Shelbyville’s plan commission just rejected rezoning for a 429-acre industrial data center campus, signaling how local resistance can slow AI infrastructure builds.
The developer, Prologis, pitched a multi-tenant facility with a closed-loop water system, but failed to give clear answers on water capacity and other operational details, which hurt trust.
Residents focused on noise, water use, and tax abatements, highlighting the growing tension between AI-scale data center demand and community quality-of-life concerns.
Union reps emphasized long-term skilled jobs and the need to maintain these facilities to keep “producing data,” but that economic argument wasn’t enough to override local pushback.
For GPU and AI operators, the message is that power and water transparency, siting strategy, and early community engagement are becoming as critical as the hardware bill of materials.
The fight now moves to the City Council on Jan. 21, so this project isn’t dead yet, but timelines and certainty for any AI build here are already compromised.
Worth reading in full to see how a single local permitting process can reshape the risk profile of large-scale AI data center deployments.
Source: Shelbyville plan commission says ‘no’ to 429-acre data center project | wthr.com
