County, pressed by Arden residents, postpones decision on AI data center

Amid backlash from residents in the western part of Palm Beach County, commissioners voted Dec. 10 to postpone a hearing until April to determine the fate of a 1.8 million-square-foot data center near the community of Arden.

This data center, proposed along the north side of Southern Boulevard west of Seminole Pratt Whitney Road, would be a large-scale artificial intelligence center, a large facility designed to handle significant amounts of data and computing tasks.

Instead of a public hearing on the merits of the project, speakers at the commission hearing limited themselves to commenting on whether a delay should be granted.

The problem is the level of noise and emissions that would come from the backup diesel generators. The proposed hyperscale data center will use thousands of servers and specialized hardware to process huge amounts of data and will rely on advanced cooling systems to keep the servers running.

County Mayor Sara Baxter, who represents western communities, said the applicant, PBA Holdings LLC, agreed to the postponement. Baxter called on the applicant to meet with the community to explain the project before it goes back to the commission to seek approval.

Residents of Arden, a planned development expected to include more than 2,000 homes on 1,210 acres, say they have collected nearly 4,000 signatures on petitions opposing the project.

The commission meeting room was packed, many happy with the postponement, but some bothered by the inconvenience of the delay caused by the postponement.

Ben Brown, an Arden resident who opposed the postponement, objected to the commission’s decision to limit speakers to commenting only on the decision to postpone the hearing. They were not authorized to comment on the merits of the project.

“We are all here to give you our point of view,” he said. “It’s not fair for you to not hear from us. You heard from the developer. You need to kill this today.”

Shay Hoffman said he has children who attend a nearby elementary school. “If your children attended this school, you would object. Let’s not postpone this. It should be a resounding no now,” he told commissioners.

Commissioner Maria Sachs, who represents South County, drew applause when she called for the project to be rejected, but her recommendation received no support.

What is Governor DeSantis’ position on data center development?

Sachs noted that Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature are considering bills that would prevent AI data centers from being built near residential areas.

Ernie Cox, a spokesman for PBA Holdings, said his company agreed to the postponement in order to prepare a preliminary noise analysis and explain the project to area residents.

Residents suggested the data centre, called Project Tango, would destroy the rural character of areas west of Wellington.

The applicant needs the county to grant a variance to reduce required parking spaces and update a previously approved master plan for the business park that would house the data center. Residents complained that the project was placed on the approval list on December 10, a decision that could have resulted in a vote without any discussion.

The data center would be adjacent to a Florida Power & Light Co. power plant. The applicant said it already has an agreement with FPL to provide electrical power.

Can the data center builder keep the noise at an acceptable level?

Arden residents’ biggest concern is noise. They fear the data center’s thousands of servers could produce levels unacceptable to their community and to nearby Saddle Brook Elementary School.

“It’s too close to a housing complex and the school,” Franklin Trujillo said.

County planners said residents’ concerns could be considered before the project is built. Their report concluded that running the data center would require significant energy consumption and large quantities of water for server cooling.

Cox, in an interview, said he understood the issues raised by residents.

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“If I looked on the Internet and saw how some of them were built, I would also be concerned,” he said. “This one will be very different and we will make sure there is no impact on Arden.”

The county had approved the site for warehouses and a data center in 2017, but the data center then did not have the size and scale currently proposed.

Due to the new scale and size, parking spaces would be reduced to one per parking space per 2,000 square feet. Without the variance, Cox said the project would require parking every 250 square feet, requiring the applicant to build garages that would remain mostly unused.

Mike Diamond is a journalist at The Palm Beach postwhich is part of the USA TODAY Florida network. He covers Palm Beach County government. You can reach him at mdiamond@pbpost.com. Help support local journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County residents on edge as data center hearing postponed.