St. Louis County shelves Ordinance 62 changes after crowd backlash

Hundreds of residents crowded into the Loon Lake Community Center gym in White Township, and St. Louis County leaders backed away from pushing Ordinance 62 changes through on the spot. The county board voted 6-1 on April 14 to send the rewrite back to the Planning Commission, with Commissioner Keith Nelson casting the lone no vote.

The backlash centered on proposed language that residents said could alter what is allowed on rural property, especially rules involving storage of six or more inoperable vehicles and how data centers would be classified. County officials said the overhaul was meant to make the ordinance clearer, more consistent with other rules and less burdened by unnecessary administrative requirements, but opponents arrived with petitions they said carried more than 2,600 signatures.

That fight matters because Ordinance 62 is the county’s basic land-use code for unincorporated areas outside city limits. It governs development where township residents often depend on county rules to protect shoreline, farmland and property values while limiting uses that can change a rural area’s character. The county’s own materials say the ordinance is meant to protect and enhance lakes, rivers, forests, wetlands, natural land forms and open spaces while also regulating setbacks, lot sizes and compatible land use.

The proposal was not a narrow cleanup. County notices showed the package included general grammar edits, added definitions, planning structure language, lot-of-record language, airport zoning language, streamlined extractive-use language, resource-exploration language and other zoning text changes. Two areas drew especially sharp scrutiny in the county’s hearing summary: the inoperable-vehicle standard and the data center classification.

Ordinance 62 was first adopted in 2015 and has been amended repeatedly, in 2016, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2025. The Planning Commission began formal review at a Dec. 18, 2025 workshop, opened a 45-day public comment period and held a public hearing on Feb. 5. Public notice for the board hearing went out March 12, with the county board taking up the matter at 10 a.m. on April 14.

By sending the ordinance back, the board bought time for another round of public review and redrafting. For landowners, developers and rural residents in St. Louis County, the delay means the debate over where high-impact uses can go, and how tightly the county can write those rules, is far from settled.