"They are suing our county," Franklin resident Denita Brady said after a February zoning meeting was tabled for the second time. "I work in human resources. If somebody brings a lawsuit, you back out and let the lawyers talk to them. You don't talk to them."
She was talking about TenKey LandCo, a developer that bought 529 acres on Steele Road in Simpson County in May 2025 for close to $22 million, then proposed three 200,000-square-foot data storage facilities with their own on-site natural gas power plant. What she couldn't have known that night is that the legal ground under the whole fight had already shifted months earlier, in a bill nobody in Frankfort thought was controversial.
If you're weighing land or acreage near Franklin's I-65 corridor, the TenKey dispute matters less for what it says about data centers and more for what it reveals about how little say a neighboring landowner now has when the parcel next door gets rezoned.
The Bill Nobody Fought Over
House Bill 321 started its life in the 2025 Kentucky legislative session as a routine measure adding training requirements for local planning officials. According to reporting from Kentucky Lantern, language was inserted late in the session, during one of the final concurrence days before the veto period, that limited who could sue over a local zoning decision. The bill passed both chambers without a single recorded objection and was signed into law by Gov. Andy Beshear.
Before HB 321, Kentucky law let anyone "injured or aggrieved" by a zoning board's decision take that grievance to circuit court. After HB 321, that right narrowed to property owners who hold land in the same zone classification as the property under dispute. A homeowner in a residential zone whose neighbor's property gets rezoned to commercial or industrial no longer has standing to challenge that decision in court, even if the rezoning sits on the fence line of their own backyard.
| Before HB 321 (through 2024) | After HB 321 (2025 onward) |
|---|---|
| Anyone injured or aggrieved by a zoning decision could sue | Only owners of property in the same zone classification as the disputed parcel can sue |
| A residential neighbor could challenge a rezoning next door | A residential neighbor next to a rezoned commercial or industrial parcel has no standing |
| A farmer on agricultural land could contest an adjacent industrial rezoning | That same farmer would be barred from statutory judicial review |
More than a year passed before anyone tested what that language actually meant in practice. Franklin is where the test is happening.
Why the Data Center Became the First Case
In March 2026, the Franklin Planning and Zoning Commission approved a preliminary development plan for TenKey's project. A group calling itself Franklin Citizens for Responsible Development sued the commission and TenKey the following month, arguing the approval was improper. TenKey's attorneys responded in a May filing that the citizens group didn't own property in the same zone as the proposed data center and therefore lacked standing to sue under the newly amended law.
Attorney Tom FitzGerald, a longtime Kentucky environmental lawyer now with the Kentucky Resources Council, represents the citizens group and has argued the standing restriction is unconstitutional. He wrote that under HB 321, "neighborhood associations, renters, homeowners living near properties whose zoning has been changed to commercial or industrial, groups concerned with demolition of historic properties or impacts on public parks, and others injured or aggrieved, would be barred from the statutory right to judicial review."
Simpson County Circuit Court Judge Mark Thurmond heard arguments on the motion to dismiss on August 24. He indicated he had a sense of where he was headed but wanted to look more carefully at some of the issues before ruling, and scheduled another hearing for October.
That hearing hasn't happened yet as of this writing. Whatever Thurmond decides will be the first real answer to a question every landowner near a growth corridor should be asking: if the parcel next to mine gets rezoned, do I get a say?
Why This Lands Harder in a County Like Simpson
The reason Franklin is the proving ground rather than, say, a built-out suburb closer to Nashville comes down to timing. According to WKU Public Radio's October 2025 reporting, TenKey's site sits inside a roughly 1,100-acre tract called Gateway 65, an industrial park owned by real estate firm OTN Group that is already zoned for uses like a data center. That zoning existed before most of the current opposition ever organized. By the time residents showed up to object, the zone classification that would eventually determine who could sue over the project was already locked in.
That's the pattern to watch for in any fast-growing exurban county. Land near an interstate exit gets annexed and zoned industrial or commercial years before the first shovel goes in the ground, often while the surrounding parcels are still farmland or quiet residential lots. Under the old standing rule, a neighbor could wait and object once an actual project showed up. Under HB 321, the zone classification is what matters, and that classification can be set long before anyone builds anything.
Simpson County Judge-Executive Mason Barnes raised a related concern about the project itself, telling WKU Public Radio that the natural gas turbines proposed to power the facility would run at roughly the decibel level of a passenger jet engine, multiplied across more than a dozen units. Franklin City Commissioner Kelly Bush was blunter at an October 2025 hearing, telling TenKey's attorney directly, "I wish you all the best, just not in Simpson County." Those are legitimate quality-of-life concerns. What HB 321 does is narrow who gets to turn those concerns into a legal challenge.
What to Ask Before You Buy Near a Growth Corridor
None of this means land near Franklin's I-65 exits is a bad buy. It means the due diligence looks different than it did two years ago. A few questions worth asking before you close on acreage or a homesite near any growth corridor in Simpson County or comparable areas:
- What is the current zone classification of the parcel you're buying, not just its current use?
- What is the zone classification of the parcels immediately adjacent to it, and has any of that land already been annexed or rezoned in anticipation of future development?
- Has the county or city comprehensive plan flagged the surrounding area as a growth priority zone? Franklin's own Future Land Use Plan allocates nearly 5,000 acres outside current city limits as peripheral growth locations, which is public information worth reviewing before you commit to a parcel nearby.
- If a neighboring property were rezoned after you bought, would your parcel's own zone classification give you standing to challenge it, or would you be relying on informal channels like a planning commission comment period?
None of these questions require a lawyer to ask upfront. They do require pulling the zoning map for the parcel and its neighbors, which any title company or local planning office can provide before you're under contract.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Directly
Does HB 321 only affect industrial projects like data centers? No. The standing restriction applies to any zoning decision under Kentucky's planning and zoning statute, KRS Chapter 100. FitzGerald's analysis specifically names residential-to-commercial rezonings and disputes over historic preservation or park impacts as situations where the same barrier would apply.
Is this specific to Simpson County, or does it apply statewide? HB 321 is a state law and applies wherever a Kentucky county or city has adopted planning and zoning authority. Simpson County is simply where the first major test case is playing out.
What happens after the October hearing? Judge Thurmond will rule on whether the citizens group has standing to bring its case at all. If he rules against the group, the underlying dispute over whether the Planning and Zoning Commission properly approved TenKey's plan may never get a full hearing on the merits. If he rules for them, it will be one of the first indications that Kentucky courts are willing to test the constitutionality of the standing restriction itself.
Land and acreage decisions in growing corridors always involve some unknowns. Understanding how zoning standing works before you buy, rather than after a project shows up next door, is the kind of homework that pays off years later. If you're comparing Franklin, KY against other parts of the market, or you want help pulling the zoning history on a specific parcel before you make an offer, the team at Jetton Real Estate has spent years working these corridors on both sides of the state line. Contact us and we'll walk through it with you.
