Pasco County leaders recommend moratorium on data centers

DADE CITY – The Pasco County Planning Commission is recommending leaders approve a moratorium on the acceptance of applications and permits related to data centers within unincorporated Pasco County.

The planning commission came to this decision June 11 after hearing from several residents concerned about the impact data centers will have on the environment and their quality of life. The recommendation will be taken into consideration by the Pasco County Board of Commissioners, who were scheduled to discuss the issue June 16.

The moratorium would be for 12 months, giving the county time to evaluate the impact of data centers and other largeload customers on the community before accepting any applications for permits, site plans and other development services.

A member of Pasco County Planning Development and Economic Growth told the planning commission there are four key research points:
• Compatibility of data centers with surrounding land uses.
• Impacts on electricity demand, water consumption, wastewater treatment capacity and environmental concerns like noise and light pollution.
• Efficacy of best practices from jurisdictions nationwide.
• The appropriateness of data centers and if there is a need to develop definitions and performance standards to regulate or prohibit the use.

A significant amount of the planning commission’s discussion centered on whether the language of the moratorium was restrictive enough to prevent developers and their attorneys from spotting loopholes to push a data center through.

Planning Director David Engel explained to the commission that staff will consult industry professionals and utilities as well as engage with stakeholders and the public. They will collect “a library of white papers and research.”

“Then we’re going to prepare, through assistance from our county attorney’s office, a draft ordinance to regulate and/or prohibit data centers here in Pasco County,” Engel said.

Residents take aim at data centers

Ryan Broome, of Odessa, opposes data centers being built in Pasco County. He explained the trade-offs associated with their development.

“Data centers often occupy large tracts of land that could otherwise be used for a variety of uses, including housing, parks, small businesses or mixed uses,” Broome told the planning commission. “Once these facilities are built, they can shape the character of a community for decades.”

Broome said they typically employ fewer people than office campuses or commercial developments of similar size.

He also shared concerns about their demands on infrastructure, such as electricity and water, as well as noise from cooling equipment, backup generators and electrical gear.

Jami Thornton, of Port Richey, supports the temporary moratorium but she’d prefer to see a permanent ban.

“If it’s ever considered, other countries are doing far more superior things than using land,” Thornton said. “They are putting them underwater, since water is such a big resource that these data centers need.”

Marilyn Holleran, of Hudson, wanted the commissione to consider the environmental impact. She was representing the Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida during the hearing.

“Pasco County is on the front line of climate change,” Holleran said. “Rising seas, record heat, worsening storms and hyperscale data centers are among the largest single source of new carbon emissions and heat load on the planet. Approving one here without a climate impact study is a decision this county would feel for generations.”

One path forward, she said, involved requiring renewable energy sourcing, greenhouse gas and climate impact assessment, and annual public carbon reporting.

Doris Carroll spoke on behalf of the Democratic Environmental Caucus of Pasco County.

“When industrial facilities of this scale move into a county, they do not land in wealthy neighborhoods,” Carroll said. “They land next to the people who have the least power to stop them and the least resources to flag the consequences.”

She asked commissioners which communities will bear the noise, heat, exhaust, water flow and infrastructure burden of allowing data centers in and if they know it’s coming.

David Hammond, of Wesley Chapel, offered suggestions on how to manage the development of data centers in Pasco County, such as providing an industrial center away from homes and surrounded by hundreds of acres of mature trees. He also suggested making the power grid and aquifer off limits to billion-dollar corporations, requiring them to develop their own clean power source and immersion cooling technology.

“Pasco County has valuable resources,” Hammond said. “A data center developer wants access to land, power and water. This means that the county holds the cards. We dictate what the terms of doing business in Pasco County are if you want to build and operate a data center here.”

Cindy Skarda, of San Antonio, reminded the planning commission that the Tampa Bay region is experiencing its worst drought in 50 years with residents being asked to conserve water as part of a water shortage order.

“I’m being asked to not water my lawn, not wash my car, turn off the water while I’m brushing my teeth, but we are going to consider massive data centers that consume huge amounts of our precious water?” Skarda said. “Do we really need more data centers in Florida?”

Potential data center applicant speaks up

Someone asked staff if there were plans to put a data center at Speros, Fl, a 775-acre global research park in Land O’ Lakes.

“I want to let the public and the planning commission know: We have no active application for a data center at this time,” Engel told the commission. “I do want to let you know that I’ve had some brief communication with some data center users. Nothing definitive. There’s no concept site plan. There’s no specific plans to move on anything, just inquiries. As of late, we’ve had one inquiry about a data center to be potentially located in an employment center business park, but that was just conceptual. There’s nothing active right now. In the case of Speros, we have had general conversations with them over the last three years about the need for some type of data center support that’s focused on delivering services only to the campus.”

Later in the hearing, David Miltenberger, of Parkland, shared plans with the commission to open a 19.9-megawatt data center at an industrial park in the Double Branch development near Interstate 75. Miltenberger said he had no neighbors and his center would use less water annually than most car washes, hotels and golf courses.

“There are frankly a lot of new inventions and technologies that have been created that allow us to use much, much fewer resources than has been talked about,” Miltenberger said. “We actually fully, fully support much of what has been talked about today related to large data center companies. We are not that.”

He told the planning commission that his stance is not to stop the moratorium. He encouraged local leaders to follow the state’s lead in regulating larger data centers. He suggested they consider requiring data centers be located no more than 1,000 feet from a substation.

“That will further allow your county to make sure no data centers are going in random places around the community,” he said.

The planning commission asked Miltenberger several questions about how his data center would operate. There was some disagreement about whether Miltenberger had the zoning to follow through on his vision.

“First of all, Mr. Miltenberger made a statement that he’s zoned,” Engel assured the planning commission. “We don’t permit data centers here in Pasco County, so he does not have the zoning.”

Miltenberger told the planning commission that he had been engaged in a three-month negotiation to get the site under contract and was under the impression they had the zoning to move forward with his project. He was shocked to learn about the moratorium.

He assumed the master planned unit development district would allow data centers since they were an industrial or light industrial use.

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