By Jason W. Brooks
Mail | X: @JasonWBrooks2

A fiercely opposed AI data center rezoning, development plan and agreement in Chandler were unanimously rejected Thursday night by city council.

The 7-0 vote surprised even one of the people who voted to reject a proposed artificial intelligence data center plan Dec. 11.

Mayor Kevin Hartke said in his seven years as mayor, along with several more years on Chandler City Council, he’s seen many unpopular developments approved.

“I honestly didn’t know how this was going to go tonight,” Hartke said after the meeting, which drew a capacity crowd to council chambers. “The developer did a lot of work to try to make this happen. I just don’t think that, from my position, and others, that this center reflected the values that Chandler’s going in the future. It didn’t align with our general plan or policies. And there were a lot of tough questions that, with the answers, led us to vote against it.”

New York-based development group Active Infrastructure launched a plan to purchase property along Price Road, just northwest of the Dobson intersection, near Intel. The developer would tear down a former Northrup Grumman-owned building, vacant since 2019, as part of a rezoning and development plan.

The proposed plan was for a 420,000-square-foot artificial-intelligence data center to be the centerpiece of a campus with five smaller research-type buildings to be constructed over about a five-year span.

Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema attended a pair of October meetings to speak in favor of council approving the development plan. She used the term “federal preemption” both during an Oct. 15 Chandler Planning and Zoning Commission hearing about the data center and also the following night during the public-input time at a Chandler City Council meeting.

Chandler’s planning staff brought the application to the commission despite encouraging the board to recommend denial to the city council. Staff also put together a list of rezoning and preliminary development plan conditions to meet, should the commission decide it wants to recommend approval.

The commission ended up voting 5-1 to recommend council approve staff’s alternative list of conditions, making at least one modification of its own, meaning the Chandler City Council was to vote on the project during its Nov. 13 meeting. That was pushed back to Dec. 11 to allow more time for attorneys, Active Infrastructure founder and CEO Jeff Zygler and city staff time to work on a development agreement.

Chandler’s general plan and a 2022 ordinance place restrictions on where and how large a data center can be; a planned-area development strictly for a data center is technically prohibited in the city.

Hartke said, during the Dec. 11 meeting, he would have been uncomfortable approving the plan and later telling any developers with a similar proposal that it didn’t fit the city’s general plan.

Chandler City Councilmember Matt Orlando said his main issues were that AI is a moving target in terms of it being unclear how speculative builds like the Price Road plan — there are currently no named tenants — can be profitable.
“Six years is a long time to start paying a mortgage,” Orlando said.

Councilmember O.D. Harris emphasized he didn’t believe there had been enough honest community outreach done by Zygler leading up to the hearings. He also didn’t like attorney Adam Baugh’s characterization of some community concerns about water, electricity use, noise, traffic and other factors as “emotional.”

“Probably the word I would not like to hear from someone looking to get our approval, is that our voters are ‘emotional,’” Harris said. “I think that’s insulting. And tonight, I’m emotional. And I’m going to stand with my voters.”
Harris received applause, cheers and “snaps” from the audience for his response, as did a few other council members. Orlando and Vice Mayor Christine Ellis were cheered simply for the aggressive and pointed nature of their questions earlier in the hearing for Zygler and Baugh.

The council was echoing what was a mostly skeptical and oppositional set of 40-plus public speakers who were nearly all opposed to the data center plan. While many were focused on water and electricity use, others brought up AI technology as a general detriment to society that Chandler shouldn’t foster.

Ellis, in her parting words before the vote, praised the packed council chamber, urging residents to be just as involved for other topics, such as affordable housing.

Few residents advocated for the project at either the Oct. 14 Planning and Zoning meeting or at the Dec. 11 council vote.

Jason W. Brooks can be reached at jbrooks@iniusa.org. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as those meet our  Civility Guidelines.

Jason W. Brooks
News Editor | Chandler Independent

Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.

Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.

Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.

Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.

Community: He supports animal shelters.