Development

UPDATE: Is the Planning Commission Approving an AI Data Center?

UPDATE: If you watch the meeting from the other night you will see that a representative from the city of Brandon showed up in opposition of this item. Not sure what his role is, but I think he works in planning. He basically said the opposition comes from two directions, 1) They are not sure what kind of data center they plan to build and how large it will be, they said the company (foreign) has been very secretive about sharing any plans with the city of Brandon 2) Which was the most important part of the opposition, was that area is already zoned for FUTURE residential growth which is in Brandon’s long term growth plan and has been for years. Of course our boot licking planning commission approved the re-zone because they said this is just preliminary (they say this crap all the time) but it is NOT. It changes it now from a future growth of residential to industrial which means to change it back you would have to go thru the process all over again with a new land owner. Stupidity. Until this foreign company reveals EXACTLY what they plan to build, we should leave it AS is, Ag land with future use for residential. It was also revealed at the meeting that 300 people would be working at the site. Hogwash. These places pull this crap all the time. This is the amount of construction workers that would be on site while being built, that would most likely be shipped in from other parts of the country, but once finished it may have 20 full-time peeps who will work mostly in security and maintenance.

Unfortunately the way our planning approvals are setup, they must first ask for a re-zone of the property BEFORE they can announce what they plan to build there (Item #5A-Regular Agenda);

FLUA-021026-2025: Future Land Use Amendment to reclassify a Development Area identified in the Shape Sioux Falls 2040 Comprehensive Plan from Tier 3 to Tier 1 and amend the Future Land Use Map for the area from Residential to Future Light Industrial located east of Veterans Pkwy. and south of E. Rice St.

First off, I am NOT a fan of changing residential zoned property into light industrial especially with our housing needs in Sioux Falls. Secondly, it is pretty obvious they are changing the zoning to put in a data center but there is NO mention of a Data Center in the attached documentation on the agenda item. I wonder if the commission is smart enough to ask the question, and if the client have plans to power it? These data centers take massive amounts of electricity, how will this affect the grid in Sioux Falls? Also, the company I linked above is a registered FOREIGN LLC, and has only been registered for 6 months. I hope the commission sees thru this ruse, but if not, hopefully the city council will see this for what it is, an AI data center that will suck us dry on energy and probably drive up our energy costs. WE DO NOT WANT THIS IN SIOUX FALLS. Besides the property taxes, there is very little economic advantages of having a large data center like this in Sioux Falls. It won’t generate any sales tax revenue and it will mostly be full of servers and very few employees. We will see how this plays out, I see the planning department recommends approval (which is a way of making sure the commission rubber stamps this).

As predicted, Developer builds new apartment building and leaves half the street a wreck

I know, NO surprises here. So the developer spends over a year building this place while wrecking the street and when it comes time to re-surface the road, they just do the half adjacent to their building and have the other half full of potholes. When the developer bought the property from the city and presented their plans, the city should have put a condition in there that they would fix the street once the construction is finished. Developer welfare queens strike again, “Yeah, we are the brand spanking new apartment building downtown right next to the street that was hit by mortar rounds. Should be easy to find, when the front end of your car falls off, you will know you have arrived.”;

UPDATE: What’s going on with promised Apartment Complex behind 8th and Railroad?

Last Tuesday the City Council got a presentation on RFP’s vs. Negotiated Sale. The topic came up because a negotiated sale is what the city is apparently still in the process of negotiating with the developer, Christensen, for the proposed development behind 8th and Railroad. I find this a little alarming. Back in June of last year the council got a presentation on the development. The developer told the council then that they planned to break ground in the Fall of last year or Spring of this year, now the planning department says it is is still in the ‘negotiating stage’. How can you be in the negotiating stage when the Planning Commission approved the TIF last July? Now there was a statement made by the proposed developer in June when they made their initial presentation; they said they would coordinate their build out with how fast the properties at the Steel District and more specifically Cherapa II would lease out. One wonders if those properties are having trouble being leased, and coincidentally slowing investment in the Christensen development? But we know how these games are being played in town. Years ago a franchise motorcycle repair shop tried to come to town and a major competitor with their wrench in city government convinced banks and other investors to back away from this franchise essentially shutting them down before the doors even opened. Funny how a TIF gets approved before a land purchase is even signed. We got some real clowns running the city these days . . .

SPEAKING OF A CIRCUS

There has been a lot of talk lately between constituents about how light and meaningless the city council agenda has been lately. The story is the lame duck mayor is telling council no new policy initiatives will be allowed on the agenda. I told someone, “The only reason you would shut down the only function of your policy body is because you have someone bigger then you riding your ass.” More to come on this.

UPDATE: Mike Zitterich sent me this;

I wanted to see how many ordinances and resolutions that get posted to the City Council Agenda by the mayor or city councilors, and in 2024, here is what I came up with: 

Out of 354 Ordinances/Resolutions sponsored from January 1, 2024 to December 30, 2024 — 

Mayor………………………….183……52%……………………5.1 Per meeting

Private Applicants…………..97……27%……………………2.7 Per meeting

City Councilors………………74……21%……………………2.1 Per meeting

36 Meetings in 2024 

HIGH: 

Mayor sponsored 13 total on August 13, 2024 

City Council sponsored 9 twice on May 14th and May 7th of 2024 

Private Applicants sponsored 8 total 3 times during the 2024 season.

Did Tre Ministries LIE to the City Council?

Pretty much.

10 command . . .?

When the development plan was first presented to the planning commission it was under the pretense that the developer at the time who owned the property, Justin Johnson, would develop it as presented. After that, JJ sold the property to Tre who got private investors. When the SF City Council approved the open ended, interest free loan of $500K for demolition, Tre, once again, seemed to lie about the development plan. The shcity council approved the expense to taxpayers and now Tre are saying there is no plan, because they have no money. May I suggest a SF Heroes garden for the space?! Just like the Arc of Dreams, it would be a game changer for 18th and Minnesota.

Like the Dems in Congress, I ask the CC, what the Hell are you doing?!