UPDATE: Lee County talks data center, 46-home subdivision and emergency services UDO change

On Aug. 17, Lee County Commissioners moved to contact legislators about data centers, held a public hearing and approved an UDO change allowing emergency services to expand by right.

Before public comments, Chairperson Samantha Martin read a proposed resolution for the General Assembly to regulate data centers to protect citizens. The board immediately approved sending the resolution.

Martin said she did not want disruption, and that was why she read the resolution first.

UPDATE: The data center application will be reviewed and approved administratively by the planning department and will not return to the board of commissioners for a vote.

“Good evening, My name is Shauna Johnstone. I am a Lee County resident. I spent approximately 35 years in accounting and corporate financial management, and the final three years of my career as a town manager. So, I have experience reviewing financial projections, development proposals, budgets, and information presented to local elected officials.

I only became aware of the Lower Moncure data-center project at the end of June this year when I noticed it on the front page of a newspaper while in the grocery store. Otherwise, I still would not have known about this matter. Many other residents are not yet aware. Since then, I have been reviewing the County’s own records.

Three things concern me.

First: This is not what the board approved.

In 2025, the public was told that 430 acres on Lower Moncure Road were being rezoned for a “light industrial business park.” At the Planning Board’s own hearing, the developer’s representative told the Board — on the record — that the companies interested in the site were an aerospace component manufacturer, sustainable battery-technology firms, a timber-technology company, and solar infrastructure companies. Every one of those was described as high-power but low-water, low-sewer users. That is the project this community was sold, and it is not a 90-megawatt data center with a 300,000-square-foot building as Phase One of what may become a full 430-acre, 2.5 million sq. ft. campus.

Second: there is nothing legally binding those promises to this land.

This was approved as a general-use rezoning, not a conditional one. At the same hearing, the Chair asked county staff directly whether the developer’s voluntary commitments — buffers, limits on development, environmental standards — could be made enforceable. Staff’s answer in the minutes: there is no way to codify those commitments, because no binding conditions can be attached to a general-use rezoning. That means every reassurance this community received about scale, use, and impact was voluntary and unenforceable the moment the vote was cast.

Third, the community’s own consent was built on a different project.

Many neighbors who initially opposed this rezoning ultimately supported it — not because they wanted an industrial park, but because they feared the alternative: annexation into the City of Sanford and roughly 430 new homes. That is a reasonable trade-off to weigh. But it was a decision about light industrial use versus residential sprawl. It was not a decision about hosting a data center campus, and nobody was given the chance to weigh that trade-off instead.

At the same time, very attractive claims are now being made about this project: more than a million dollars a year in tax revenue from Phase I, up to eight million at full buildout, very low water consumption, minimal noise, no burden on ratepayers, and enormous economic benefits. Those may ultimately prove correct. But right now, most of them are projections made by parties promoting the project, not independently established facts. CyrusOne itself describes the tax figures as projected.

I have submitted public-records requests seeking the underlying documentation. The response I received directed me to a link that does not work. I still do not have the information I need to verify these representations.

I am therefore asking the Commissioners to do four things:

First, do not allow irreversible approvals to be made before verifying the facts.

Second, require independent documentation of the major tax, water, noise, power, and infrastructure claims — not developer projections.

Third, give the public a meaningful opportunity to review and comment on the actual project now proposed — not merely the general industrial zoning approved last year for a very different set of tenants.

Fourth, ensure public-records requests, are fulfilled with working, functional access to the underlying documents — not broken links.

You are not being asked tonight to accept my conclusions about this project. We the people are asking you to insist on the evidence before accepting anyone else’s.

Thank you,” Shauna Johnstone read a speech, which she had emailed to Sandhills News.

Citizens spoke about many concerns: pollutants, loss of trust, requests to pause, strengthening the county’s data center ordinances, increasing violation fees, request to classify data centers as heavy industrial instead of light, impact on animals, including native species, the safe decibels level for dogs is 20 decimals less than for dogs, light industrial has downtime, data centers do not have downtime, which makes constant noise as loud as an overhead plane (65 decibels), fear of the land use plan being scrapped by Cyrus One, potential energy increases, fracking as a back-up energy source, low rate of new jobs, adopt a moratorium, farmland owners losing their rights to continue enjoying their property, longtime residents asking for water and now the data center was promised water and flushing the data center’s water and what water source it impacts.

Third-generation Lower Moncure Road resident Mark Mansfield retired on family farmland and said they were going to vote out Kirk Smith. He said he’d lost enough sleep and was tired of it. He said the board could stop the data center, and that the board “Better watch what’s in your food when ya eat ‘cause people’s tired of it,” and the crowd heavily applauded.

Linda Hoover said the data center’s progress had broken trust in bringing big businesses to the county in the future.

Jonathan Boyce said data center executives did not live near data centers and did not know the impact of noise on humans. He suggested they measure linear noise as it happens, instead of the mathematical trick of ignoring heavy thumping sounds to keep results low.

Eric Evanson called out several board members by name with compliments, but when he said a less than favorable statement about Commissioner Kirk Smith, he was told to address the entire board, not individuals. Evanson said that “unfortunately, SAGA and Smith” secretly worked on a plan to introduce a 90-megawatt data center for rural Countryside. He wanted to know why citizens were not told but the board hid the “massive industrial footprint” to protect the corporation. “Where is the government here?…The UDO has a dangerous low frequency noise loophole. These vibrations will penetrate homes for miles…I believe the public trust can be restored with just a few wise decisions,” he said about adjusting the data center ordinances.

Correction: Lee County Commissioners held a public hearing for rezoning 52.42 acres of RA land and farmland to conditional zoning for a proposed subdivision at 4506 Lemon Springs Road at the Aug. 17 meeting.

James and Barbara Thomas applied for Lemon Springs Meadows, LLC to have 46 single-family home lots with a minimum lot size of 20,000 square feet, with public streets, public water, and individual private septic systems with an entrance off Lemon Springs Road and a 20-foot-wide greenbelt along the perimeter.

The area is surrounded by farms and RA-zoned land.

It is designated as Countryside in the Land Use Plan. The new zoning would allow 20,000-square-foot lots instead of one acre per home.

It plans an HOA.

The landowners said the agricultural fields were overgrown with weeds and trees, and he had left the area. “I fully support the development of my land,” Barry H. Thomas writes in a letter read by the planning department.

Ronnie Turner said he owns Lemon Springs Meadows, LLC and said all the property would not perk, so they plan 46 homes, not 50. “It’ll build out in less than a year.”

Cathy McNeil said she and her husband own McNeil Farms adjoining the proposed subdivision on Lemon Springs Road. Her husband tried to buy the three acres next to their land, which would impact their farm business and make their customers enter their produce sales road further down the road on a blind curve. She said that the six homeowners on the three acres the family has tried to buy for years would be impacted by agricultural work during early morning and late evening hours. “Daycares and schools visit,” she said, and they support CUOC and allow Greenwood Elementary School buses to turn around in their driveway. “The right to farm law will protect us. But who will protect the homeowners, customers and community? I hope it will be you,” she said in her plea to commissioners not to rezone the RA land.

The board considered the preliminary plat for 46 single-family homes on one acre+ lots off Clifton Lane with state roads, and private water and septic on 78.24 acres for Morgan Fields subdivision. The property is at the end of Clifton Lane in the Northwest Pocket Fire District and is about nine miles from Tramway.

There are no required preliminary tests required for hydrology.

TriRiver said the plot was more than 1,000 feet from a city water connection.

Water pressure on Steele Bridge Road is low, and that was a concern.

Commissioner Cameron Sharpe and Martin said nearby citizens had expressed concerns about drilling for wells intercepting their private wells.

The planning board said it was not common for a developer to request private wells.

Beth Blackmon with Timmons Group said there was not a test for wells. “We do individual well subdivisions all over the state. It is a very, very common thing…We would have extended the waterline…but could not extend the waterline and meet fire flow…The water pressure in the neighborhood is not enough for the individual homes and fire hydrants…It would be on the builder. Environmental Health would sign off.”

Because there is a mail kiosk, the development would have an HOA to meet regulations.

The developer said if a well was not productive, he would buy the lot.

Blackmon said there was no standard for water flow velocity for individual wells.

The board voted to table the proposed Clifton Lane plat for further discussion.

Commissioners approved a Uniform Development Ordinance amendment to allow “by right” development and expansion of emergency services. The planning board stated that the change stemmed from officials citing tight fire department budgets. Even after the planning board discussed the public’s right to voice concerns about noise, lights, sirens next to private residences and heavy equipment, the planning board voted unanimously to recommend the text amendment.

Prior to this amendment, all emergency services development required a special use permit.

Commissioner Cameron Sharpe recused himself from the vote. There was no discussion among commissioners. The vote was unanimous.

The next meeting is Sept. 21 at 6 p.m.

Aug. 18, 2026

Stephanie M. Sellers

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