By Scott White
Woodford Sun Staff
The Versailles City Council followed the recommendation of Versailles Mayor Laura Dake and passed a resolution enacting a moratorium on the approval or construction of data centers within the urban service boundary of Versailles at its Tuesday, June 16, meeting.
The City Council has no jurisdiction over unincorporated areas of Woodford County, which is within the jurisdiction of the Fiscal Court, or the City of Midway, which is in the jurisdiction of its City Council.
The emergence of data centers in various parts of Kentucky has carried a significant amount of controversy about their operations and their impact on local utilities and services, notably electric and water.
Lexington, Cave City, Ashland and Daviess County (Owensboro) have recently enacted moratoriums, with many more counties considering following suit based on the attendance of community leaders at a joint Kentucky Association of Counties and Kentucky League of Cities seminar held June 10, which Dake attended, according to reporting by the Kentucky Lantern.
Dake passed out a handout only to council members that she had received at the seminar, which she said provided a good explanation of data centers, the risks they posed to communities and why Kentucky is considered a good location to build them.
According to the Data Center Coalition, a trade association of the industry, data centers are “physical locations that organizations use to house their critical applications and data. Anything that takes place online “in the cloud” is powered by a data center.”
They are typically large and are massive users of electric and water resources, creating significant environmental impacts according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, which was founded by a bipartisan group of members of Congress to provide science-based educational resources to policymakers and the public.
Currently, local governments are being forced to react to what appears to be a move towards the construction of data centers in Kentucky. This is in part due to the failure of the Kentucky Legislature to take any action during the 2026 session. Already, a data center was recently approved by the Louisville Planning Commission, with other requests pending in several Kentucky municipalities.
The Legislature, however, is studying the issue and has recently received a report from the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission (EPIC), which it created in 2024. The May 2026 report said utility ratepayer concerns could be accommodated with large-scale data centers and the decision to allow them was essentially a matter for local governments. The report added that data centers could be a part of economic development due to the reasonable cost of land needs, particularly in rural areas, and Kentucky’s low-cost energy.
The issue has become more acute in Woodford County since the announcement of TKC Distilling Inc. to sell the 151 acres it owns on Lexington Road/U.S. 60, which is zoned I-1 (light industrial). Since the city no longer controls the large tract, it can only regulate potential uses via zoning ordinances and other land use laws.
This is the backdrop to the City Council’s action on Tuesday.
The resolution passed by the council prohibits, until December 31, 2026, the acceptance and review of development plans for data centers in any zone within Versailles, including the issuing of any permits, approvals and authorizations to the operation of any data center by the Midway-Versailles-Woodford County Planning Commission.
The resolution, for support of its action, says it is “necessary and appropriate so that the Planning Commission may consider and weigh the risks and benefits in allowing data centers . . . given the recent uptick in demand for same, with the burdens they may impose on local resources, as identified by residents and appointed officials (including their) environmental impact . . .nuisances created by (them), and residential energy costs related to their operation . . . .”
Dake informed the City Council that she had spoken with Planning Director Steve Hunter, and was told he was already working on the issue at the request of Planning Commission Chair Whitney Stepp.
Highbramble Park standardbred horse training center
Dake told the City Council that the owner of Highbramble Park, Versailles Standardbred Group, LLC (VSG), the training center for harness racing and at which the Woodford County Fair plans to hold its harness racing meet in early July, defaulted on the $307,293.36 June lease payment. Highbramble is located on part of the former Edgewood Farm property on Paynes Mill Road.
Dake told the council that the debt reserve account, created at the time bonds funding the lease-purchase were issued by the city as part of the transaction with Highbramble in 2024, will cover the past-due payment.
The city sent a letter informing VSG it was in breach of the terms of the agreement, and had until July 9, 2026, to cure the default by getting current on the payment terms. If the owner remains in breach, Dake told the Sun in a text following the meeting that “. . . This should not affect the (city’s) bond rating (which just recently was heralded to have tied an all-time high). If (the default) is not cured by July 9, (the city) will take next steps. We can’t do anything during the cure period.”
Following the meeting, VSG told the Sun in a statement, “Highbramble is facing a short-term cash flow challenge due to delays in construction. We are actively pursuing several solutions that we believe will allow us to move forward.” The statement went on to say, “The (horse) stalls we have are full and exceed availability, so as we cure the default, we also are working to get five new barns up as soon as possible.”
VSG also confirmed that the Woodford County Fair harness races set for July 3 and 4 are on schedule.
Wallick Development
A developer proposing to build an “affordable housing” project on five acres of land currently owned by developer Trey Schott at 2101 Lexington Road, approximately across the road from the Frontier Nursing University, requested the city to provide a “letter of support” as part of its application to the Federal Home Loan Bank, which it intends to send next week.
Sarah Ford, the vice president of development for Wallick Communities who focuses on Kentucky, provided a PowerPoint presentation on Wallick, its development and financing plans and the type of residents the development targets.
Ford said the development will be called Saddlebred Village, and consist of three three-story apartment buildings and one large community center. There will be a total of 72 units in the project. If the financing process is completed, Ford said construction is likely to begin in October 2027 and be completed by June 2029.
The units will offer two (860 sq. feet) or three (1,160 sq. feet) bedrooms. Though there will be no government subsidies, the additional access to capital from the Kentucky Housing Corporation, which is competitive, means, as Ford told the Sun following the meeting, the “subsidy is built-in. A renter will need to meet income requirements in four income bands of adjusted median income.” As an example, Ford told the council there are four income bands: 50 percent of AMI, or $51,000 a year, up to 80% of AMI, $82,000 a year. To qualify, the renter’s income would need to be no more than $51,000 for a particular unit. . . a 50 percent AMI two-bedroom unit would see rent of $1,148/month and a three- bedroom of $1,264/month. Ford said the rates at this time are only estimates.
In her presentation, Ford said this is one component of addressing affordable housing concerns. Councilmember Gary Jones, who has participated in the discussions on affordable housing in the council, pointed out the estimated rentals “are pretty good for this county.”
Councilmember Chantel Bingham asked several questions about how Wallick defined “affordable housing,” and whether utility costs had been factored in to the “real cost of the apartments,” and also pointed out that Wallick could increase rents over time, to which Ford agreed, but said based on the targeted renters, this was a “workforce, or affordable housing development so we wouldn’t expect rates to increase significantly.”
North declined to disclose the sale price of the five-acre tract with Schott. North did say that there are ongoing discussions to develop the rest of the property owned by Schott by other developers, which will be housing at market rate, as opposed to workforce (or affordable housing) rates and is expected to include some commercial development facing Lexington Road.
After several questions about what needed to be contained in the letter and confirmation from Ford that the city is not obligating itself to approve or agree to anything beyond the proposed letter and the City Council retains all ability and power to take any action it feels is warranted on the proposed development as it proceeds through the Planning Commission and the City of Versailles land use processes. The City Council approved the request 4-2 (given it was a voice vote, the “nays” could not be definitively determined).
Dake will prepare a letter stating the city supports the request of Wallick in its request for approval of this stage of the process of an affordable housing development by Wallick, which requires acceptance by the Federal Home Loan Bank.
Juneteenth celebration
Councilmember Chantel Bingham reminded everyone that the annual Juneteenth Celebration will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Entertainment District on Friday, June 19. There will be kids’ activities with prizes and giveaways and live music, as well as 45 vendors and eight food trucks. Bingham warned that attendance last year was 3,300, so folks needed to arrive early to find parking.
Contracts
The council approved the following contracts: $345,479 to Weiser Industrial Coatings, Inc., for repairs and an interior coating system to the “horse mural” water tower off Huntertown Road; a price of $128.53 per ton for road salt from Morton Salt, Inc.; and $21,175 to Buchanan Contracting for groundwater surfacing at the intersection of the U.S. 60 Bypass and Lexington Road.