Sangamon County residents sue over data center approval near Waverly

WAVERLY, Ill. (WAND) — A group of Sangamon County landowners and a nearby kennel owner are suing to stop a large data center project near Waverly.

The lawsuit challenges the Sangamon County Board’s approval of the project. The board voted April 7 to allow C1 Sangamon I LLC, a company connected to CyrusOne, to build the data center on farmland in Talkington Township.

The project would be built near the 13000 block of Thayer Road. Court documents describe it as a very large facility, covering about 280 acres. It would include four large buildings, about 1.8 million square feet of space, and about 420 diesel backup generators.

The plaintiffs said the county should not have approved the project. The lawsuit claims the project will violate county noise standards, due to the occupied farmstead next door.

It goes on to argue the Sangamon County Board should not have granted a conditional use permit, but instead should have rezoned the property for the large-scale data center project. The suit claims the county violated the terms needed to issue a conditional use permit, because the project would impose "concrete hardships on those existing uses".

The attorney also accused CyrusOne of submitting an incomplete petition. The county ordinance requires data centers to include letters from utility companies in their petition. However, the letters included in CyrusOne's application did not ensure the company would be able to provide adequate service for the project.

They argued the county did not fully answer questions about noise, utilities, nearby homes, farms and whether a data center belongs on agricultural land.

The lawsuit asks a judge to throw out the county’s approval.

The plaintiffs also want the court to stop the county from issuing any building permits based on that approval.

The case will now move through court.

A judge could decide whether the county’s approval stands or whether it must be thrown out.