, and that’s a data center.

02:36:19,370	So we can’t paint them all with the same brush. And so for that reason, I think we do need to look at some some rules that make sense that protect the rights of landowners and residents and adjacent property owners and business owners and try to get this right.

02:36:38,370	And it might mean taking a little more time. So I think we need to balance, those, those needs and concerns. So I’m in favor of of looking at something with some of the refinements to address some of the big picture issues that we heard here this evening. Jordan, let me ask this question and maybe I should change it a little bit different direction for you.

02:37:01,100	Um, if we we send you all our questions and directions of where you go, we send this to the city commission. They will get our, our wishes and and stuff like that so we can move this forward. I really don’t want the state to control what we do in Mandan. That’s my biggest worry.

02:37:21,670	So I guess my question to Jordan is, is if we if we put a list together and give it to the city commissioner and the mayor is here too, will will that help or not help? Thank you. Chair and Commissioner Mudder.

02:37:41,170	Yeah, I think I mean, Jarek and I have got part of the list started, but, uh, with something to that effect of the things that this board is asking for and, and to move that forward. Um, obviously you’re a recommendation to the city commission. And part of that if, if that’s a motion, we can definitely accommodate that piece of it. Um, and like I said, I, I think Elon said it.

02:38:04,770	Um, good. But this is the ordinance if, if we do have something come forward, we want to have something in place before that happens. And, and then we’ll start this process all over again. Thank you.

02:38:27,870	Jordan, just to expand upon that, um, because obviously there’s a lot of rumor of we don’t have a application in front of us today, obviously, to vote on it. I’m nowhere in favor of of that one. Obviously, we’re location based wise, but how many locations within Mandan could there actually be a data center today without a variance or conditional use permit? Could there be another spot for it today? Um, maybe a clarification under the existing ordinances? I

02:38:50,570	don’t know. I would imagine that there would not be very much restriction on where they could be at, um, just because I don’t think it’s well defined in what is an ordinance that we felt was outdated. Would prefer to see. So if we move this forward.

02:39:24,600	Um, my understanding is we can do that and you could basically provide to the commission the next commission hearing, the additional changes that we have discussed and are in favor of. And that would be published before the Commission hearing. Yeah.

02:39:47,530	Chair I’m saying, Commissioner, it would have to be and we’d have to have the current version and then all of the suggested changes, um, go out before any of those. And that would be part of our process with obviously noticing it. And then and then the public hearing piece, which we have not done yet. So yep.

02:40:12,800	Chair Robinson Jordan, if we put it forward, though, you’re going to give us a list of the things that we’ve discussed here to make as a motion to or do you want us how do you want to do that? Um. Chair Robinson. Commissioner I do, I do, I apologize, I do have a list up on the screen that everybody except for you all can see.

02:40:31,730	Um, and I know that’s not very helpful, but I could, um, I could list the titles that I have here are PFAS, free coolants, NDA bans. Supplements. And if I might, is there a way we could get that screen back on? I know at the beginning we were able to see it. I think. So. Okay, we’ve got DMA coming.

02:41:29,170	Oh, there we go. Okay. So, um, yes, these first four would be the ones that I had prepared based on feedback, written feedback that we had received from the community. And then the one that’s not, uh, formatted as nicely is the one that Commissioner Lang had just proposed.

02:41:55,870	And that would basically be regardless of proposed project size, we’re going to have the four monitoring locations North, East, south and west. But, um, this yeah, I was trying to prepare something where you would have, um, more latitude than yes or no. Does that make sense? What about changing the 45 at night time? You can’t put that in there, too.

02:42:30,270	I sure can. Is that interested? Okay. Correct. See how this turns out? All right. And, um, maybe just for clarification, your suggestion was, uh, 4540 or 5045. I. I. Everything I’ve seen is 50 and 45, 54. Most of the new ones are running at about 42 during nighttime and 48 during. Reduce each one by five.

02:44:19,930	Um, does that capture The okay. Any other questions? Comments? Chair. Robinson. Here’s where I’m struggling with this because we all have a list of things we want to change. We could sit here till tomorrow morning and still not have. Everybody’s in here.

02:45:20,530	There’s got to be some way that we can advance this with the stipulation that as commissioners, we can all present something to the city of what we would like to see changed in here. And they can present that to the city Commission before their next hearing. Is that something that’s doable? I don’t I don’t know how.

02:45:38,200	I mean, can we make that? Can I do that in some kind of a motion? That will advance this the way it. It is with the understanding that the city that the planning and zoning commissioners are going to forward their recommended changes to the city that gets presented to the city. Before. Right.

02:46:05,870	So as he scrolled through this list, does it cover? What each of us would have had? Because we all we’ve all are going to have changes here. And some of them we might be all on the same page, and some of them we maybe aren’t. Some of them, some of these things.

02:46:20,370	Maybe we’re going to want to see different things, be doing different commissioners, but at least we can get something to the city that they can look at and say, okay, this this makes sense. This doesn’t make sense. And it’s still going to have to be reviewed by the city commission anyway.

02:46:36,670	Chair Robinson and and Commissioner Renner, with all due respect, doesn’t that just simply become that we’re one more individual piece of public input at that point? If it doesn’t come from discussion and and developing some sort of consensus and passing some sort of motion of either, um, you know, either failure or, or recommendation here.

02:46:56,900	This evening, I don’t believe that because it’s still we still have the ability to give input to the city in the city is going to determine that before it goes to the city commission. Anyway. And I’m assuming we’re going to see this again anyhow. Or do we have to? I know your time frame. I get it too.

02:47:17,470	I obviously I don’t want the state to have any control over this before us anyway, but if we can put something together tonight where we all agree as commissioners to get our recommendations to the city, can we? And I don’t know which is the right way to do this. That’s why I’m asking for help.

02:47:33,730	Can we table this until the next planning and zoning, so that they’ve had a chance to review what we all said before it gets sent into the city? We’re still a couple months, a couple, three months away from January, and the state session. Anyway.

02:47:53,500	If I may, Commissioner, it sounds like that we’re kicking the can down the road. We got act on this. We really got to act on this.. And I disagree with that. We want to get this right. We don’t want to just we don’t want to just. Push this. I understand. We got to get it. right over here.

02:48:12,530	But city commission and stuff. When is the next city commission meeting? Um. Commissioner Hammond, the next commission meeting is September 1st. I think that we had envisioned if there was a motion, a recommendation at this meeting, that we would bring it to the September 15th meeting, though. But but September 1st is the next city Commission meeting.

02:48:34,300	Let me ask the question. What is the best possibility for us right now, in your opinion? Um. Commissioner Hammond, I we worked pretty hard on the ordinance as written. Obviously, every ordinance can be refined forever, and they are refined forever. Um, this would be getting something in place.

02:49:03,670	Um, and if there were improvements made, if there was new information, we would still be able to make the changes that need to be made. But this would give us protection right now. Um, that my my recommendation would be to, to approve or recommend approval to the city commission with specific changes.

02:49:29,370	Um, possibly the ones outlined here, but something that isn’t so vague that it could be, um, uh, taken in many different directions. That’s that would be my suggestion. Thank you. Chair Robinson.

02:49:53,370	Commissioner, I guess I what do you if you took notes and you want something else in there, why aren’t you sharing it now? I guess I don’t understand why you don’t want to put it in there now. Oh, I absolutely I could I’ve got my stuff. If if we want to sit here and go through everything, we sure can. Yes, please. Okay. I don’t have my notes as organized as yours.

02:50:17,570	I guess one of the, one of the things I had been looking at was the Morton County’s, uh, data center deals, to. We don’t. There’s been a lot of talk about what the data centers about them generating their own power, their own. So they’re not on the power grid.

02:50:35,530	Morton County does have where they’re talking about what’s going to be required if they have their own gas turbine generating power plants. We have nothing in that at all in ours. You know, I think we need to I think we should have something like that. You know, I have a few different small things in here, but under on page seven environmental assessment, the biological study.

02:50:55,270	Why is the applicant get to execute and submit the comprehensive pre-construction inventory. What Morton County is doing is they’re requiring U.S. Fish and Wildlife and North Dakota game and fish to be involved. I think that’s something that we should be doing. Also, the archaeological survey, there in ours, it’s staying just before the construction.

02:51:20,800	What about during construction? Morton County does address what happens if they do find any archaeological remnants, bones or whatever they that were how they have to address that. We don’t have anything like that in ours. So, I mean, that’s just the first couple pages here. Um. Mr. Robinson or. Okay.

02:51:48,870	Yeah, I guess, um, some of these things, some of these items we had, um, are addressed through like FEMA processes, fish and wildlife is addressed through a FEMA process. Um, power generation plan, I believe is something that we have included. I have a hard time locating it.

02:52:03,600	Uh, location and layout of power generation systems. We have here. Um, I do believe that on the utility verifications for utility providers, I want a statement state describing.

02:52:24,670	Yeah, a description of the power supply approach and cooling methods would have been, you know, a lot of these things are, um, we’re not going to have I mean, if the if we need to have more detail in what they need to supply in a description of the power supply approach, you maybe could, but, um, we were just trying to keep it, um, keep it simple as. As, uh, that might be. Yeah.

02:52:45,500	Not that we’re trying to, um. We’re not power supply experts and to to list all the things that that might be included in power supply or power generation and stuff like that. Um, we would like that communicated to us as part of this utility verification process. Commissioner Robinson.

02:53:11,700	How many changes do we have already to this document? Um, Chair Robinson. Mayor Froelich we have six. Okay. Do we want to do we want to take action on the six and include them? If we have them listed out, I think we could. Okay. I’ll make that motion. Yes. Mr.

02:54:02,300	chairman, I move that we approve the six changes that are set forth on the screen by Jarrett. And that the, proposed draft, if the motion passed, would therefore be amended, and then we would vote on the proposed draft, as amended. I just want to clarify. So you want to make a motion to approve these six. Amend the draft with these six in it, just that. First.

02:54:33,870	Yeah, I can second this motion. Chair Robinson, just to clarify, the motion is to approve with or to recommend approval with conditions. Is that correct? The motion is if I understand Commissioner Smith correctly, is just to to, uh, suggest the six changes as shown. Yeah.

02:55:13,670	Is the commission in agreement on the six changes? That’s what I’m trying to get to. Got it. Thank you. Sorry. Jarek, can you. Summarize these changes. Again for us? I think. If we’re. Going to vote on. If this is what we want. Uh, the six changes, first one is phase free coolants.

02:55:45,570	Uh, section five, subset A1, uh, uh, language pertaining to the cooling system. Change number two DBA bands. Section four a. Prohibiting NDAs. Uh, change number three. Supplementary minimum setback. Section five A minimum setback of five feet shall be maintained between all data center structures and equipment. Item number four. Strict school thresholds. Section three, H nine and five B1.

02:56:27,870	If a person within a half mile radius contains lawfully established residential dwelling. And then and then. References. Table one. Uh. Next item is monitoring locations, numbers. Section three H2 minimum of four logging instruments shall be placed uh, North, south, east and west. Next change reduce decibel threshold.

02:57:06,370	Um section 5BI is that correct? Am I reading that correct? Uh, all measurements have been reduced by five, correct? Correct. And that’s both daytime and nighttime threshold. Um, chair. Robinson. That’s correct. The left would be the daytime thresholds and the night, and the right would be the nighttime thresholds.

02:57:28,200	I would also like to note that we did bump V or we reduced the C weighted requirements as well to keep that consistent ten decibel gap between the two metrics. Thank you. So going the motion is to amend the draft with the six changes as shown. And and just described. Do you understand the motion? Questions. With none. Roll call vote. All right. Roll call. Vote. Commissioner Huber. Yes. Peter Hammond. Yes, Commissioner. Mudder. Yes.

02:58:09,000	Mayor Froelich Yes, Commissioner. Lane. Yes. Commissioner. Renner. Yes. Commissioner. Smith. Yes. Commissioner. McLean. Yes. Commissioner. IntVeld. Yes. Chair. Robinson. Yes. And I failed to clarify. The motion. Was Commissioner Smith second by Commissioner McLean. Commissioner Robinson, are there any other amendments we would like to add to this? Any language, Mr.

02:59:04,530	Renner? Would you like to add any other amendments? Are we ready for step two? Mr. chairman, I would move to approve the proposed section 100 1-1112 data centers provisions. That’s just now amended for the City Commission’s further consideration. I’ll second. Motion by Commissioner Smith, second by Commissioner Motter. Motion is to. Approve section 101 Dash 1112 on data centers.

02:59:49,670	Uh with the changes as we, uh, indicated and for city Commission consideration. Questions? None. Roll call. Vote, please. Commissioner Mudder. Yes. Commissioner. Mayor Froelich Yes. Commissioner. Lang. Yes. Commissioner. Renner. Yes. Commissioner. Smith. Yes. Commissioner. McLean. Yes. Commissioner. IntVeld. Yes. Commissioner. Huber. Yes. Sorry. We get a little bit of an echo up here. Commissioner Veda Hammond. Yes. Chair. Robinson.

03:00:39,300	Yes. Motion is passed. Nothing else on the agenda. I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second motion and second to adjourn. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Same sign. Motion is passed.