What residents thought was a key vote on whether a data center can be built in an industrial park in northwest Fort Meade turned out to be a near formality, they were told Tuesday night.
Mayor Jaret Williams made that clear before a public hearing to consider an agreement with Stonebridge, the Maryland corporation that will build the data center for a still undisclosed client.
” The vote is not a vote on whether a data center can come to Fort Meade; that vote already occurred last year.” he said.
That was news to many residents, some of whom told commissioners they should repeal the previously approved ordinances and start over.
They also criticized the $10 million Stonebridge will pay the city as part of the development agreement since it is a loan and not a grant and will be repaid with property tax breaks on top of the tax breaks already granted by the County Commission.
That was in addition to the ongoing criticisms of the project over its water use, power use. air and noise pollution and potential health impacts.
In addition, some speakers asked if the data centers are so great, why are cities and states all over the country voting to ban them
Tom Palmer, chair of the Ancient Islands Group of Sierra Club urged commissioners to consider the impacts on air quality and water consumption that will come with the 4.4 million-square-foot facility’s need for 1.2 gigawatts of electricity at buildout and its impact on the nearby section of the Florida Wildlife Corridor.
But commissioners disagreed with the critics and voted unanimously to approve the agreement.
The most outspoken was Commissioner Matthew Taylor, who criticized what he claimed were personal threats he received over his support of the project . He accused opponents of simply being uninformed NIMBYs who did not understand how much better for the city to have control of a data center located inside the city than to deal with the impacts of data centers that would locate just outside the city.
Vice Mayor Petrina McCutchen and others said they had heard from many residents who support the data center but were reluctant to say so publicly for fear of receiving threats online.
Meanwhile, the commission’s vote is not the last word on this project. It will still have to meet conditions laid out in last year’s planned unit development approval and will need permits from a variety of state and federal agencies.
