FAQs

We are a group of local residents who came together in January 2026 to fight the Solon Township data center through legal means, as well as share factual information about the project with the community.

While we have a core group of local volunteers who run our social media and website, design our fliers and signs, and gather information, we have been given generous donations from local businesses and residents to pay for yard signs and direct mailers. Our environmental attorney works for a non-profit law firm in Michigan and has been our legal counsel pro bono.

Michigan’s Zoning Enabling Act (PA 110 of 2006, MCL 125.3101 et seq.) established July 1, 2006 is a law that prohibits local governments from enacting exclusionary zoning for any land use that there is a demonstrated need in the local region or state and if it is a valid and lawful use under state guidelines.

It means that townships/municipalities cannot outright refuse any business if it fits within the zoning requirements and meets all legal requirements, including a data center. This is why the township is currently adding data centers to the Zoning Ordinance, so that there are guidelines that must be followed if a data center were to be built. It means neither the township or residents can just say no because they don’t want it in their community.

Townships or municipalities found to have exclusionary zoning are at risk for legal action from a proposed developer, including pushing the project through while causing significant legal costs to the township. A township could face a lawsuit if zoning classification exists (e.g. industrial), but no land is actually designated for that use in the master plan. It is worth noting that the Saline Township Oracle data center was not pushed through due to their ordinance being exclusionary, but rather because they refused to rezone. The developers sued over that which led to the project going through.

The Need Clause of the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act states that total bans are illegal if there is a “demonstrated need” for the lawful land use with the local area or surrounding state. Data centers are a lawful land use in Michigan.

If the people voted to refuse the land to be used for a data center it would essentially be a ban, which is illegal under the Needs Clause. A referendum is when residents gather a petition to challenge a zoning decision, it may stall or stop that particular location for a project but it still cannot ban or exclude a state mandated lawful land use with a demonstrated need because it would be considered exclusionary.

The proposed area is 800+ acres southwest of Meijer and the Cedarfield mobile home community. The site is larger than the downtown Cedar Springs area. Link to visual representation here: https://stopsolontownshipdatacenter.com/where/

No, it is not illegal for local leaders to sign Non Disclosure Agreements. Short term (a few months to a year) NDAs are sometimes used to give companies time to organize the proprietary details of a project before it is released to the public. However, some data center developers are requiring NDAs that do not expire for 5 years after termination. There is proposed state legislation (HB 5399) to ban the continuation of that.  Solon Township passed an ordinance on July 13, 2026 banning township officials from signing NDAs in the future.

Recalling board members that approve a data center could potentially replace them with members opposed to it, but does not remove the legal requirements of Michigan’s non-exclusionary zoning.

No, a township cannot dictate who you can sell your private land to. In general you have the right to sell to whoever you wish as long as the transaction complies with state and local regulations.

Please attend township meetings to voice your questions and concerns. Email or call the township. Put a sign in your yard, talk to your friends and neighbors to let them know what is going on. These actions shows the potential developer that the entire community does not support a data center here, and we intend to push back and will not tolerate corporate bullying.

We need to contact our state senators and representatives with our concerns and demand changes that give Michigan real protections from data centers. There are several data center regulations that have been proposed but none have yet passed. Please see this page to show you who to contact and how.

A moratorium is a temporary developmental pause, often 6-12 months while townships or states research and update zoning codes. Once the zoning ordinances are updated the moratorium can be lifted. A moratorium is only meant to be temporary, extending longer than necessary could be a legal risk.

• According to FOIA documents, the Solon Township Data Center could use up to 6 million gallons of water per day, equaling 2.19 billion gallons of water per year.
• A 1 GW power deal was signed between Consumers Energy and the developer of the Solon Township data center in August 2025.
• Construction could take 3-7 years, including a potential period of construction bringing infrastructure needs across US-131.
• 650-800 acres of farmland are on the table for the project.
• Some of the proposed land may be outside the current 425 Agreement with Solon Township/Cedar Springs and could require a new intergovernmental agreement with Algoma Township if they agreed to it.
• The project goes by the code name “Project Peninsula.”

1 GW of electricity is the equivalent of 1 billion watts. It is enough capacity to power approximately 700,000 to 1,000,000 homes. It would be like adding the entire retail demand of Grand Rapids, or adding the entire City of Detroit to the grid. This is not an average, run-of-the-mill manufacturing facility, it is a project of massive scale that will quickly become the largest load on the regional grid. Consumers Energy’s entire peak load in the Lower Peninsula is approximately 8 GW, a 1 GW project would be a 12.5% increase of their entire current energy load.

FOIA documents show that the City of Cedar Springs wants to provide water and waste water treatment for the proposed data center. In order for data center developers to qualify for the state’s sales tax exemption they must verify the use of municipal water at the time it is placed into service. The Enterprise Data Center Sales & Use Tax exemption eliminates our 6% sales tax on the data center construction and equipment purchases until 2050, it can also be claimed by any business involved in the construction, alteration or improvement of the data center.

While the developer has not been officially confirmed, we know that Venerly LLC is the shell company pursuing the data center project in Solon Township. Venerly LLC was created by CSC Global, who is a registered agent for Meta. Meta is currently using many other shell companies, created through CSC Global alone, to build other data centers located in Wisconsin, Indiana, Texas, Wyoming, Louisiana and others. All of these shell companies, including Venerly LLC, share the same address and President, Pamela Gregorski, who is named on the NDA termination that Bob Ellick and Darla Falcon signed.