Residents in Opposition: Caledonia

From the mysterious “Project Nova” to Microsoft backing down to community criticism, residents opposed to a data center in the small village of Caledonia were victorious. On Oct. 8, Microsoft announced it would no longer pursue 244 acres of land for a data center. The project was originally going to accompany the tech giant’s much larger facility in Mount Pleasant as southeastern Wisconsin becomes a hub to house data related to artificial intelligence.

Caledonia is a small village nestled between Milwaukee and Chicago. It’s a name any frequent I-94 traveler would be accustomed to seeing on a bright green sign as they drive through Racine County. It’s quiet—with a population of only 25,373—and home to a diverse mix of neighborhoods, open fields and commercial districts.

Travelling south on Highway 32, where Milwaukee County and Racine County meet, the picturesque fields and native Wisconsin plants welcome a sprawling We Energies coal powerplant development. The water vapor plume escapes from tall white chimneys, disrupting the blue of the sky above.

Continuing south, Botting Road soon approaches. It’s a two-lane road with a speed limit of 35 miles per hour, lined with trees, bushes and agricultural land with soaring powerlines overhead. It’s a typical country road.

Valerie Lancelle, a resident of Caledonia for 12 years, noticed something different about Botting Road on her way to her gym class in the middle of July.

“There were little signs posted along the street saying, ‘rezoning proposed,’” she said. “I was like, ‘What’s that all about?’”

She began to do her research. Caledonia’s Planning Commission is an advisory body to the Village Board that handles land division regulations, zoning district plans and regulations and amendments. They had a meeting coming up on July 28, so Lancelle dug into the upcoming meeting’s agenda. It contained two suggested motions: a land use amendment and a rezoning.

An undisclosed client was introducing a new type of zoning district in Caledonia—M-1 Light Manufacturing—for a data center near Botting Road, encompassing approximately 244 acres. As AI booms, the demand for data explodes. Data isn’t just floating in the cloud; it needs to be housed on a computer somewhere. Data centers are popping up all across the country to keep up with the demand and technological advances.

Shortly after Lancelle’s revelation, she called Prescott Balch, a Caledonia resident of 12 years.

“She said she’d done some homework, figured out what it was all about, and asked me if I wanted to get involved, and the rest is history,” he said.

Building Their Opposition

Both professionals in the tech industry and complete beginners in community outreach, Lancelle and Balch began to peel back the layers of the once mysterious “Project Nova” coming to Caledonia.

They conquered organizing and researching simultaneously. Lancelle gathered residents who attended the July 28 meeting, created a petition and canvassed neighborhoods to build a strong case that Caledonia was against the rezone. Social media was instrumental in the outreach, too.

Balch focused on research. He recently retired after 38 years in the tech industry, so his newfound freedom gave him ample time to learn about “Project Nova.” His decades of experience gave him an advantage, saying he “probably knows data centers better than anyone else in the village.”

Poking Holes in The Project, Focusing on Caledonia

Compared to ordinary residents who discover these data centers being thrust upon their communities, Balch and Lancelle knew plenty about what a data center means. Lancelle’s initial concern was the intention to rezone a large area of land from agricultural and rural residential uses, and less that a data center was coming to the village.

“It’s not that we’re against development in Caledonia, it’s just that we’re against development on that plot of land,” she said.

Balch shared the same sentiment about the 244 acres of land.

“It’s a noise buffer, it’s a visual buffer, it’s something that the rural community of Caledonia appreciates,” he said. “To disrupt that with a big, giant, ugly data center didn’t seem quite aligned with the formal land use planning of the village.”

They also argued that there are plenty of other plots of land in Caledonia fit for industrial use. They both noted that the bulk of the industrial buildings in the village are out by the interstate, where they are already zoned for that kind of usage.

Balch said the proposed land was conveniently placed.

“Why do you have to do it on a beautiful piece of farmland? And the answer is because it’s across the street from the power plant,” he said. “It saves them tens of millions of dollars in transmission wires.”

It’s a stark differentiation from what arguments are expected from anti-data center residents. Their case didn’t focus on environmental or health issues—it focused on the village itself.

Lancelle also believed the decision was “not a good financial decision” for Caledonia. She explained that data centers tend to have a shorter shelf life, which is especially true of hyperscale centers, which can last between 15 to 20 years, according to Data Center Dynamics.

She also said that the amount of tax revenue was contingent on three data centers being developed in the area. It didn’t make “financial sense” for Caledonia to go through the lengths of the proposal without a committed amount of revenue to the area, she said.

Balch knew what questions to ask because of his knowledge in the field. His network of people in the industry allowed him to throw questions at individuals who manage data centers, concerning details like the amount of resources needed to run these developments.

They wanted to find anything they could, pro or con. “We found a lot of cons,” he said.

Microsoft is Coming to Town

On Sept. 23, Microsoft announced it was behind the elusive “Project Nova.”

The reveal of the tech giant, which is already building a $3.3 billion data center on land once dedicated to Foxconn in Mount Pleasant, and has invested $4 billion in a second development, came as no surprise to tech professionals Balch and Lancelle.

Balch said that there were some parts of the Caledonia community who expressed opinions that there may have been something sinister going on behind the scenes, but he didn’t think that was so.

“I’ve worked in large Fortune 100 companies before. They take their reputation seriously and their competitive advantages seriously,” he said. “For them to withhold their name for a while, until the proposal got further along, that’s entirely normal.”

For Lancelle, she knew it had to be Amazon, Google, Meta or Microsoft when she found out it was a data center. She didn’t care who the company was; the community didn’t want it.

Balch said that even after the company became public, Microsoft still couldn’t answer the questions that the village had for them. The lack of proactive communication frustrated both Balch and Lancelle.

“Not many people would’ve known about it if I hadn’t seen those zoning signs on the street,” Lancelle said. “I fortunately gathered the right people together to start to rally everyone. If I were Microsoft, I would definitely make sure that the village does community meetings sooner rather than later, so we don’t find out about this after the fact. If you truly do want to be a member of the community, come in and get to know who we are, and think about how this is going to impact the community.”

The Village Board Is Responsible, Too

Transparency issues don’t just fall into the hands of Microsoft, though. Balch and Lancelle both had staunch critiques of Caledonia’s Village Board.

For a data center project to move forward, villages like Caledonia must take steps to create new types of zoning, expand definitions within the village’s ordinances and amend comprehensive city plans. These things were all approved by both the Village Board and the Planning Commission, but Balch noted that they neglected to say that there would be a proposed project for the new M-1 Light Manufacturing zoning, which had been refined to include facilities that contain digital data storage, like data centers.

It showed up in July with the rezoning sign, and that notice to the public was the only communication, he said.

“There was something really fishy there that really rubbed us all the wrong way,” Balch said. “You guys are trying to jam it down our throats and hope we don’t notice. We’ll start complaining after the trucks drive in to construct this facility. It’s just the absolute wrong way to go about doing it, and it backfired on them badly because it generated ill will and distrust, so everything that anyone said from the Board from that point forward was treated with incredible skepticism.”

Lancelle shares similar feelings about how the Village Board handled the community response, particularly referencing some behavior from Tom Weatherston, Village Board president.

“The Village Board President made a comment one day, ‘How come nobody comes to the budget meetings?’” she said. “It’s not what you should say. What I saw from July 28 until today [Oct. 14], is that the number of community members grew with every meeting, and they started to voice their opinions and concerns, and started asking questions. To me, that says a lot. It says a lot that we don’t trust our Village Board.”

Village President Tom Weatherston did not respond to a request for comment on the then-proposed data center.

After Backlash, Microsoft Backs Out

Microsoft announced Oct. 8 that it would no longer pursue the 244 acres of land in Caledonia, citing community feedback as the driving factor.

It’s a phenomenon that has become increasingly common as these corporations move into small towns—vocal resistance from local communities is effective.

“I was very excited and relieved, and surprised, honestly,” Lancelle said. “I didn’t think that it would be Microsoft making the decision. I thought it would be the board.”

Balch shared the same thought as Lancelle. They both described a sense that Microsoft no longer felt secure in how the Village Board would vote and ultimately decided to pull out of the project to save face.

Development isn’t going away in Racine County, nor is it sure to go away in Caledonia. In Microsoft’s statement, they stated they would continue to look elsewhere for their third data center development in the area.

Lancelle believes there isn’t much anyone could say to the village to convince them that another proposed Microsoft project would be a good thing for the community—they’ve done too much research, she said.

“Time will tell if they actually heard any of the criticisms we levelled against them. I’m skeptical that they’ve learned their lesson, to be honest,” Balch said. “I’m even more skeptical that if Microsoft finds another parcel soon, I’ll be super skeptical that they’ve learned their lesson; they’ll just do the same thing over again and hope it works this time because it’s not in the middle of a residential area.”

Effective Opposition Strategies

It took three months for Caledonia residents opposing the data center to see their desired outcome. That wasn’t without a lot of work.

It comes down to research, both Balch and Lancelle said.

“Just do your homework. Do the homework you want your village to do. You’re going to find out all of the things that are wrong with these proposals,” he said.

Balch said he can speak to what arguments do and don’t work. Often, a small but vocal and emotional minority shows up to their local meetings, and if emotion doesn’t resonate with the board members, nothing will change, he said. Facts and data were most impactful for those opposed in Caledonia. Repetition was key, too, Balch noted.

“Just keep poking away, creating holes. Make the people who are making this decision feel like they are going to make a mistake,” he said.