Data Center Rules for Utah Counties | Ber Wilson

Rules Before the Rush

Author: Ericson Tua’one, Chief Executive October 28, 2026

On Saturday night, kids all over Utah will knock on doors up and down their streets, including some they have never knocked on before. Most of those doors will open. A porch light tells them it is fine to come up the path.

Last night in Mona, a resident asked about that same knock from the other side. At a city council meeting on a proposed data center, she asked:

“Why did you never knock on my door?”

She lives just yards from the site west of town, according to ABC4. The project had been in the works for 18 months. “This decision was made behind our backs,” she said.

I understand why she feels that way. I also do not think anyone set out to hide anything. Juab County posted public notices on its website before it approved the project.

The county followed its process, and the closest neighbors still heard too late. That problem is bigger than Mona. Every builder in rural Utah will have to answer her question, and Ber Wilson intends to answer it before anyone has to ask.

The permit came first The developer, Nebo North LLC, came to Mona with a detailed plan.

The campus would cover about 361 acres, with six to eight data center buildings. The developer says each building could create 80 to 100 high-paying jobs. Cooling would run on a closed-loop system, and culinary water use would be similar to a few homes per building. The project would request 750 megawatts from Rocky Mountain Power and pay for its own infrastructure upgrades. The developer also proposed a Community Benefits Agreement.

Those answers cover what rural residents usually ask about first: water, power and who pays.

The problem is when they were given. The Juab County Council approved the project’s conditional use permit in April, 4–1. Public comment at that meeting lasted four minutes, with a handful of speakers. In September, dozens of people came to protest the approval. Now a community group, Mona Cares, is seeking to appeal the permit.

Mona did not get a vote. The town next to the campus heard the developer’s presentation six months after the county approved the permit. At that meeting, the spokesperson said, “We’re in the very early stage of the project here.”

A project can be early for the developer and already decided for the neighbors. That gap is what the residents in that room were reacting to.

The dark house Every neighborhood has one house kids hurry past on Halloween. Usually there is nothing wrong with it. The porch light is off and nobody has been inside, so the kids make up their own stories.

A large project nobody has explained to its neighbors becomes that house.

Here is the market failure: the rules arrive after the project.

Most rural zoning codes were written long before anyone pictured a 750-megawatt campus in a farm valley. When one shows up, the county uses the tools it has. Often that means a conditional use permit, a process built for one-off uses in a zone.

By the time the permit is on the agenda, the developer has been planning for a year or more. The county is working from a code that never imagined the project. Most residents hear about it last.

So the hardest questions about power, water, traffic, noise and who benefits get asked after the vote. At that point, the only tools left are appeals, protests and lawsuits. The disagreement still happens. It just costs more, takes longer and leaves less room to fix the project.

Iron County wrote the rules first Iron County did it in a different order.

The county put a 180-day moratorium on data center developments so it could write an ordinance before approving more projects. On October 27, ABC4 reported the result. The Iron County Planning Commission approved a Strategic Development Zone overlay. The County Commission lifted the moratorium about a month early. Both motions passed unanimously.

The overlay sets up an added review for large developments that would not normally be approved in certain zones: power plants, solar and geothermal plants, battery storage, industrial campuses and data centers. Data centers with 50 megawatts or more of anticipated IT load can now go through it.

“We’ve taken extensive community input over more than 180 days,” Commission Chair Ken Robinson said. “We’ve gone a year on this.”

I think that is the right sequence. Turn the porch light on before the first visitor comes up the walk.

It is not the whole job. Members of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah told commissioners the county never consulted them. Chairperson Laurel Yellowhorse said the Tribe has a legal right to government-to-government consultation. “We are your neighbors, we always will be,” she said.

I am not in a position to judge the legal question. But rules written before the rush still have to be written with everyone who will live next to the result. A process that leaves out a neighbor is not finished.

What the neighbors get This is the Thriving test from my last post: does the value stay local?

One Mona council member put it plainly: “Juab County gets the benefit, but we’re stuck looking at it. If that’s going to be the case here, then Mona City should get some help from these guys.”

That is a fair point. A data center can bring jobs, tax revenue and new infrastructure. But the town that lives with the traffic and the view needs to see those benefits in writing, and know who is accountable for them, before the vote.

Here is the standard I believe a builder owes a community before asking for approval.

Knock on the closest doors first. Do it before the permit hearing.

Present to every town that will feel the project, even if it does not get a vote.

Put the power, water, traffic and noise numbers on paper, with a source for each one.

Sign the Community Benefits Agreement before approval, so residents know what they are getting.

Name a local contact who will answer questions for the life of the project.

Ber Wilson holds itself to all five on every large project we take on in rural Utah. Someone has to set the standard before the rush. We intend to be the ones who do.

The large-load review checklist Before the next large project arrives, I would ask every county commission to answer six questions:

Does your code have a specific review path for loads of 50 megawatts or more, or will a large project fall into a general permit?

Who must be notified, and how far from the site? Does that include neighboring towns and tribes?

Will the developer be required to present to affected communities before the hearing?

What power, water, traffic and noise information must be filed, and who checks it?

Will benefits to the community be in a signed agreement before approval?

Who will answer residents’ questions once construction starts?

A good project can answer all six. When a county asks them early, residents get a say while it still counts, and commissioners have a clear record of what they required.

Mona did not ask to be the example. Its residents are doing what good neighbors do: showing up and asking questions.

On Saturday, the kids will go to the houses with the lights on. Neighbors will judge the next project the same way.

In my next post, I will look at a proposal to put hundreds of small nuclear reactors on public land near Price, and what it would take for a community to trust it.

Commission briefing: large-load review checklist If you serve on a county commission, planning commission or city council in rural Utah, ask Ber Wilson for a commission briefing.

We will walk your board through the large-load review checklist: what to require before a hearing, who to notify and how to make benefits enforceable. We will bring examples from Utah counties that have already faced these decisions.

The briefing does not replace your attorney or your planning staff. It helps you decide what to ask them for.

Tell us about your county through our project form. Someone who works on this kind of project will get back to you within one business day.

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