LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – A proposal for a zone change to bring an AI data center to northeast Lubbock will go before city council, after the Planning and Zoning Commission rejected the project in a close vote last week.<\/p>\n
Four out of seven on the commission voted against the zone change request for 936 acres of land off Northeast Loop 289 and southeast of East Municipal Drive. <\/p>\n
Hugo Reed and Associates for Texas Solar Works requested the change of the mostly Low Density Single Family area to become General Industrial, with a Specific Use for Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution. The company wants to build a major hyperscale data center on the site.<\/p>\n
The AI center would require significant power from large lines connecting to ERCOT, solar power and gas.<\/p>\n
Environmental concerns drive opposition<\/p>\n
Much of the debate centers around environmental concerns from north and east Lubbock residents who say they have already been burdened by industrial neighbors.<\/p>\n
\u201cGas turbines, pollution, noise. No, absolutely not. You\u2019re going against what I came to fight, you\u2019re adding another one. Why northeast Lubbock?\u201d Fabian Mata said during public comment.<\/p>\n
About 10 people spoke in opposition to the project during the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on January 8.<\/p>\n
Adam Hernandez with Lubbock Compact said the energy components would create pollution problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat creates a lot of smog. That creates particles in the air that can cause cancer. And so, it creates a lot of issues for our city,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cThe situation where they are trying to put this in Northeast Lubbock is already heavily overburdened by industrial uses and pollutions of all sorts and have been for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
Developer responds to concerns<\/p>\n
John Osborne, president and CEO of the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance, said the developer has already made a commitment to move the energy portion of the project to the adjacent 500 acres it plans to purchase in the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe residents have said that they don\u2019t want the kind of smokestacks, the kind of projects that are polluting the air and causing allergens to be in the air. A data center project really only emits heat because they\u2019re trying to let the heat from the servers escape the building and other than that, there\u2019s no gases of any type or any kind of allergens that would be released,\u201d Osborne said.<\/p>\n
Osborne says the project would also bring in a significant amount of fiber optics to rural areas that traditionally don\u2019t have access to them.<\/p>\n
Water usage addressed<\/p>\n
Osborne said the developer plans to use a closed-loop water system that would initially require substantial water, but not much after that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want them [residents] to think that we\u2019re not looking out for their best interest. They have very much said they don\u2019t want to deplete the aquifer. And we totally agree. And that\u2019s why we want them in the city limits of Lubbock,\u201d Osborne said.<\/p>\n
Osborne says the center would have access to a wider variety of water sources inside the city limits, like Lake Alan Henry and future Canyon Lake 7, so it wouldn\u2019t have to pull from the aquifer. He also said locating the project elsewhere would provide less regulatory ability.<\/p>\n
Economic impact disputed<\/p>\n
Osborne said the large capital investment would significantly impact the Lubbock economy through the tax rolls and adding more jobs, but Hernandez disagreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re talking about 936 acres inside city limits that is currently zoned for single-family residential and commercial. If you put those two uses on that land, that is the highest and best use and that will bring in, in that amount of space, way more tax revenue for the city,\u201d Hernandez said.<\/p>\n
Project details remain unclear<\/p>\n
Osborne said the developer wants to ensure proper zoning before spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on next steps like an electric study. He also explained the developer is building the property for another user to buy it, and they don\u2019t know yet who that buyer could be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a ton of information that\u2019s out on it because the size of the project is not yet known, in terms of how many megawatts of power might be consumed. And that then dictates a lot of the utility needs and how the site is set up and all. But we at LEDA are working very diligently to make sure that these projects meet what the community is looking for in projects,\u201d Osborne said.<\/p>\n
Hernandez said the lack of details creates too much uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what happened and what I saw in the discussion is that planning and zoning realized that there weren\u2019t a lot of answers to these very serious questions that need to be answered for something like this to move forward,\u201d Hernandez said.<\/p>\n
The zone change request is the first of many steps the developer must take before deciding to bring the center to Lubbock. The request is on the agenda for the city council meeting Jan. 27 at 2 p.m. in Citizens Tower.<\/p>\n
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