Developers hoping to get 184 acres of land in west Fort Worth rezoned for industrial and multifamily residential use will not be able to use the land for a data center, as growing concern from residents has prompted the city to pump the brakes on several data center developments.
A zoning application filed by Fort Worth-based construction company Westwood Professional Services, for land owned by the John Henry Dean & Shirley Lawson Foundation and the Dallas-based developer Standridge Companies, requests that the Fort Worth Zoning Commission rezone two parcels of land at the northwest corner of FM 1187 and Interstate 20.
The land is in Fort Worth’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, with the developer hoping to get the land annexed by the City Council after the Zoning Commission decides on the zoning case.
The Fort Worth Zoning Commission at its meeting on Wednesday will decide whether to recommend that those two parcels be zoned for intensive commercial development on one parcel and a planned development with intensive commercial, light industrial and dense residential use on the other.
Data centers are included in the usage types for the second parcel of land, but according to Fort Worth District 3 council member Michael Crain — who represents the land developers want to rezone — they have agreed to remove that classification from their zoning request.
“I asked the owners’ representative to formally request removal of all data center uses from this site,” Crain wrote in an April 3 Facebook post that includes a letter written by Westwood to the Zoning Commission. Crain told the Star-Telegram that the request came directly from him.
In that letter, Westwood says that the landowners are requesting for the item to be continued to the May 13 Zoning Commission meeting and that data centers be removed from allowed uses on the site.
The move comes as a cluster of data center developments in North Texas are causing concern and anger among residents.
On March 31, the Fort Worth City Council decided to hold off on voting on a major tax agreement for a data center that would be built in the fast-growing suburbs of West Fort Worth near Benbrook.
Before that, the City Council postponed votes on another data center that would be built on the other side of town, near Forest Hill and Everman. Residents and city leaders say developers and the city of Fort Worth have not been forthcoming about how the data center would impact them.
Following these delays, and increasing questions from other council members, Crain has asked city staff to complete an informal report on data centers.
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