Brownhelm Township trustees talk future land use plans with concerned residents

VERMILION — Brownhelm Township trustees told residents at a public meeting Wednesday that they want to make sure future growth in the western Lorain County township is reasonable and managed. Trustees Greg Butchko, Dan DePalma and Tom Rini, as well as other township officials, hosted about 50 members of the public for just under two hours at the Vermilion-on-the-Lake Clubhouse to hear input and answer questions about future land use in the township. Topics ranged from possible data centers to zoning changes to annexation and the county's plan to construct miles of new sewers in the coming years. Brownhelm Township trustees wrote an open letter to their community last week saying they want to ensure "that any future land use aligns with the vision our citizens have for their community." That can be done through proper zoning regulations, they said. A nine-member township land use committee is reviewing input from residents and a consulting firm before making recommendations to the township zoning commission. There need to be "guardrails" for development, Rini said. The committee will help "to protect us from invasive crap happening," Butchko said. He said some Brownhelm Township residents have reported getting "ridiculous" offers of money from developers for their land but have "refused, God bless 'em." The township has a six-month moratorium on biosolid waste farms, commercial solar and wind farms and all nonresidential development, Butchko said. That moratorium expires at midnight Sept. 29 but can be renewed if trustees want, he said. Butchko said the township wants to work on its land use plan now to avoid having to keep the moratorium on nearly all development in place. He cautioned that if the township appears to be "exclusionary" and tries to keep out things residents don't want that can't be blocked by legal means, it could get sued. "If we get in a lawsuit with (developers), we're not gonna win," Butchko said. "We're trying to balance the risk of getting sued." Rini agreed. "We can't afford to be sued," he said. One of the things residents said they don't want is data centers. The trustees voted May 11 to oppose the building of any data centers in the township. Data centers are physical buildings that house information technology infrastructure such as computer servers. Critics say data centers require too much electricity to operate, too much water for cooling and emit too much pollution. Rural Lorain County residents have several grassroots efforts going to educate the public about them. Ohio has more than 200 data centers in operation, according to media reports. Avon, Grafton and Wellington have moratoriums on their construction, Sheffield has considered one and a moratorium was approved by North Ridgeville City Council on Monday. Fearing a data center might be built there, New Russia Township residents earlier this year opposed a developer's request to rezone more than 600 acres near the Lorain County Regional Airport. Their trustees listened and denied the request in March. Gerald Phillips, an attorney and open government advocate who attended Wednesday's meeting, recommended Brownhelm Township not impose an indefinite moratorium on data centers. "If you want to keep out data centers, put a moratorium on data centers and you can renew it" every 6 months to a year, he said. Residents expressed concerns and suspicion about a consulting firm trustees have hired to help them update the township's land use plan. No representatives of that firm were present at Wednesday's meeting. Brownhelm Township trustees said their powers are limited in some ways. For instance, they don't have any say in the county's plan to run sewer lines south down Baumhart Road through Brownhelm, Henrietta and New Russia townships for future development in western and central Lorain County. Commissioners announced in March they had paid $1.5 million for property on Brownhelm Station Road and Sunnyside Road in Vermilion to build a future wastewater treatment plant. "We've had no say in the sewers," DePalma said. "That's the commissioners." Butchko said more public meetings are planned in the future. He reminded property owners that no one can force them to rezone their property, that there are no current applications to rezone any property in Brownhelm Township and that any requests would have to go first to the zoning inspector, then to the township zoning commission and then to the trustees for final approval. The government can't take property by eminent domain without paying "just compensation," according to the Ohio Attorney General's Office. "And nobody is doing that in Brownhelm Township," Butchko said. "We're not doing that." Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.