Why Should Delaware Care?
Residents have voiced concerns about energy and environmental impacts of a massive data center project planned for Delaware City. But business leaders and unions feel new regulations would risk stifling what could become a major new industry in the state.

Earlier this month, several New Castle County councilmembers denounced an ordinance to regulate the data-center industry because it would have retroactively imposed new rules on a controversial plan to build a massive facility near Delaware City.

On Friday, the sponsor of the proposal, Councilman Dave Carter, eliminated the retroactivity clause from the proposal in an effort to win over his skeptical colleagues.  Two have since signaled that they may now support the new rules.

Still, it remains unclear whether Carter’s ordinance has enough yes votes to become law. The New Castle County Council is scheduled to vote on the measure during its regular meeting on Tuesday.

The sweeping legislation includes new rules that would require data centers to have buffer zones around them, and to use energy-efficient backup generators, among other regulations.

Get Involved: The New Castle County Council will meet on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Louis L. Redding City/County Building, 800 N. French Street in Wilmington. Residents can attend and comment in-person or online. 

The public reaction to Carter’s ordinance has similarly been split. 

When proposed last summer, the 6-million-square-foot, Delaware City data center plan sparked a wave of opposition. Many residents feared it would harm the environment and place too much energy demand on an already stressed electricity grid. 

During a county planning meeting last month, those opponents called Carter’s proposed regulations common-sense guardrails for a booming industry that is spreading in Delaware 

But, last month, the developer of the data center – Starwood Digital Ventures – won the endorsement from a critical voting block when it signed an agreement to use union labor in the project’s construction.

Such then, members of building trades unions have come out in full force to oppose the Carter’s regulations, which they say could stop the industry from coming to Delaware entirely. 

The differing perspectives led to a tense County Council meeting earlier this month, which included council members jeering and reprimanding one another in front of a packed crowd of people. 

By the end of the meeting, it was clear Carter didn’t have enough support for his ordinance.

County Councilman Penrose Hollins, who had expressed concerns during that meeting, now tells Spotlight Delaware that “once the retroactivity is moved out, I’m going to support it.”

Councilwoman Valerie George similarly said, “If it doesn’t have any retroactivity, absolutely I would consider voting for it.”

Asked to clarify what she meant by “consider voting for it,” George said she had not yet seen Carter’s amended ordinance, and she wanted to check if there were any other retroactivity clauses before committing to vote for it. 

The remaining members of the New Castle County Council did not respond to requests for comment on Friday. 

What do the regulations say?

Under Carter’s proposed regulations, a data center in New Castle County could be located 500 feet from residences if a developer can prove that there are sufficient noise mitigation measures at the facility. If not, the buffer expands to 1,000 feet.  . 

Data center developers would also need energy efficiency certifications for generators used for emergency power supply. Additionally, the proposed rules would ban cooling processes that use large amounts of water, among other regulations. 

Delaware Building Trades Vice President James Ascione told Spotlight Delaware he thinks the regulations are “really heavy handed,” and could discourage developers from building data centers in Delaware. 

“We don’t want to say we welcome business, then when business comes here, we reactively regulate them,” Ascione said. 

Environmentalists counter that any buildout of data centers in Delaware must be done sustainably in conjunction with energy conservation. 

“This ordinance isn’t about stopping data centers, it’s about common sense,” Sierra Club Delaware Chapter President Dustyn Thompson said during the council meeting earlier this month. “We can have economic development, we can have jobs, and we can protect the people.”

The Sierra Club recently purchased $3,000 worth of Facebook advertisements encouraging residents to support Carter’s regulations. Thompson said the Sierra Club ads were funded by donations. 

Starwood has also posted Facebook ads about what it says are the benefits that its plan — dubbed Project Washington — would bring to the state.  

“Tired of tax increases? Support Project Washington!” one of the advertisements said, referencing recent property tax spikes that occurred in several school districts across New Castle County.

While Carter’s amended ordinance would not apply to the Delaware City data center, there is still a way the council could impose these rules on the project. 

Starwood wants to build the data center across two properties. One is zoned for industrial use. One is not. The company has filed a rezoning request for the latter property.

When County Council decides whether to approve that request, it can require Starwood to follow the same regulations set forth in the ordinance as a condition for that approval, Carter said. 

But, he clarified, if Starwood decided to build a smaller data center only on the property zoned for industrial use, it would not need to follow these regulations. 

Asked last month if his company might move forward on only the industrial property, Starwood CEO Anthony Balestrieri said, “We haven’t considered that.”

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