STUART \u2013 The Martin County Commission voted 4-0 Oct. 27 to approve a one-year moratorium on the acceptance of any development applications related to data centers in response to a public outcry against such facilities that has gripped the State of Florida and the rest of the nation in recent months.<\/p>\n
Commissioners had initially approved the moratorium on first reading two weeks prior after a handful of residents urged the Board to do so. This time more than two dozen members of the public asked them to take the final step, whose comments were urged on by applause, whistles and cheers from the packed Commission Chambers. Some speakers like Susan Stevenson asked their elected representatives to make the moratorium retroactive due to a data center application submitted the same day as the first reading for the South Florida Gateway Industrial Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am here to speak in support of the moratorium regarding data centers and to advocate that it be applied retroactively to anything that\u2019s in the pipeline,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m an engineer for a large, industrial gas company, and through that experience, I learned that the best projects solve problems. This data center is not solving a problem \u2013 there isn\u2019t a demand for data centers \u2013 it\u2019s being pushed. We don\u2019t know where it\u2019s going to go yet and by passing a moratorium, we\u2019re allowing the public to understand what the data center impact will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the speakers living closest to that industrial park, Ray Grogan, also lobbied for the moratorium.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom this room to the stop light at Ocean Boulevard is 500 feet,\u201d he said. \u201cThis data center will be built 800 feet from my front door \u2013 that\u2019s not acceptable. There are roughly 500 homes within about a mile and a half of this data center. That\u2019s a two-lane road \u2013 where\u2019s all this construction [traffic] going to go? Who\u2019s going to direct traffic? The company that filed for this is 112 days old out of North Carolina. You want this built in North Carolina \u2013 don\u2019t build it here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commission Chairwoman Sarah Heard then announced she would move the item forward on the agenda to handle it first thing, and County Attorney Elysse Elder reintroduced the item after a short recess.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the second public hearing,\u201d she said. \u201cWe went through the ordinance at the Oct. 13 Board meeting, but I will briefly go through it again. The first five pages are the legislative findings to support why we\u2019re implementing this moratorium, based on recent changes in Florida law, specifically Senate Bill 484. It also talks about the interplay with Senate Bill 180 and that our regulations are insufficient to plan for these large-scale data centers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elder proceeded to detail the different sections of the moratorium ordinance. While Section C establishes the interim planning period and a suspension of the acceptance of data center applications, Section D formally limits the moratorium to 365 calendar days from the date of passage by a majority Commission vote. Section E establishes the various types of issues staff will investigate during that period in order to craft any needed regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are 26 different areas listed,\u201d she continued. \u201cThis is not inclusive \u2013 I\u2019m sure there are other areas not listed \u2013 but the 26 items support the fact that we need a year to do this. The ordinance provides that staff will come back to the Board periodically over the year to give updates and [get] feedback on the progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Section 4 of the ordinance highlights how the moratorium will comply with state statutes. Since Martin County saw tornado damages due to Hurricane Milton, those specific properties would be exempt from the moratorium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s applicable only in the unincorporated areas, which does not include our municipalities,\u201d Elder concluded. \u201cIt also is not applicable to applications submitted and deemed sufficient prior to the effective date of the ordinance, which would likely be today if the Board adopts it. Finally, it\u2019s not applicable to properties damaged by Hurricanes Debbie, Helene and Milton [and] protected by Senate Bill 180.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chairwoman Heard immediately questioned Elder about the data center application slipping through the cracks.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you please tell us the size of the proposal, if it\u2019s a major or a minor [site plan] and who will make decisions on this?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have limited information,\u201d the county attorney admitted. \u201cThe location is in a platted industrial park, and under our code, this data center would be exempt from coming to the Board because it is a targeted business in our comprehensive plan and our land development regulations. Under our LDRs in Article 10, any size development in a platted industrial park is administratively approved. That\u2019s been the rule for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deputy Growth Management Director Peter Walden provided more details.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did get an application in on Oct. 13,\u201d he said. \u201cStaff hasn\u2019t had a chance to do the review yet. We can tell you that it is 959,000 square feet, housed in four buildings on an 84-acre platted industrial subdivision [and] part of a planned unit development. So, staff has all of the criteria of the comprehensive plan and the LDRs to make sure that all of the concerns about the residential areas around it and any environmental issues are mitigated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Ed Ciampi, who subsequently made the motion for approval, insisted the Commission had not dragged its feet on the moratorium as some residents alleged but rather had to comply with state statutes for two public hearings on such ordinance requests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were not aware that application was about to be filed,\u201d he said of the Oct. 13 submittal. \u201cI don\u2019t think you need to be an expert to realize that it was a little bit of maneuvering on the applicant\u2019s part to make sure they got in ahead of time. We meet twice a month, and this agenda item is quite large. I think it was obviously Ms. Edler\u2019s number one priority, [and] we did bring it as quickly as possible. Other than the Kanner Highway [facility], we can now lock it down for a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elder in turn, emphasized the potential legal ramifications for including that application in the moratorium.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe applicant would likely file a Bert J. Harris and vested rights claim against us,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have certain entitlements at this point. That\u2019s why if you look across the state, almost all of the moratoriums are for applications and the acceptance and not just an outright ban.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both District 1 Commissioner Eileen Vargas and Chairwoman Heard subsequently said they would prefer just such a ban and asked Elder to investigate that possibility as part of her research. Vargas urged the county attorney to report back to the Board as soon as with her findings about a potential ban. Commissioner Blake Capps then seconded Ciampi\u2019s motion, which passed 4-1, with Commissioner Stacey Hetherington reclused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STUART \u2013 The Martin County Commission voted 4-0 Oct. 27 to approve a one-year moratorium on the acceptance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-445883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","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\/445883","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=445883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}