KUNA, Idaho — A tight 3-2 vote at Tuesday's Kuna City Council meeting rezoned a property in southeast Kuna from agriculture to industrial— paving the way for the Gemstone Technology Park project.
After hours of public comment in support and against the data center, the votes were cast, and a tie was broken by Kuna Mayor Joe Stear, who voted to move the project forward.
RELATED: Micron builds new childcare center to address community needs
"I think this is a good usage that is allowed by the development agreement that provides the neighbors with a lot less traffic, a lot less other things going on that we don't necessarily think our roads are capable of, and our school district is capable of," says Dana Hennis, who has lived right next to the property, currently used for farming, for the past 20 years.
Hennis says the data center is the city's best option.
"I'm in support of it because, like I said, the alternative is what we fear, you know, high density housing, apartments or townhouses, or much more residential housing that our school district can't support out there, and we don't really have the utilities structure out that way," added Hennis.
But other neighbors, like Shalee Murray, who lives just down the road, worry about the long-term impacts of the project.
"The main part that is really concerning is the construction will take 10 years," said Murray. "And these roads, our infrastructure in Kuna, isn't ready to handle that."
Murray says she grew up in a farming community in northern Utah and watched firsthand as farmland turned industrial.
"It was just a domino effect, one by one, the farms surrounding [us] all turned to either industrial or neighborhoods, and so now my parent's home is the only farm—surrounded by warehouses and neighborhoods," says Murray.
Kuna already has an industrial area on the east side of town — where the Meta data center is currently being built.
Diode Ventures, the company behind the Gemstone Technology Park project, says they appreciate the community's feedback and have confidence in their ability to be good stewards of the land in Kuna.
They also indicated that they have plans to dish out some $40 million to fund improvements for the city's school district, police, and fire departments.
“We appreciate the Kuna City Council's confidence in our ability to be good stewards of the land for sustainable growth in Kuna. As we demonstrated throughout the process to date, we are proud to be community partners in Kuna and will be providing more than $40 million of direct contributions to the community to fund improvements for Kuna Police, Kuna Fire and the Kuna School District. We also appreciate community feedback and will work with City staff and ACHD to satisfy our commitments to address concerns around traffic and landscape, as we navigate through next steps in the process.”
"It all changes. It's just the developments that are well thought out, the projects that are well thought out— I think make the difference," added Hennis.
