Summit County planners want to keep massive data centers off the East Side's open land and agricultural areas, adding new language to the draft Eastern Summit County General Plan that would discourage the kind of sprawling tech campuses that cost two Box Elder County incumbents their seats this year.
At the commission's July 2 meeting, Principal Planner Ray Milliner said he had inserted guidelines discouraging "large-scale industrial or utility-intensive land uses in areas identified for open space preservation" and agriculture. The advisory language doesn't ban data centers outright.
"That would probably deter a lot of people, but you never know," Milliner told the Park Record.
The regulations would apply only to unincorporated East Side land. The Snyderville Basin operates under its own separate general plan, so the data center language would not affect the western half of the county.
Why the East Side is vulnerable
Planning Commissioner David Darcey, who previously worked in energy-sector strategy, has warned fellow officials that the Wasatch Back shares conditions with Box Elder County, particularly a gas pipeline running through the area that could attract power-hungry facilities. Darcey attended a Utah Association of Counties conference on data center regulations in June and said he was surprised by how many counties seemed eager to land such projects.
The commissioners are simultaneously drafting the East Side's first future land-use map, an effort focused on protecting the Kamas Valley from unchecked growth.
The Box Elder cautionary tale
The proposed Stratos data center campus in Box Elder County, backed by investor Kevin O'Leary, drew protests over drought concerns and power demand. Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams lost his June 2026 primary after supporting the project, becoming the first sitting Senate president to lose a primary in state history. Former Box Elder County Commissioner Lee Perry also lost his primary, telling Newsweek the data center vote cost him the election.
KUER has reported that most Utah local governments have no rules on the books governing large-scale data centers. Summit County planners say the county is well-positioned to act because it is already revising both the Snyderville Basin and East Side general plans.
What happens next
No vote has been taken on the data center guidelines. The General Plan update remains in a work-session phase. Milliner told KPCW on July 2 that the county could strengthen the General Plan language first, then pursue code amendments to the development code. The Park Record reported the Summit County Council is expected to review and possibly approve the full document by the end of 2026.
The Eastern Summit County Planning Commission meets on the first and third Thursday of each month at the Summit County Courthouse, 60 North Main St., Coalville. Meetings are also available via Zoom. The next scheduled meetings are August 6 and August 20.
