Samantha MoilanenA week after more than 100 people packed a Juab County Commission meeting to oppose a $10 billion-dollar data center campus planned near Mona, a group of residents living closest to the site are now challenging the project.
The group, Mona Cares: Neighbors for Responsible Development, led by landowner Taylor Flake, filed an appeal Tuesday. In it, they ask county leaders to reconsider the project’s conditional use permit.
The permit was approved by the county’s planning commission in April following a public hearing that lasted four minutes. No one spoke against the project.
The planning commission issued a notice about the meeting two weeks prior. But neighbors argue that notice went “under the radar,” and notes from the meeting, which could have shed more light on what happened, weren’t publicly shared until late August, Flake said.
The project is planned for 361 acres of farmland directly across from Flake’s ranch off Goshen Canyon Road. Flake said he was “totally in the dark” until a representative from a gas company came to his home last month seeking permission to run a pipeline through his land to power the campus. He’s been playing catch-up since.
The appeal asks the county to overturn the permit decision and start the approval process over, this time with “adequate and actual notice” for residents.
It also asks the county to use a process that preserves residents’ right to seek a referendum on the plan and to stop any project work while the appeal is pending.
When reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, the Juab County clerk’s office said the county attorney advised officials not to comment at this time.
The appeal, Flake said, is an effort to give residents a meaningful chance to weigh in.
“The citizens of Mona and our family have a right to be heard before decisions are made that will change our lives forever,” Flake wrote in a statement on behalf of the group of neighbors.
“The fact that this $10 billion-dollar data center was approved without anyone in the community being informed or involved,” Flake continued, “is a travesty that must be reversed.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The entrance to Taylor Flake's Far Away Ranch near Mona on Sept. 8, 2026.
The proposed Nebo North LLC data center campus could include up to 10 data center buildings, each about 300,000 square feet, according to the conditional use permit application first submitted in February.
Together, that’s about 3 million square feet — roughly the size of 20 typical Costco stores.
The campus would sit on privately owned farmland zoned for agricultural use, according to the permit application.
In the appeal, however, residents argue the campus shouldn’t be allowed under the property’s agricultural zoning and that the county improperly used the conditional-use process to “shoehorn” it into an agricultural zone.
They also argue the project would permanently alter the area’s “pastoral character,” which, along with the agricultural zoning that residents relied on to protect the area from major development, was a primary reason Flake and other neighbors say they chose to build their homes there.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Julia Flake holds a sign during a Sept. 8 rally opposing the proposed data center campus near Mona.
The appeal adds that construction would bring more traffic, dust and debris to Goshen Canyon Road. And once the campus is operating, residents say it could generate noise, light, heat and air pollution.
Last week, County Commissioner Clinton Painter said the county followed state law “to the letter” when it processed the conditional use permit and notified the public about the planning commission’s April meeting.
County commissioners also indicated at last week’s packed commission meeting that they weren’t sure whether they had the authority to reverse the planning commission’s April decision.
