County plan commission approves subdivisions, water protection ordinance move to commissioners

Owen County is preparing for a data center.

Even though a massive facility housing servers and using up to 5 million gallons of water each day isn't planned for the county, the plan commission is gearing up for the possibility with a water protection ordinance.

At the commission's June 16 meeting, the members continued a discussion about how to protect the county water that began in February. They also approved two subdivisions and announced a vacancy in the commission.

At the meeting, member Alfio Saitta said the commission is looking to fill in a gap in county and state guidelines.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources regulates high capacity wells that have the capability of withdrawing 100,000 gallons of ground water in a day. County Commissioner Norman Warner said the county has its own regulations for sources that draw less than 10,000 gallons in a day. The proposed ordinance would cover the "gray area" in between, he said.

"I think we're kind of working to a solution that is a more elegant thing than passing an ordinance that says no data centers, which doesn't do anything for anybody," Saitta said.

Saitta said he spoke with the BPP Water Corporation CEO, who said the company doesn't have clients that use more than 10,000 gallons of water a day and wasn't sure if it could handle that volume without a significant growth in infrastructure.

At the plan commission's April 21 meeting, Warner said the water protection discussion would need to come to a result soon.

"On the backside of that is going to be a discussion of potentially putting a moratorium in place for data centers, or at least something in place for Owen County," he said. "If the state takes that away, it takes it away. There's nothing we can do about that. We need to at least have something in place to protect our water and then to protect our electric grid."

At the June meeting, Warner pointed to Parke County, which on June 15 approved an ordinance restricting data center development in the county by blocking projects that would stress water and electricity resources, WTHI-TV reported.

"I think it would behoove us to get something like that in place so that we're not at the mercy of trying to figure it out on the fly while there's something going on," Warner said.

Saitta explained that the ordinance would take into consideration a project such as a data center, but also acts as a way to reassess and reevaluate the county's water resources and put "those in a relationship with community needs."

The commission unanimously approved a motion Saitta made to present the ordinance to the commissioners on behalf of the planning commission.

"This is not an anti-data center thing that we're doing here," Saitta said. "This is simply trying to marshall the resources that we have on the ground here at Owen County.

Also at the meeting, the commission made the final plat approval for the 2026-02 Woods Minor Subdivision and passed the 2026-06 Kevin Cooper "Cooper Manor" Minor Subdivision on to the county commissioners, with some caveats.

The commission approved the subdivision, with the condition that it be split into two parcels instead of three. This would include a lot that already contains a house, with a section carved out of the third lot for a pole barn to be constructed, and the remainder. The commission made the condition to avoid delaying progress further.

The commission also moved to delay moving forward with the 2026-05 Land of Indiana, INC "Porter Ridge Subdivision" Major Subdivision so Travis Norman, who represented Land of Indiana, could provide the commission with more information about the project.

Norman said the subdivision would consist of 253 acres split into 12 tracts of land, with the smallest being 5 acres, and the largest being 68. The property is located on Porter Ridge Road and Cedar Lane in Clay Township.

"We're not looking to do a normal subdivision," Norman said. "We're just looking to try to, at the best, preserve this area, but maximize what we can do with it now that we're ready to sell it."

Norman said the plan includes a private road shared by seven of the tracts, with a shared maintenance agreement.

The commission told Norman they would consider the plans once they receive a drainage report, plans for retention and detention ponds, an agreement for the private road, septic samples and any covenant or home owner's association plans that the subdivision may have.

At the end of the meeting, building and planning department administrator Heather Huntington read a statement announcing it would be member Donna McIntyre's last meeting, as she moves to Kentucky.

"I want to thank all the board members and community from my Owen County hometown," Huntington read. "It is filled with nothing but love and compassion for each other. My husband and I have been fortunate enough to spend many years here and build many memories, but we are now at a point in our life where we have made some changes, and we are now moving to Kentucky."

The commission also announced the interviews for a plan commission vacancy would take place during an executive session at 6:30 p.m. June 30. The next plan commission meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. July 21 at the Owen County Courthouse, 60 S. Main St., Spencer.