Citizens getting wise to hyperscale data centers and Florida
At a Tuesday evening meeting at the Frances T. Bourne Jacaranda Library in Venice the two meeting rooms are packed. There is hardly a space in the parking lot. The first room is filled with people concerned about the Live Local Act and its effect on local environmental policies and the fate of a development near Celery Fields Park. The group meeting is called the Council of Neighborhood Associations, and it is addressing the fact that Live Local will bypass local planning prerogatives across the state.
In a larger room, Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit news consortium, has come together with the Tampa Bay Times to offer an educational forum on the issue of Florida’s response to hyperscale data centers. The gathering, with around 150 attendees, discussed the effect of Senate Bill 484, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law to establish new rules governing large-scale data centers, including their relationship to local land-use authority, utilities and water resources. The discussion included a possible 1,300-acre data center complex in DeSoto County and a second proposed facility in North Port.
The panel included Alice Herman and Christian Casale of Suncoast Searchlight, Emily Mahoney of the Tampa Bay Times and Jason Garcia of real estate news site Seeking Rents.
The issues with data centers are well known, but they bear repeating, including water usage, noise and the hundreds of acres needed for them. The state has been encouraging these centers, which were first seen a decade ago as “clean” economic development, with little impact. It was only later that the public learned more about their water needs, noise and the vast amounts of land they can require.
In the past, Florida has not been seen as an easy location for the centers because of hurricanes and the water situation, but that has changed due to the difficulty of building in other states and the availability of relatively cheaper land in central Florida.
In addition, there are places like DeSoto County where there is large, open land and existing power infrastructure that developers believe might work very well for the new layout of these facilities. A current proposal is centered on a decommissioned power plant site near Arcadia, and the developers say the project could eventually expand significantly beyond the initial site.
The panelists were all appreciative of what DeSantis did to allow governments to look into these facilities through SB 484. But the proposal that passed was not the original one. In the initial draft, there were items that were stripped out, including the ability to prevent data centers from being built on raw agricultural land. Also stripped out was a prohibition on secret information.
There were two politicians at the meeting, including North Port City Commissioner Phil Stokes. He is supporting a retroactive moratorium, which would prevent any centers from locating there. He expects the city to encounter legal challenges.
Also at the meeting was Sarasota County Commissioner Joe Neunder, who pushed a 12-month moratorium. “Our board did take a stand,” Neunder said. Neunder is a former Venice councilman.
Some other observations on the centers:
State Policy: While the public is just beginning to understand the issue, the state has encouraged these data centers for years. Tax breaks and other incentives for data-center development have been part of Florida’s economic-development strategy. And unlike local government, which is covered by Florida’s public-meetings law, the state is not subject to exactly the same requirements in every circumstance. “They are completely untethered unless they know people are watching,” Jason Garcia said.
Get to Meetings: Facebook comments do little to move politicians. But with these data centers, because of the outcry, county and city commissioners have acted against them because citizens have packed and attended meetings. Commissioners do change their minds when confronted by citizen after citizen speaking in person.
A Water Backstop: The public meetings of Florida’s regional water management districts are key to the approval process and represent an important regulatory hurdle. Water-management districts have authority over consumptive-use permits, and SB 484 places additional restrictions on water permits for large-scale data centers. Everything they do is public and must be approved at an open meeting. In addition, their records are public.
Public Records: DeSoto County has been open with providing documents about the project, which has helped the public understand what is happening. Alice Herman, the investigative reporter who broke the story, said that the county should be commended for that access to public documents. Initially, it was thought that the project would be much smaller.
Garland Pollard is editor of the Beacon. Email editor@bocabeacon.com
