FORT PIERCE – The Fort Pierce Planning Board briefly paused its meeting Thursday because the size of the crowd there to hear about a property rezoning request for a proposed West Midway Road data center violated fire regulations.
And before the meeting reconvened, an attorney representing the rezoning applicant immediately requested the item be tabled until a future, unspecified date.
More than 200 people jammed the city commission chamber Wednesday afternoon for the hot-button request to rezone more than 200 acres at 10050 Midway Road and I-95.
Officials said the parcel currently is zoned for mixed use, which is not a qualifying designation.
Willow Lakes Development, of Miami, has proposed rezoning 174 acres to Light Industrial, and the remaining 26 acres fronting Midway Road to General Commercial that could accommodate a hotel, restaurants and retail.
Fort Pierce land use and zoning attorney Lee Dobbins, representing the applicant, asked for the matter to be tabled to an unspecified future date.
At that point, the room cleared out significantly before public comment was allowed later in the agenda.
Kevin Freeman, city planning director, said Fort Pierce currently has no zoning classification that specifically addresses data centers. But a memo to planning board members said that it could fit in light industrial.
Freeman said that after speaking to the applicant this week, “It’s difficult to figure out how we should process this.” According to Freeman, the developer has not yet submitted detailed site plans to the city.
He predicted a zoning decision, that starts with a recommendation from the planning board to the city commission, will take time,
“It may be some time away because we will need information to know what (zoning) category this should be in,” Freeman said. “This is a difficult place to be without full data analysis. Now we will have time.”
Prior to the tabling, several Planning Board members said they were not prepared to take any action now without additional information.
City staff explained that the closest existing zoning category would be light industrial which allows “uses with limited objectionable external effects in areas that are suitable for such operations due to the desirability of site characteristics, adequacy of utilities, appropriateness of transportation facilities and other factors.”
A data center is defined by Florida law as “a facility that primarily contains electronic equipment used to process, store, and transmit digital information.” They are huge, secured, warehouse-style buildings containing equipment to support artificial intelligence data processing. They require substantial electricity for processing and water to cool the heat generated by the machines.
Data centers have drawn particular public ire nationwide from residents concerned by the noise they generate, the high demand for water and electricity that sometimes have caused rate increases for all utility users and their proximity to residences and schools.
Data centers can provide significant tax revenue to local government.
It remains unclear when the issue will come back to the planning board.
Attorney Dobbins did not immediately respond to questions from Hometown News