HAYES TOWNSHIP—Citing unresolved questions over power demand, water usage and the legacy of a former nuclear facility, Hayes Township officials on Tuesday unanimously extended a moratorium on new data center proposals through March 2027, effectively freezing a 300-megawatt project proposed for the shoreline of Big Rock Point.
The 12-month pause, which began as an interim six-month ban last September, now ranks among the longest municipal moratoriums targeting hyperscale data centers in Michigan and reflects growing unease among local leaders over whether existing zoning ordinances can adequately police an industry whose power and water appetites have soared alongside the AI boom.
“We are not anti-development, but we are pro-transparency,” township supervisor Glenn Lottie told trustees before the vote. “Until we have hard data on what a facility of this magnitude means for our grid, our aquifer and our ratepayers, the prudent course is to hit pause.”
The contested site, a 550-acre parcel owned by Consumers Energy since the company decommissioned the Big Rock Point nuclear reactor in 1997, sits within 1,000 feet of Lake Michigan and remains governed by a restrictive covenant barring residential or industrial uses that could compromise long-term environmental monitoring. A Wisconsin-based developer, Great Lakes Compute Partners, disclosed plans last summer to acquire the land and construct a $2.4 billion data complex comprising eight two-story buildings and a 150-megawatt on-site natural-gas plant for redundancy.
Public records show the developer has not yet filed a formal site-plan application with the township, but preliminary submissions to state regulators estimate the campus would require up to 3.2 million gallons of water per day for evaporative cooling during peak summer months—roughly equivalent to the entire municipal system’s current draw.
“Once we saw those numbers, the phones started ringing,” said township clerk Amy Jenks, who estimated her office fielded more than 400 resident calls and emails since August. “People want to know who pays for infrastructure upgrades, whether property taxes shift to commercial rates, and what happens if the facility goes dark after five years. We don’t have answers yet.”
Michigan’s push to brand itself as a data-center destination has accelerated since 2023, when Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a sales-tax exemption on server equipment and state economic-development officials began courting cloud giants with brochures touting abundant fresh water, cool northern air and proximity to Canada’s Trans-Atlantic fiber routes. Yet local governments retain zoning authority, and several townships along the Lake Michigan shoreline have responded with tighter ordinances or outright moratoriums.
Hayes Township’s action follows a pattern seen elsewhere in the Midwest. Last year Apple’s own data-center expansion stalled in North Carolina amid similar disputes over who shoulders the cost of grid upgrades, while communities in Virginia’s Loudoun County—home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers—have begun capping new builds until Dominion Energy can guarantee renewable supply.
Great Lakes Compute Partners did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but a statement posted on its website says the company “remains committed to Hayes Township and looks forward to continued dialogue.” The firm has retained Lansing-based lobbying firm Karoub Associates and, according to campaign-finance disclosures, contributed $25,000 last month to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s “Good Government” political-action committee.
Under the moratorium language, the township will convene a nine-member advisory committee comprising planning commissioners, environmental consultants and residents to draft a new zoning chapter specifically for data centers. Options on the table include requiring a special-use permit, imposing a 2,000-foot setback from residential parcels, and mandating that developers fund independent environmental-impact studies.
Power constraints loom equally large. Regional grid operator Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) lists the northwest Lower Peninsula as a “thermal-constraint zone,” meaning new large loads could necessitate $180 million in transmission upgrades, costs that would ultimately be socialized across ratepayers, according to a 2025 MISO planning report.
“We’re talking about adding the equivalent of a small city to a peninsula already served by a single 138-kilovolt line,” said Douglas Jester, a partner at Lansing energy consultancy 5 Lakes Energy. “Unless the developer commits to behind-the-meter generation or battery storage, the public will foot the bill.”
Township officials emphasized that the moratorium is not a ban; rather, it freezes the clock while they craft rules that can withstand legal scrutiny. Under Michigan’s Zoning Enabling Act, moratoriums exceeding six months must be renewed by formal resolution and cannot exceed one year without legislative approval.
Great Lakes Compute Partners has the option of requesting a waiver from the township board, but such exemptions require a two-thirds vote and public notice—a hurdle few Michigan municipalities have cleared in recent years.
For residents like retired schoolteacher Karen Polaski, whose family has owned a cottage on Grand Traverse Bay since 1958, the debate is about more than kilowatts and cooling towers. “Big Rock Point was once the future—carbon-free power right here in our backyard,” she said, referencing the reactor’s 1962 debut as the nation’s first commercially funded nuclear plant. “Now the future wants to pave it over with server racks. We owe ourselves a hard conversation about what kind of future we actually want.”
The advisory committee must deliver draft zoning amendments by December 1, after which the planning commission will hold at least two public hearings before forwarding a final ordinance to the township board. Until then, every permit application for data-center-related construction—including driveway culverts, electrical substations and fiber huts—remains on indefinite hold.
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