The Palm Beach County Board of Commissioners (BCC) and the Zoning Commission (ZC) are holding two high-stakes public hearings this week. A regular hearing on Tuesday, July 14, will cover the normal agenda, and Wednesday’s special session will showcase the controversial Project Tango AI data center project. Attendance at both hearings is anticipated to be overflowing, considering the current raging public anxiety about the country’s long-term well being.
July 15 Project Tango Hearing
Most important is the binding vote that will be taken at the July 15 hearing about the highly contested Central Park Commerce Center (Project Tango) proposal. Although originally scheduled earlier in the year, this hearing was administratively postponed until Wednesday to accommodate the scale of review necessary and the booming level of public interest.
Discussion of the controversial data center to be located off Southern Boulevard near 20-Mile Bend may go before commissioners for the last time on Wednesday when they cast their votes for or against its approval. If Commissioners reject the project, the matter likely may progress on to the courts.
Some drama has been added to Wednesday’s vote by the fact that Palm Beach County Mayor Sara Baxter, on the advice of the Palm Beach County Attorney’s office, has recused herself from the vote. She is publicly on record as being opposed to the project. “I’m not happy about it,” Baxter said last week. To reinforce her opposition, she has announced that during the hearing she will remain in the chambers “to be with my constituents.”
The Project Tango data center site is located in District 6 represented by Baxter. Some 2,400 homes in the Arden neighborhood and the Saddle View Elementary School are located close by the proposed site. “I’m not for a data center so close to those locations,” Baxter said. “I wouldn’t want it in my backyard.”
Zoning Commission Recommends Against Project Tango
The Palm Beach County Zoning Commission on July 2 unanimously recommended against approving Project Tango. Plans for the center have been in the making since 2016 when a permit for the 202-acre proposed site was granted. Issues today are quite different from those of 2016, prompting the zoning commission to analyze whether a “hyperscale” AI data center to be built in 2026 should be classified in the same “light industrial use” categorization as the data center project of 2016.
Arguments suggest today’s “hyperscale” AI data center should be classified as “heavy industrial use”. The chairman of the Zoning Commission Christopher Kammerer described the situation as an “identity crisis”. He noted that although data centers normally fall into “light industrial” classifications, the scale of Project Tango makes it more like a “heavy industrial use” project.
Many residents of the Arden neighborhood, as well as teachers, environmentalists, technical experts and the general public have expressed strong opposition to the project. Objections about noise generated by the cooling infrastructure, environmental impact, property values, the visual and psychological effect of such a “large industrial complex within roughly 2,000 feet of an elementary school” have been voiced.
Location of Hearings
The hearings will take place at Commission Chambers on the sixth floor of the Robert Weisman Governmental Center, 301 N. Olive Avenue, in West Palm Beach. The seating capacity of the room is approximately 150. Many more than 150 are expected to attend the hearings. To accommodate the expected overflow, attendees will be guided to excess spaces outside the main chambers, as well as to other spaces in the building.
As an alternative to the Governmental Center, the county is providing a second viewing and participation site at the Vista Center hearing room. The Vista Center is located at 2300 N. Jog Road in West Palm Beach. Those in attendance at the Vista Center will be able to see the hearings live and speak during the public comment opportunity. Their testimonies will be entered into the official public record. These attendees will have the same rights as those sitting in the Commission’s chambers. Place of attendance will not affect how comments are received or considered by Country Commissioners.
Other Issues to be Considered
During the hearings in addition to Project Tango, Commissioners will consider staff recommendations “to deny a conditional use request for Calvary Chapel Christian School near Indiantown and Rocky Pines roads, a first-reading ULDC change that would let fitness centers occupy industrial buildings in Commerce-designated land, the transfer of County Road 880 to the state, a new Law Enforcement Municipal Service Taxing Unit, and a workshop revisiting commercial development limits in the Agricultural Reserve.”
Online information, including agendas, backup materials and live streaming links, is regularly posted at the Palm Beach County Agendas and Meetings portal about one week in advance of scheduled meetings and hearings.