A proposed data center to operate in Franklin will be the focus of a special called meeting of the Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission, to be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Franklin-Simpson High School Performing Arts Center.

The planning and zoning board will review a preliminary development plan, submitted by TenKey LandCo I LLC, for a data storage and service center with power manufacturing, to be built on a large tract of land at 421 Steele Road that the company purchased last year and which was annexed into the city of Franklin.

Tuesday’s meeting will represent the first time investors with the proposed data center have appeared before the planning and zoning commission since an October public hearing, at which the commission unanimously voted against amending the text of city zoning regulations that would have classified data centers as one of the permitted uses for land with a heavy industrial zoning designation.

That hearing attracted several residents who spoke forcefully against the data center proposal, many of whom shared concerns that the facility could drastically raise utility costs for others in the community, questioned the economic impact on the area in terms of job creation after construction and believed there would not be enough safeguards put in place to combat the potential environmental and noise impact from the gas turbines that would power the facilities on site and that the data center would disproportionately access the local water supply to help cool its computer systems.

Attorney Tim Crocker, speaking at October’s hearing on behalf of the investors, said that the data center could be a revenue-generator for the local economy, resulting in what he termed “tremendous, generation-changing money” that could fund local services.

Ford Graham, a consultant who worked in the site selection process that led to Franklin being considered for a data center, has said that the proposed facility would rely on a closed-loop cooling system for its computer chips, putting less of a strain on local water resources.

Planning and zoning board members all expressed concerns at the meeting that there were not enough regulations in place for local governments to provide adequate oversight of the proposed center.

Since then, the Franklin City Commission voted to accept the recommendation from the city and planning zoning board not to add the proposed text amendments to city zoning regulations.

Simpson County Fiscal Court also passed an ordinance last month that requires any advanced technology center to obtain a conditional use permit prior to receiving approval to operate anywhere in the county, whether in incorporated or unincorporated areas.

Simpson County Judge-Executive Mason Barnes has said that the ordinance is a measure the county can take to provide legal safeguards should the data center ultimately receive approval to operate.

A post this past week from Barnes on the judge-executive’s Facebook page said that city planning and zoning leaders relayed to him that public participation would be welcome at Tuesday’s meeting, and that all comments and questions must pertain to the development plan that will be under review.

The planning and zoning board’s recommendation regarding the development plan would be considered by the Franklin City Commission at a subsequent meeting.

The meeting is occurring amidst a backdrop in which tech companies are looking to rural Kentucky to build massive facilities to house servers, storage devices and other equipment associated with cloud computing, AI and streaming services, lured by tax incentives from the state.

Data center proposals in Oldham, Meade and Mason counties have met with opposition in the past several months, either through local governments passing ordinances that effectively put those projects on hold or – in the case of Mason County – landowners refusing millions of dollars to sell their property to interests representing a data center.