NORTH MANKATO — The North Mankato City Council unanimously approved the alternative urban areawide review for a potential 4 million square foot development site during its Monday meeting, but not before residents and others raised questions about the review being a gateway to development of a large data center.

Luke Norquist, an attorney representing the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting and argued that the environmental review process lacked transparency and specificity.

“There's the matter of transparency in public process. We were looking back at the timeline for the AUAR, and the first required step for these developments is the scoping process for development. But because the AUAR was framed in a way of being an industrial development, a technology park, because it never mentioned the words ‘data center’, it wasn't clear to the public what was being developed, and so you kind of shut the door on public process when you have that lack of clarity,” Norquist said.

Norquist told the Free Press the environmental review process, typically used for municipal planning of smaller projects, is being applied to large-scale data center developments across the state. Norquist noted that recent amendments to AUAR rules were designed to require more precise project descriptions, a standard he believes the current review does not meet.