The movement took off in Oakland last month following news<\/a> that a developer, Behring Companies, plans to transform a building at 415 20th St. into a 20,000-square-foot \u201cspecialized data center to serve artificial intelligence companies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla and Jeff Bezos\u2019s AI startup Prometheus are also reportedly leasing big industrial warehouse spaces in West Oakland for AI-related projects.<\/p>\n At the center of the anti-data center organizing in Oakland is the Party for Socialism and Liberation<\/a>, a national socialist organization with chapters in many other states. The group has tapped into popular discontent by organizing a series of community events, meetings, and a signature gathering campaign urging the Oakland City Council to impose a temporary moratorium on data centers \u2014 and eventually an outright ban.<\/p>\n The group is mobilizing members of the public to attend the City Council\u2019s September 15 meeting<\/a> to register opposition to the proposed downtown data center. They want the City Council to direct the city administrator, planning department, and city attorney to prepare an emergency moratorium and a permanent amendment to Title 17\u2014 the Oakland Planning Code<\/a> that regulates land use and zoning.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Behring Companies did not respond to an interview request for this story. But the company\u2019s CEO, Colin Behring, has previously said<\/a> that the building he\u2019s offering as a data center development opportunity used to house a Department of Energy supercomputer; therefore, his plan wouldn\u2019t be much of a change.<\/p>\n Behring has said<\/a> the data center would be only a small part of a 1.3 million square-foot \u201cinnovation campus\u201d his company is planning around the site. \u201cIt is one of the four properties, alongside 1950 Franklin where teams can work, 1900 Broadway where they can live, and 1901 Franklin where they can park,\u201d a Behring Companies website explains.<\/p>\n According to the company, \u201cthe future use, tenants, building systems, cooling, and mechanical design for 415 20th Street have not been finalized, approved, or submitted for approval.\u201d<\/p>\n Behring and others say projects like this could be a boon for Oakland, where the local economy has struggled to recover since the pandemic. Oakland has been passed over by previous waves of tech-industry expansion. This time, the city should seek more investment, proponents argue.<\/p>\n Others see the tech industry\u2019s current AI expansion as a threat to affordability.<\/p>\n \u201cOur enemy is not city council, but the real estate developers who are trying to basically jack up prices in the city and to get rich off of this industry, and that comes at the expense of working people in Oakland,\u201d said Eisa Al-Shamma, another volunteer with No Data Center in Oakland.<\/p>\n The Oaklandside asked each member of the City Council and Mayor Barbara Lee about their current position on the downtown data center. Only at-Large Councilmember Rowena Brown responded. Brown, who last year introduced legislation to create AI \u201cactivation zones\u201d<\/a> in downtown Oakland to \u201cfoster equitable, community-based innovation and create hubs for community-based AI programming,\u201d said her legislation did not approve, regulate, or incentivize individual data centers or private lease agreements.<\/p>\n \u201cThe zones were created for a different purpose: to ensure that as artificial intelligence reshapes our economy, Oakland residents, students, workers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses have meaningful opportunities to participate in and benefit from that transformation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Councilmember Carroll Fife, who represents District 3, including the Behring Companies\u2019 properties, appeared with Colin Behring at his press conference weeks ago, saying she didn\u2019t have a lot of information about the project and wanted to know more.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, Fife introduced legislation that would impose a 45-day moratorium on approvals for data centers<\/a> in order to give the city time to address the \u201ccomprehensive data center policies and regulations tailored to address the unique operational, environmental, infrastructure, and public safety impacts associated with such uses.\u201d<\/p>\n Data center opponents are gearing up to make their case to city leaders<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the No Data Center in Oakland activists held a press conference at the Black Panther Party Museum on Broadway. Addressing a group of around 50 volunteers and a handful of reporters, Aditi Varshneya, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said the movement is about more than one data center in Oakland.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tech billionaires and real estate developers, they are testing the waters here in Oakland. And this fight ultimately is about who has the right to determine the future of our city,\u201d Varshneya said. \u201cThe people who live and work and raise families here, or tech and real estate billionaires?\u201d<\/p>\n Varshneya claimed that over 7,000 people have signed No Data Center in Oakland\u2019s petition.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another member of the coalition, Mullissa Willette, the president of SEIU Local 521<\/a>, a union that represents thousands of child care workers in Northern California, said major economic changes like the data center and AI booms \u201ctoo often failed to benefit everyone equally.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a pattern. Projects like this get proposed without real consent from the people who live next to them,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Shiny](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/large-IMG_4755.jpg\")
The owner of 415 20th St. in downtown Oakland is looking for a data center to move into what he\u2019s calling an \u201cinnovation campus.\u201d Credit: Darwin BondGraham\/The Oaklandside<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/PSL_DataCenter_DT-Oakland-12.jpg\")
Xavier Buck, executive director of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, speaks at a No Data Center in Oakland a press conference on Sept. 8, 2026. Credit: Richard H. Grant for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/PSL_DataCenter_DT-Oakland-19.jpg\")
Organizers put up flyers critical of a proposed Oakland data center on Sept. 8, 2026 in downtown Oakland. Credit: Richard H. Grant for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n