As the planned data center footprint in Yorkville continues to grow, a request to rezone a portion of land so it could one day host a data center failed to secure a positive recommendation from the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission in January, but a future City Council vote could still move the matter forward at a later date.
The proposal brought to the commission — by Matt Gilbert of Chicago-based Green Door Capital, who presented the rezoning petition on behalf of Yorkville Nexus V LLC — is for the rezoning of about 130 acres of land south of Corneils Road and east of Beecher Road, west of the nearby Caledonia neighborhood, on which a data center could be built in the future.
Gilbert presented the project at the commission’s Jan. 14 meeting, at which a public hearing on the proposal drew comments from numerous residents opposed to it.
The project would join what may one day be a corridor of data center campuses in Yorkville in the northeast quadrant of Eldamain Road and Route 34.
According to a map from the city, the area being proposed for rezoning sits just south of another proposed data center campus — called Project Steel — and directly north of a possible CyrusOne data center campus that has been proposed in the area.
A little further north sits the controversial 1,000-acre Project Cardinal, which in November got preliminary approval from the city. And southwest of the land in question is another CyrusOne site, which got approval from the city in 2024, according to Yorkville City Administrator Bart Olson. CyrusOne also has a data center property nearby on Aurora’s far East Side.
Yorkville has become a sort of hub for data center projects, in part due to the area’s proximity to a ComEd substation. But with these proposed developments has come significant resident opposition.
“We’re aware of the differing views in the community surrounding the data center development in general on this site, and development in general on this site,” Gilbert said while presenting the rezoning request at the January meeting.
The petition considered by the commission in January seeks to rezone the western portion of the property under consideration from a multi-family residential use to a manufacturing use so a data center could be built on it. The request also asks that the eastern portion of the land be rezoned from residential use to agricultural and remain farmland.
That layout is meant to provide about 50 acres to “serve as a buffer between the Caledonia neighborhood and any future development west of (Rob Roy Creek),” according to Gilbert, who said the adjustment was based on concerns from the city. He also pointed to plans for things like landscaping buffers at the site.
At the January meeting, Gilbert pointed to the area’s proximity to a nearby ComEd substation, and said this land has been targeted by the city for development. He noted that the development plan for the property would be two buildings, each with connected administrative buildings, but that construction would be at least three to four years down the line.
Green Door Capital owns the parcel of land, Gilbert said at the meeting, but noted that it is not a data center user. Even if the rezoning is approved, he noted, a developer would still have to come back before the city with a Planned Unit Development, or PUD, that would need to be approved in order for a development to be built there.
In an interview with The Beacon-News, Olson said that, in addition to the data center projects that are further along in the approval process, there are several other portions of land in Yorkville in a similar position to the 130 acres currently under consideration by the city — in that a petitioner is seeking to rezone portions of land for industrial uses, thereby enabling the landowner to market the land to a data center developer.
And, as these projects have cropped up, the city has sought to standardize how it evaluates and proceeds with them.
Last June, for example, Yorkville approved an amendment to a portion of its Unified Development Ordinance, seeking to establish regulations specific to data centers, according to documents from the city. It includes requirements related to things like landscape buffering, maximum height, noise mitigation and appearance standards. Any future development plans have to comply with these standards.
But the rezoning classification for the portion that would hold a future data center did not get the approval it was seeking, and was shot down by the Planning and Zoning Commission at its Jan. 14 meeting.
Commissioners evaluated the petition on standards related to the proposed project’s alignment with the city’s comprehensive plan, its compatibility with existing and planned uses and zoning of nearby properties and the length of time the property has been vacant, among other considerations. They ultimately determined that the land parcels in question did not meet all of the city’s standards for rezoning them as proposed.
But the potential rezoning of the land, though rejected by the commission, is not yet over. It’s tentatively still set to go to the Yorkville City Council for a final vote at its Feb. 10 meeting. But because the commission voted it down, Olson said, the request will require a supermajority of the council in order for it to pass.
However, like the other data center projects headed for Yorkville, the potential project has generated further pushback from residents, a number of whom spoke against the rezoning proposal at the public hearing held at the January Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. Their comments addressed the proposed development’s proximity to residential areas and cited concerns about things like noise pollution, property values and energy costs.
Olson noted that it takes a number of steps for a project to be approved, and pointed out that data centers aren’t “necessarily something the city asked for” — developers and landowners have to apply for such projects to occur.
But Yorkville has been seeking development as a means of reducing the property tax burden on homeowners, he said. And the city and its surrounding areas are continuing to grow rapidly, with Kendall County currently the fastest growing county in the state.
But now, with projects coming down the line, Olson said the city has been doing its research on the potential issues related to data centers and attempting to address resident concerns. And it has been posting “clarifying information” about the proposed projects on Facebook, he noted, in the interest of correcting “some of … the misconceptions about what’s being proposed specifically in Yorkville.”
“We’re trying to just show people, ‘Yes, we have a concern about this, too, and here’s what we’re doing as a result of it,’” Olson said.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com