TALLAHASSEE, Florida \u2014 Florida\u2019s pro-business aura and the AI-driven data center boom across the South seem like a perfect match on paper. The only problem: Communities statewide are not on board.<\/p>\n
At least 20 Sunshine State counties and municipalities have passed or discussed a temporary \u2014 and, in some cases, permanent \u2014 moratorium on data centers. In many others, residents have packed local commission meetings armed with T-shirts, signs and petitions urging elected officials to restrict data center projects.<\/p>\n
And the staunch opposition from local residents, alongside similar animosity from top state officials like GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, has the data center industry rethinking its interest in Florida \u2014 and scuttling some large-scale projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s concerned about their quality of life, and nobody wants to lose it for a data center next door,\u201d said Margaret Kirkland, the chair of Conserve Nassau, a local conservation group in the Northeastern corner of Florida.<\/p>\n
Many residents in Nassau County, which has a population of just more than 100,000 people, have either lived there for generations or moved to the area seeking a rural refuge. When energy generation company NextNRG announced in September<\/a> it had secured a 1,600-acre lease in the county with 400 acres \u201cideally positioned\u201d for a hyperscale data center, residents flooded social media and county commission meetings.<\/p>\n By April, NextNRG CEO Michael Farkas said he wanted to build a solar farm<\/a> rather than a data center. This month, the county commission passed a data center moratorium<\/a> lasting up to a year to allow for a \u201ccomprehensive evaluation\u201d of potential data center impacts.<\/p>\n NextNRG had reached out to data center developers about the site, Farkas said, but pumped the brakes after seeing the backlash. The company would be willing to revisit a data center in Nassau County in the future, he added, but won\u2019t fight the community.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of what\u2019s going on legislatively and locally, were going to focus on areas that are just a little bit more open-minded in regards to those types of facilities,\u201d he said, but declined to say whether those sites are in Florida.<\/p>\n Florida communities opposed to large-scale data centers have a powerful ally in DeSantis, who championed a new state law<\/a> this year regulating data centers that use a lot of electricity and water. While DeSantis\u2019 time in office comes to an end in January, his critiques and the Legislature\u2019s actions have \u201cput Florida in question\u201d for data center developers, said Dan Diorio, vice president for state policy with the Data Center Coalition.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to have to be a lot of a shift, I think, in the state for data centers to really be looking at it for large-scale development,\u201d he said. \u201cI think he sent a very clear signal.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the new law, local governments maintain the authority to regulate land development as it relates to data centers, though some local leaders have said they\u2019re unsure<\/a> whether the legislation conflicts with an existing development law passed the year before.<\/p>\n Despite the legal uncertainties, local governments are moving fast to pass moratoriums even in counties that have not yet seen interest from data center developers. Many are fielding rallying cries from residents who hope to ban data centers permanently.<\/p>\n Cheryl Curtiss, a retired teacher and counselor, helped form the grassroots organization \u201cNo Data Centers Citrus County\u201d after a company called the Deltona Corporation applied for rezoning that would pave the way for a large data center. Residents were worried the data center would guzzle water, pollute nearby wetlands and generate constant noise \u2014 worries mirrored nationwide.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one will want to buy our homes if we want to move,\u201d Curtiss said. \u201cIf there\u2019s bad health effects, we\u2019re kind of stuck there.\u201d<\/p>\n Citrus County enacted a one-year moratorium on data centers in May, though Curtiss said locals are hoping for a permanent ban. And on Tuesday, the Deltona Corporation pulled its applications, to the excitement of residents.<\/p>\n A few hours south, residents in the former phosphate mining town of Fort Meade are putting political pressure on city leaders to follow with their own ban. Fort Meade, which has a population of about 5,000, stands to become neighbors with a potential 4.4 million square-foot data center development from the company Stonebridge after the city approved a development agreement in April.<\/p>\n Despite locals\u2019 vocal opposition, the city is moving forward with the proposal, said Raul Alfonso, a resident who helped form the grassroots group Watchdogs of Fort Meade. Residents, including Alfonso, filed a lawsuit over the city\u2019s approval of the data center, and have launched a recall petition against some city officials.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if we stop the data center, we still have a problem in our city that allows something like this to come in,\u201d Alfonso said. \u201cThey\u2019ve totally ignored us. They\u2019ve blown us off.\u201d<\/p>\n DeSantis\u2019 administration has also jumped into the local data center battle. Earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Alex Kelly sent a letter to the city\u2019s mayor<\/a> and called the planning for the Stonebridge data center \u201cfundamentally flawed.\u201d<\/p>\n Fort Meade Mayor Jaret Landon Williams did not respond to a request for an interview.<\/p>\n Rather than sacking data center plans entirely, some developers are seeking a compromise with residents.<\/p>\n Developer PBA Holdings Inc., which is seeking to build a 600 megawatt data center in western Palm Beach County, has reduced the square footage of the project, moved it further away from residents and redesigned the cooling system, according to project manager Ernie Cox.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve got to do is understand the concerns,\u201d Cox said. \u201cAnd we believe we\u2019ve addressed all of the concerns, other than the folks that just don\u2019t want the project to go forward. We look at this project as critical infrastructure for Palm Beach County.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the data center would still be just 2,000 feet away from some homes in the community of Arden and a nearby school \u2014 much too close for residents like Santiago Lattanzio. Locals moved to Arden to be near nature and away from noise and light pollution, he said, heightening frustration over the many details of Project Tango that fall under a nondisclosure agreement.<\/p>\n Residents are now asking the commission not only to temporarily pause data center developments, but to update zoning rules to match the AI boom.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are now pushing all of these hyperscale data centers into communities, and utilizing laws that haven\u2019t changed since the early 2000s to dictate the impacts or the effects on these communities,\u201d Lattanzio said.<\/p>\n As more localities pursue data center moratoriums, the data center industry is watching options for development dwindle. Most moratoriums being considered are temporary, but Diorio with the Data Center Coalition said they could pose long-term consequences if data center developers choose to pursue projects in other states.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it has a permanent effect in that you\u2019ll likely see data centers pass over that market from now and into the future, because it\u2019s just not going to have a lot of certainty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The industry will also likely be watching Florida\u2019s current race for governor. Rep. Byron Donalds<\/a>, the GOP frontrunner, has previously said that the state should lead on data center development<\/a>. Donalds\u2019 opponents have bashed his stance, promising stricter regulations and moratoriums.<\/p>\n Diorio declined to comment on Donalds\u2019 campaign directly, but said that \u201cthose kinds of statements matter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully that will send a signal about priorities moving forward and opening up Florida as a significant market for data center development,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Florida \u2014 Florida\u2019s pro-business aura and the AI-driven data center boom across the South seem like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[41975,28,30,29,829,133704,3898,1999,412,232],"class_list":["post-322707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-data-center","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-local-governments","tag-michael-farkas","tag-nassau-county","tag-residents","tag-ron-desantis","tag-tallahassee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}