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Logan County Board
November Zoning Meeting
[November 03, 2026]
The Zoning and Economic
Development Committee of the larger Logan County Board met on
Monday, November 2nd for their monthly meeting. This meeting was
held in the first floor courtroom of the Logan County Courthouse.
Five of the six committee members were present, including Chairman
Gil Turner, Vice Chairman Kathy Schmidt, Hannah Fitzpatrick, Joseph
Kuhlman, and Keenan Leesman. Bob Sanders was the only member not
present.
The committee’s first action was to approve the minutes from two
previous meetings, those being for a special meeting on September
17th and a regular meeting on October 5th. Both were approved.
With no items for old business on the agenda, Turner moved on to the
first of two new business items. This item was the discussion of
data center ordinance revisions. Turner began with a brief overview
of what has happened in the last couple of months regarding this
ordinance. On September 17th, the Zoning and Economic Development
Committee met to discuss the ordinance and the nearly 20 amendments
that were suggested to be made to it. After the amendments were
discussed and voted on, it was sent to State’s Attorney Brad Hauge
for review. Hauge stated that he and the board’s attorney agreed to
all the items with the exception of the M1/M2 zoning item.
M1 and M2 zoned parcels are zoned industrial. At that previous
meeting, Zoning Officer Al Green said that they wanted to encourage
data centers, should any apply in Logan County, to build where the
land is already zoned industrial. He did say that they would have to
leave the ability for agriculturally zoned land to be rezoned to M1
or M2.
Fitzpatrick stated that Tazewell County passed an ordinance with M1
and M2 restrictions, and Green shared that McClean County did as
well. Turner decided to read Hauge’s response. It stated that most
of the areas that are currently zoned M1 or M2 are concentrated in
Lincoln and are already in use. He said that it would be hard to
justify requiring them to build in these areas rather than
agriculturally zoned ones. Turner then said that Green will write
what they currently have into a comprehensive ordinance, then send
it back to Hauge for review again, then it will be sent to the
Zoning Board of Appeals.
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Next, Green spoke
on some of the data center ordinances of counties around Logan,
specifically Sangamon and McClean. He said that the ordinances
in these counties are very short, with McClean’s being only a
few lines long. Logan County’s proposed ordinance, however, is
very “comprehensive and restrictive.” He continued, saying that
this ordinance would require data center companies to do much of
their research and impact reports as a part of their application
process. This would make the application process more expensive,
and so would weed out any of the companies that were not very
serious about building here.
Green gave two other updates on solar farms companies that are
going to be submitting applications soon. First, there is an
application for a solar farm that would be 900 acres large. The
second planned solar farm is much smaller, only 30 acres, and
would be going in near EATON in Lincoln. The land the company
wants to build on is currently zoned residential, but it is
being farmed.
Public comments came last this meeting, and the only commenter
was an outraged resident of Latham. She argued that data centers
should only be built on land that is zoned industrial, arguing
that they are industrial buildings. She then accused the board
members of wanting to “punish Latham” and called them “evil
people.” After her comment, the committee adjourned the meeting.
[Matt Boutcher]
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