Pasco County doesn’t have any large data centers. And there aren’t any seeking approval, in the development pipeline or under construction.
Judging by the standing-room only crowd that packed the Historic Pasco County Courthouse in Dade City on June 11, residents would like to keep it that way.
During a long conversation about how Pasco should handle the future of data centers, residents, activists, county staff and planning commissioners wrestled with a question that many communities across the country are suddenly facing: should massive, power-hungry data centers be allowed to carve out homes in a fast-growing county with significant wetlands, groundwater resources and other environmentally sensitive areas.
After three and a half hours, the Planning Commission voted to support an ordinance establishing a temporary moratorium on “data centers, large scale data centers and other large load customers” in the county. That will give staff a year to study their impacts on water, electricity, noise, climate and quality of life.
However, staff emphasized that “the moratorium is not a permanent ban on such uses,” even if the room was filled with people who want it to be.
The moratorium still needs final approval from the Board of County Commissioners, which signaled its support at its last meeting.
The message from the public was unmistakable.
Speaker after speaker urged the county to hit pause on data centers, due to their consumption of power and water, as well as generating constant heat and noise.
“When we hear about a new development opportunity of any type, one of the questions typically asked first is, how much revenue will it generate?” said Wesley Chapel’s Stephanie Vazquez. “But I would suggest that the more important question that we should be asking is: At what cost?”
Water was one of the day’s dominant themes.
There have already been a multitude of complaints by residents at past meetings about the effects of fast-paced development on the county’s water supply, and the idea of allowing data centers in that mix have exacerbated those concerns.
Cindy Skarda of San Antonio, one of those favoring a permanent moratorium, said the county’s water aquifer is already under massive stress as the Tampa Bay area battles through one of its worst droughts in decades. Pasco County is currently under a Phase 3 “Extreme Water Shortage” order through July 1.
“So I’m being asked to not water my lawn, not wash my car, turn off the water while I wash my teeth, but we’re going to consider massive data centers that consume huge amounts of our precious water?” Skarda asked.
Another resident complained about his well caving in, which he claims was because of the low water levels. Others expressed similar concerns.
Activists framed the argument against data centers around other effects on the environment.
Marilyn Holleran, the president of the Pasco County chapter of the Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida, said that the county is on the frontline of things like climate change, record-high temperatures and worsening storms.
She said hyperscale data centers are among the largest single source of new carbon emissions and heat load on the planet. Other residents warned of the effects on livestock and wildlife, since the most likely place that data centers would land would be on the county’s remaining large, undeveloped swaths of land.
“Approving one here without a climate impact study is a decision this county would feel for generations,” Holleran warned.
The county is hoping to use the moratorium to wrap its head around the data center growth.
Planning & Economic Growth Director David Engel told the commission that Pasco’s own rules have not caught up with the technology, which is why the county was asking it to endorse the moratorium.
“As a result of this moratorium, a number of potential revisions to the (land development code) may be needed to regulate data centers within Pasco County,” he said. “Existing conditions within our code do not currently specify that data centers are in use within any zoning district, nor are there any standards that would regulate such uses.”
He added that from conversations with peers and stakeholders, the defining line of a permissible type of local data center is one producing at 20 megawatt limit, since at that number a condenser cooling system that doesn’t use as much water can be used and it doesn’t draw on the “enormous power that a hyperscale center would.”
That set up an interesting 20-minute conversation with developer David Miltenberger, a contract purchaser for a site in the Double Branch Pasco Town Center development. The founder & CEO of Stellaris Data Centers, he distributed a rendering to commissioners of a 19.9-megawatt facility in a purely industrial setting he intends on building.
He said his facility would use 19.9 megawatts with potable water use of “approximately 300,000 gallons per year.” Total water use, including reclaimed, would be about 10 million gallons per year. And he said the water usage would still be less than a typical golf course uses in a year.
He also stressed that his data center was not in a residential area, has no neighbors and would be more efficient than the hyper-scalers most people associate with data centers, while generating $3 million a year in tax revenue for the county.
Miltenberger, who was at the meeting to suggest the county follow the state’s ban on data centers using 50 megawatts or more, appeared to be under the impression he was already zoned through the MPUD and had approval to build his smaller data center.
Engel, however, said that was not true.
“I can certainly say with confidence that if Mr. Miltenberger came in tomorrow with a building permit application or a site plan application, we would not issue permits for that project because it is a data center,” said Engel. “Pasco County doesn’t permit data centers, and hopefully we’ll have a moratorium.”
Planning commissioners said the conversation was useful — one called it a “de facto zoning hearing” on a data center project.
And it highlighted one of the reasons for the moratorium: to establish new rules for a technology that has evolved faster than the regulations.
“Our analysis has to be comprehensive and thorough to ensure that we understand what the data center industry is, where it’s going, how it affects our community,” Engel said. “We need time to do the research.”