Neighbors fear change to Independence zoning law clears way for more data centers
As a $150 billion hyperscale artificial intelligence data center in northeastern Independence moves into its next stage of construction, some residents have been shocked by the rapid pace of development. Now, they fear that the city’s laws could invite more such projects to their community in the future.
While Dutch company Nebius sends heavy machinery to till the earth and both private security officers and Independence police officers patrol the site, those who live in the area are looking back at the company’s fast-tracked path into Independence.
Mark Coulter, an attorney for Nebius, previously said that the company was attracted to Independence in part because of the availability of a large plot of land already zoned for their intended use.
“It is primed and ready to go for a development of this size and scale,” Coulter said earlier this year.
But recently, neighbors to the site have learned that the city code hadn’t always been so primed for such a project. Organizers have narrowed in on a 2024 change to the Independence code that expanded the city’s definition of industrial uses to specifically include data centers.
That wording allowed Nebius to pursue an expedited development process — and could be used to usher in future data center projects.
Beyond industrial use
The land off of Bly Road, along with the rest of Eastgate Commerce Center at the intersection of Missouri Highway 78 and Little Blue Parkway, was rezoned for industrial use in 2022, which city staff have said was intended to attract a commercial tenant of some sort. It’s classified as I-1, which means it can be used for “light to moderate” industrial work.
Assistant City Manager Charlie Dissell said in February that since that zoning in 2022, at least four other companies had entered into sales talks with Northpoint before Nebius came calling.
At least one of those potential clients was another data center, though a smaller one, Dissell said in February. Another was pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.
None of those projects came to fruition.
Then two years later, in 2024, the council voted to add a line to the Independence City Code specifically naming “data processing and hosting” as approved use for I-1 sites.
This addition simplifies the application process that data centers like Nebius have to go through when setting up shop in the city. Since the way they plan to use the land is already specifically described in the city’s code, the developers don’t need to seek a rezoning or special use permit — two processes that require additional approval from city officials.
Daniel Moorehead, a founding organizer with the Independence Guard Alliance, which is a group that neighbors nearby the Nebius site formed to oppose the project, presented a timeline of the site’s zoning changes to residents at a town hall earlier this week. The group recently retained two attorneys, including a prominent litigator representing residents in about a dozen cases against data centers in their Missouri-area cities.
“Your city, whether they realize it or not, made an arbitrary and capricious decision here on the rezoning,” Moorehead said at the Tuesday town hall. “They have a fast pass. It’s like going to Disney World and getting on all the rides right away… it is harder to build a house in Independence than a hyperscale data center.”
Moorehead also said that he was concerned that the expanded zoning definition could make Independence more attractive to future data center developers.
With data center applicants fast-tracked through local zoning processes, companies hoping to build data centers in Independence in the future would face fewer opportunities for oversight, resistance or rejection by officials or in city processes, he said.
Residents of Bly and Bundschu Roads in Independence’s Second District, two residential streets overlooking the Nebius site, say their lives were upended when the first pieces of construction equipment arrived on the data center site at the end of last year, when most of the initial contracts between Nebius and Independence were signed and months before the city approved $6 billion in tax breaks for the company.
Moorehead warned that with the expanded definition of uses for industrial land, nearly anyone else in Independence could be next. Around 40% of Independence residents live within a mile of an I-1 area, according to data collected by the GUARD Alliance.
“Your city has put out a red carpet for Meta, Google, Patmos, Anthropic,” Moorehead said Tuesday. “...Once you open the door, and the camel puts his nose under the tent, it’s going to bring 12 of its buddies with it.”
Data center landscape
While Independence’s zoning rules have potentially cleared the way for data centers to be built in the city, other local governing bodies are cracking down on the availability of undeveloped land.
Nebius is the largest of the 10 “hyperscale” data centers in progress in the Kansas City metropolitan area, which includes five projects that will use over 100 megawatts of energy.
The Jackson County Legislature is currently weighing a moratorium, between 120 and 180 days in length, which would temporarily halt zoning approvals for data centers and battery energy storage sites (BESS) in unincorporated areas of the county. Similar legislation recently passed across the state line in Leavenworth, Kansas.
The Kansas City Council also passed legislation in late 2025 placing more limits on where data centers can be built and how they are approved. The council also increased the requirements for public hearings and special approvals associated with any proposed data center development project.
Neighbors with the GUARD Alliance want to see similar action from their city officials. They’re currently urging the City Council to implement a one-year moratorium on zoning approvals for data centers in Independence, which would impact any other data infrastructure companies currently eyeing a move to the city.
Regulatory concerns
Meanwhile, residents are keeping a close eye on how the city’s current zoning language could allow Nebius -- and theoretically other companies -- to put fewer resources toward mitigating health, safety and environmental concerns.
Nebius bought the 400-acre data center site from Northpoint, a Kansas City development company that previously bought the site from the city of Independence in a controversial $1 billion plan in 2022.
When the site was first zoned as industrial at that time, Northpoint conducted a series of environmental tests looking at how development in the Commerce Center could impact threatened and endangered species in the area, along with water use and general liveability.
Since those tests have already happened, that means the company has fulfilled its legal responsibility under local and state law.
But nearby residents worry that the heavy construction at the data center site changes the game for local flora and fauna, noting that they’ve seen less native wildlife and migratory birds since machinery started to arrive in November. Residents also worry about the well-being of a bald eagle living on Bly Road, which was the subject of some analysis by Northpoint in 2022.
“We’re just going down the pathway of trying to understand what our city decided to do, or whether we have any recourse in this process,” Moorehead said.
