INDIANTOWN \u2013 A pair of Village Council members failed to gain momentum on a second stab at convincing their colleagues and staff that a pause on data center applications would not put the municipality at odds with the Florida Legislature\u2019s recent bills aimed at controlling such developments and limiting more restrictive land uses.<\/p>\n
The Council previously sought the advice of Village Attorney Wade Vose last month on a moratorium after scores of local residents had protested the Village\u2019s preliminary review of a data center application submitted earlier this year by Nelson Ferreira, which he actually withdrew on April 29. Indiantown civic activist Melissa Hague had spurred its members on during the June 11 Council meeting, citing examples of a few other Florida communities either implementing or proposing data center moratoriums. Wade shot that idea down, however, insisting such a move would put the municipality in direct violation of Senate Bills 180 and 484 and leave it open to potential lawsuits by property owners and developers. Hague repeated her request during the July 13 budget workshop.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m coming back asking for an administrative pause on data centers,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s already been admitted on media that we don\u2019t know what we\u2019re dealing with. If we don\u2019t know, not having an administrative pause to go through the motions of finding out and looking at land development regulations is negligent. I know there\u2019s pressure behind the scenes not to have that happen, but the people want it to happen, and that\u2019s who you represent.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, Councilwoman Karen Onsager \u2013 who\u2019d supported Hague\u2019s request the previous month \u2013 again broached the topic, this time couching it in the milder terminology of a \u201cpause.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve asked for an informative community meeting,\u201d she said. \u201cIn light of that meeting, I move that the Village of Indiantown establish a 90-day administrative pause on the acceptance, processing and approval of all new applications for large-load data center development projects. During the 90-day period, I request the Village staff proceed with the informational meeting I requested, including technical experts, representatives from the South Florida Water Management District, utility providers and relevant staff so that the Council and our residents can better understand the current and projected demands on our water and electrical infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Onsager emphasized more than once that her proposed pause was intended to provide the Council additional time to gather facts, evaluate data and consider potential solutions to community concerns while putting off any potential Board decisions on such applications until after the current election cycle.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be clear, I am not proposing any amendments to our land development regulations nor am I seeking to impose additional restrictions or requirements on the application process at this time,\u201d she added in a nod to the aforementioned legislation. \u201cI am simply requesting sufficient time for the Council to conduct due-diligence and make informed decisions regarding future industrial development applications based on a thorough understanding of the facts and the infrastructure implications.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than offering a second to Onsager\u2019s motion, however, Councilwoman Vernestine Palmer wanted to negotiate the length of that pause with her colleague.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the administrative pause should be more than 90 days,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we should have at least a 12-to-18-month administrative pause so we can get all the information concerning it. No one is saying we\u2019re against it or for it; we just want to know what\u2019s going on so we can make an informed decision and [ensure] the LDRs have some safeguards in it for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
That failed to sway Onsager, who knew her motion was already going against Vose\u2019s prior legal advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked for a 90-day pause because a 90-day pause does give us time to collect information, have the meeting, get some important data and not necessarily bring down problems for our community,\u201d she explained. \u201cWe can\u2019t afford to be sued for doing things wrong \u201312 to 18 months is restrictive. We\u2019re also in the middle of an election. I think that we should vote for a stop until we can get whoever\u2019s here seated and they can get familiar with the actual facts and then make that choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her part, Councilwoman Angelina Perez, looked to Vose for advice rather than make any comments. The latter admitted nothing had changed for him since June.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my legal opinion that such an administrative pause \u2013 whether it\u2019s 90 days or 12 months \u2013 would be a violation of Senate Bill 180, which we discussed at length previously,\u201d he said. \u201cMy legal opinion remains the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vose acknowledged receiving an email from a local land use attorney that same afternoon with an ominous warning.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe does represent multiple developers within the Village,\u201d he explained. \u201cHe emailed me precisely about this matter and advised me that SB 180 would prohibit anything along the lines of a regulation that would inhibit the process of applications for development.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Village Manager Taryn Kryzda confirmed the industrially zoned lands within the Village allowed data centers as a permitted use, Mayor Carmine Dipaolo warned his colleagues about another risk in offending state officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, what we\u2019re saying to the Legislature is we don\u2019t care about your house bill \u2013 the same Legislature that\u2019s given us over $120 million \u2013 and we\u2019re asking for more,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the residents had to pay the $120 million that we\u2019ve received, it\u2019d be 100 years before they had clean water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kryzda concurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy experience is, when local government goes against the state or the federal government, the first thing they look to do is withhold funding,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After further Board discussion, Mayor Dipaolo called for a second to Onsager\u2019s motion, which was not forthcoming. After her motion died, Councilwoman Onsager confirmed with Kryzda that her desired community meeting would be scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANTOWN \u2013 A pair of Village Council members failed to gain momentum on a second stab at convincing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[326,171,173,172],"class_list":["post-353663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-martin","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353663","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=353663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}