On Friday, this publication finally received the draft version of Troy’s proposed Unified Development Code. The public has been waiting a long time for this document. On June 18, the Planning Commission will hold a work session to walk through the 332‑page draft and decide whether to move it toward a formal public hearing.

A first read turns up plenty of details about what the city is prepared to allow—and what it is not. One of the most striking new pieces is a land use that is both explicitly permitted and nationally controversial: data centers.

For the first time, Troy’s code would spell out where and how data centers can locate. Under the draft, they would be allowed in industrial zoning districts, but only on parcels of at least 10 acres. They would have to sit at least 1,000 feet away from hospitals and rehabilitation facilities, public and private parks, indoor places of public assembly, and public and private schools. They would also have to provide a “Type 3 – Heavy Bufferyard,” which is planner‑speak for intensive landscaping between the data center and adjoining properties. And before a project could move forward, the City Engineer would have to determine that the facility will not have an adverse impact on water quantity for existing water customers in both Troy and Miami County.

Those are not meaningless standards. They show that staff and the consultant recognize that data centers are not just another warehouse. They use huge amounts of electricity and water, and they generate noise and heat. The draft code does at least try to put some distance between these facilities and obvious “sensitive uses” like schools, parks, and hospitals.

But for a land use that has been controversial everywhere it has shown up, Troy’s first attempt at regulation is surprisingly thin.

The draft does not require any additional buffering specifically between data centers and nearby homes. It does not set tighter limits on noise or lighting from these facilities, even though residents around the country have reported constant low‑frequency hum from cooling equipment and sky‑glow from security lighting that never turns off. The code leans on a heavy landscape buffer, but says nothing about the round‑the‑clock operations that make living next to these facilities so difficult in the first place.

This is not an abstract, academic conversation. Data centers are the focus of a statewide effort to put new rules into the Ohio Constitution this November, and the General Assembly is studying the issue as well. Even if Troy does not have a data center proposal sitting on someone’s desk today, it is probably only a matter of time before communities like ours begin to see more interest. The industry follows cheap land, access to power, and access to water. Troy checks all three boxes.

That is why the details in this Unified Development Code matter. This document is not a white paper. Once adopted, it becomes the city’s rulebook. When—not if—a data center proposal comes through the door, these are the standards that will govern the conversation. They may be Troy’s best line of defense to make sure that new development does not undermine the health, safety, and quality of life of existing residents.

If there is no appetite on the Planning Commission or City Council to prohibit data centers outright, then the least the city can do is write a code that reflects what we know today. That means more than a minimum lot size, a landscaping requirement, and a water‑quantity sign‑off. It means:

• Clear, enforceable noise standards that recognize the unique impacts of large, always‑on industrial cooling equipment.

• Stricter lighting controls to keep security lighting on‑site and out of neighbors’ bedroom windows and night skies.

• Generous and unambiguous separation from any residentially zoned property, not just from parks and schools.

Residents should not have to rely on ad‑hoc negotiations at the eleventh hour to get these protections. If Troy intends to welcome this use in industrial districts, then the protections should be baked into the law now, while the city still has the leverage that comes with uncertainty.

No one moves to a community hoping that a data center will be their next‑door neighbor. If Troy is going to open the door to this industry, the new Unified Development Code should at least make sure that door does not swing into someone’s backyard.

This is what it looks like when residents stay informed. If you find value in this work, share it with a neighbor, a colleague, or anyone who cares about this community. Paid subscriptions keep it going — $5 a month.

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This Month, we are doing something different! We are partnering with the Troy-Miami County Public Library by using this platform to raise funds for the Dolly Partin Imagination Library locally here in Miami County! Through the Dolly Partin Imagination Library, children from birth to Kindergarten, can get a book delivered every month to their home at no cost.

And while Dolly is a huge help, she picks out the stories and she works with the publishers, there is still a local cost to the program. Your donations through our “Buy Me A Coffee Page” will help get these youngsters on the right track to a life-long love of reading!

Thanks to John And Kim, Rachelle. Loraine S., Loraine W., and a special anonymous donor, for your recent donations to this effort. So far this month — 71 books have been purchased! Thank you!

Buy A Kid A Book!

It’s not a matter of if, but when the Ohio General Assembly will finally put guardrails around the explosion of data centers across the state. Many were hoping this week could be that week, but those hopes will have to live for later this summer.

Over the past few weeks, a special joint Select Committee on Data Centers — three State Senators and three State Representatives — has been taking testimony from residents, utilities, data‑center operators, state agencies, local officials and, yes, lobbyists, to sort out what regulations should apply to these projects.

House Bill 646 is the vehicle they’ve latched onto. It started as a fairly technical bill to establish a study group, but has now become the placeholder for the legislature’s first attempt at a statewide framework for data centers. The committee reported changes that would, among other things, require large new data centers (over 250 megawatts) to secure their own power supply or long‑term purchase power arrangements instead of leaning on regular ratepayers, and it would bar utilities from pushing those direct costs onto other customers. There are also provisions to cap how much sales tax and property tax can be exempted, require water‑use reporting, and clarify that non‑disclosure agreements cannot override Ohio’s public records law.

There was an expectation that something would pass before lawmakers left Columbus for a summer break, but HB 646 never made it to thebSenate floor. The holdup was not over water use or environmental standards; it was over money — specifically, how far the state should go in continuing sales and use tax exemptions for big operators such as Amazon and Meta. During the hearings, it came to light that the Kasich administration had already granted 40‑year sales and use tax exemptions to major data‑center projects, and those agreements are essentially locked in. That makes it harder for the current General Assembly to “fix” the past, even if it wants to.

So as lawmakers left town this week, they did so without acting on data centers at all. The Select Committee will keep meeting and studying the issue through the summer, but communities will see continued activity on the ground while Columbus continues to talk.

In some ways, it feels like the legislature is late to its own party. Data centers have been proposed or built in Ohio for at least the last five years, but the real boom has come in the last 12–18 months, often landing in rural or under‑resourced communities that have limited leverage and even less information when these projects first appear. This has energized some communities to either welcome data centers with open arms or enact moratoriums to keep them out, at least, temporarily. Residents themselves have organized efforts to put a Data Center referendum on the November 2026 ballot.

Even with the new amendments, HB 646 is a relatively modest bill. It would reduce the maximum sales‑tax exemption on qualifying data‑center equipment from 100 percent down to 50 percent for new agreements, limit local property‑tax exemptions for data centers to 50 percent of improved value, and exclude data centers from “megaproject” status, which means they could no longer access the most generous long‑term state tax credits. It adds some consumer protections by requiring that all direct electric‑service costs for data centers be paid by the operators themselves, not by other customers. It nods to environmental concerns by requiring measurement and reporting of consumptive water use, implementation of “best industry practices” for water conservation, and new wastewater monitoring and reporting, with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Ohio EPA given rule‑writing authority.

There are also transparency and accountability pieces that, frankly, should have been in law years ago. HB 646 would codify that non‑disclosure agreements cannot be used to swallow the Public Records Act, and it would require data center owners to submit regular reports on water use and wastewater quality, with ODNR and OEPA sending annual summaries to the legislature. Political subdivisions offering tax incentives would have to obtain security — such as a surety bond or cash — to back up the promises made by data‑center developers, and the Department of Development would be required to post guidance for local governments considering property‑tax incentives for these projects.

For residents who hoped the legislature might slam the brakes on data centers altogether, HB 646 is not that bill. For those who wanted a sweeping, one‑size‑fits‑all statewide regime that decides where data centers can and cannot go, it’s not that either. What HB 646 tells us instead is where the General Assembly’s priorities really lie. The most ambitious and detailed sections of the bill are about how much tax incentive is too much and how to keep other electric customers from subsidizing these projects.

The environmental issues — water, wastewater, and energy consumption — are addressed through reporting requirements and future rulemaking, not direct limits on siting or scale. That means many of the hard decisions about whether a particular data center makes sense will still be made at the city, village, and township level.

In other words: Columbus may eventually set some baseline rules, but the real fights will still happen in council chambers, township halls, and county commission meetings. Local officials will be under pressure to approve complex tax‑incentive packages under tight timelines, and residents will still feel behind the curve as these projects move from rumor to reality. If you care about how much water a facility uses, how it affects electric reliability, or whether the jobs match the incentives, you will not be able to outsource that concern to the Ohio General Assembly. You will have to watch — and engage — the decisions being made in your own backyard.

This is what it looks like when residents stay informed. If you find value in this work, share it with a neighbor, a colleague, or anyone who cares about this community. Paid subscriptions keep it going — $5 a month.

Subscribe now

Share

This Month, we are doing something different! We are partnering with the Troy-Miami County Public Library by using this platform to raise funds for the Dolly Partin Imagination Library locally here in Miami County! Through the Dolly Partin Imagination Library, children from birth to Kindergarten, can get a book delivered every month to their home at no cost.

And while Dolly is a huge help, she picks out the stories and she works with the publishers, there is still a local cost to the program. Your donations through our “Buy Me A Coffee Page” will help get these youngsters on the right track to a life-long love of reading!

Thanks to John And Kim, Rachelle. Loraine S., Loraine W., and a special anonymous donor, for your recent donations to this effort. So far this month — 71 books have been purchased! Thank you!

Buy A Kid A Book!

Forty years ago this week, Troy woke up to a reality many residents still insist could never happen here. Many people who live here now have never heard this story, or only know it in fragments. But it is part of our history, and if we want to understand who we are as a community today, we have to be willing to look at the events that were painful as well as the ones we like to celebrate.

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Back in 2017, Council Member Todd Severt and I ran for City Council with a desire to improve communications between city hall and the residents we serve. Part of that effort was the establishment of the quarterly “Ask-A-Council Member” workshops.

These workshops weren’t designed to discuss pending legislation, but were a more general discussion to bring the residents and council members closer together in a way to facilitate open dialouge on those items that residents wanted to bring forward.

Many of the issues that were brought up were the bread and butter concerns that make up local government — Everything from faded stop signs to parks that needed attention to mailboxes in new subdivisions. These were types of the issues that took up a lot of the discussion.

But many of these fruitful discussions also focused on how the government works. There were questions about what departments were responsible for certain functions. Other questions included the role of council in the decision-making process. These discussions were always informal and informative.

The format allowed for a free-flowing discussion of our community without having to navigate a city council meeting and waiting until the very end to have an opportunity to discuss issues. And while city council meetings are opportunities for residents to express their concerns, these meetings aren’t necessarily the best format to have an open dialogue between residents and elected officials. Many council members remain tight-lipped during the time they have to speak to the public, which often gives a less than welcoming demeanour to those wishing to address issues. In addition, these meetings can be intimidating; it’s not always pleasant to stand behind a podium and succinctly talk about issues that are important.

There was a huge need for a more neutral, more hospitable way that residents and council members could interact and these quarterly meetings are accomplishing that goal. And true to its word, this quarterly event has been as neutral as possible, getting city leaders out of city hall and in other places to meet residents, such as the Library, the Lincoln Center, the Senior Citizens Center, the Hayner Center and the St. Patrick’s Soup Kitchen, just to name a few.

Each time one of these events is held, it seems that more and more residents come out and talk about the issues that matter to them as these events have attracted a number of residents to show up and learn about their local government.

The next “Ask-A-Council Member” workshop is coming up this Saturday, June 13th at 9:00 a.m. at the Troy-Miami County Public Library, the meeting will be in the downstairs conference room. Coffee, donuts and juice are always provided.

Our readers and our residents are encouraged to attend this important event!

This is what it looks like when residents stay informed. If you find value in this work, share it with a neighbor, a colleague, or anyone who cares about this community. Paid subscriptions keep it going — $5 a month.

Subscribe now

Share

This Month, we are doing something different! We are partnering with the Troy-Miami County Public Library by using this platform to raise funds for the Dolly Partin Imagination Library locally here in Miami County! Through the Dolly Partin Imagination Library, children from birth to Kindergarten, can get a book delivered every month to their home at no cost.

And while Dolly is a huge help, she picks out the stories and she works with the publishers, there is still a local cost to the program. Your donations through our “Buy Me A Coffee Page” will help get these youngsters on the right track to a life-long love of reading!

Thanks to John And Kim, Rachelle. Loraine and a special anonymous donor, for your recent donations to this effort. So far this month — 70 books have been purchased! Thank you!

Buy A Kid A Book!

Today’s Civic Capacity is the 1,000th edition of this newsletter that has been published.

That’s a big round number, but what it really represents is 1,000 mornings that you’ve let this little newslet…

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The failed jail levy in Miami County was more than a tax vote gone sideways. It is a window into how local government—and the people who vote on its proposals—decid…

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I remember the first time I saw a consent agenda in action.

I was in Columbus, having recently submitted a grant application on behalf of the City of Piqua for an …

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Each year, residential real estate activity in Miami County picks up in the spring. That’s why starting with May data, this publication will start tracking monthly residential sales — it gives us a consistent, comparable snapshot of market conditions year over year. The numbers below come from valid residential sales recorded by the Miami County Auditor’s Office, and we’ll continue providing monthly updates throughout the year as that data becomes available.

Here’s what eight years of May data shows us.

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Every two years, the Ohio General Assembly passes a capital improvements budget — a separate bill, distinct from the operating budget, that funds the physical infr…

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A few years ago, I had the privilege of serving as the first township administrator in Bethel Township here in Miami County. As part of that work, our township was a…

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Troy City Council’s Recreation and Parks Committee moved two park improvement projects forward this week, recommending full council approval of grant agreements that w…

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Seven months ago, we watched Troy’s Finance Committee do something rare and commendable: they slowed down. Faced with pressure from city staff to quickly authorize the Community Improvement Corporation to purchase a troubled downtown property, committee members asked hard questions, demanded due diligence, and refused to rubber-stamp a deal that could leave taxpayers holding the bag on a grass lot in the heart of Troy’s historic district. That decision deserves public recognition and support.

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For nearly three years, Troy residents have been talking about and asking reasonable questions about what will be happening at the intersection of West Main Street and Experiment Farm Road. This publ…

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Earlier this week, we introduced readers to one of Troy’s most notable — yet largely forgotten — forefathers: Lt. Col. Barton S. Kyle, a Civil War hero who gave his life on the battlefield. His son T…

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Over the past few weeks, this newsletter has grown — and grown substantially. That kind of momentum gives you pause. And with just celebrating this publication’s thir…

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