SAN JOSE’S PLAN to support the rapid development of new data centers in coming years is running into increasingly vocal pushback.
What might have been a routine policy review session during last week’s City Council meeting instead became a venue for a procession of angry residents to vent their concerns about the city’s efforts to attract a dozen large energy users, including data centers, to the city and get them hooked onto the grid by the end of the decade.
City officials said the projects will undergo rigorous vetting, including public input, and could provide an economic windfall. But those who spoke up expressed alarm over potential impacts, including environmental harms as well as the strain these extra energy users would place on the city’s power grid.
Ellina Yin, who leads the civic engagement nonprofit Dreaming Collaborative, organized a letter writing campaign ahead of Tuesday’s meeting calling for greater transparency, as well as a petition that gathered more than 800 signatures. She said many residents feel blindsided by the pace these plans have progressed.
“There has been an incredible push from the city to bring data centers for AI, however there has been little to no meaningful community engagement on what that means for San Jose residents living within and around these data centers,” Yin told San José Spotlight. “The people deserve the truth on the public record, not unproven or non-binding promises of economic benefits at some future date.”
Erica Garaffo, who works in the City Manager’s Office on projects involving heavy power users, said San Jose is committed to maintaining transparency and fairness as these projects move forward, adding they will be subject to the same set of requirements as any other project. That includes environmental review, community outreach and public hearings.
“Data center projects do not receive pre-approval or a fast-track for approval,” Garaffo told San José Spotlight. “Any future data center proposal will be reviewed project by project, with opportunities for public comment.”
PG&E pact eases path for data centers
San Jose announced a partnership with PG&E last July that aims to make it easier to develop data centers and other large-scale energy use projects in the city.
Under the agreement, PG&E is tasked with providing power and making grid improvements for 12 such projects by 2030. In addition, the utility will also fund six city staff positions who will work to coordinate and streamline projects as they move through the approval and construction process.
San Jose is aiming to capitalize on plans to bring 2,000 megawatts of increased power capacity to the South Bay in two separate transmission line projects backed by developer LS Power Grid.
“Data center projects do not receive pre-approval or a fast-track for approval. Any future data center proposal will be reviewed project by project, with opportunities for public comment.”
Erica Garaffo, San Jose city liaison
San Jose has roughly 20 data centers, far fewer than its neighbor to the west, Santa Clara, with more than 50 in operation. But Santa Clara officials last year said they’ve had to turn away new data centers, having run up against the limits of their own grid’s capacity, potentially creating an opening for other South Bay cities.
Among the proposed data center projects that have stoked concern among residents, organizers point to plans, still in the early stages, for real estate company Prologis to develop a 159-acre site owned by San Jose-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility. The plans call for the creation of more than 1 million square feet of data center space across four buildings, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Residents say concerns being ignored
While the City Council approved an exclusive negotiating agreement with Prologis in November, Alviso resident Marcos Espinoza said the city has not yet contacted any residents about the project. He said in addition to the usual concerns about noise and air pollution data centers often raise, residents are also concerned about potential impacts on sensitive burrowing owl habitat nearby the proposed development site.
“A lot of this is being pretty much pushed on the community — not really asking anyone what the community thinks,” Espinoza, president of community group Alviso in Action, told San José Spotlight.
Garaffo said the proposal remains in the preliminary stages and a public engagement process, including opportunities for residents to provide input, will take place once planning has progressed further.
“There are currently no official plans to give input on,” she said.
But organizers are still expressing skepticism. Opponents said they fear by the time such meetings role around, the project will already have so much momentum there will be little opportunity for residents to play a meaningful role in shaping the outcome.
“Once they have their mind set, there is no changing the city’s mind,” Espinoza said.
San Jose officials estimate each new large data center will contribute between roughly $3 million to $7 million annually to the city in utility and property taxes.
This story originally appeared in San Jose Spotlight.