As residents of one Triangle community have organized in opposition to a plan for a large data storage facility in unincorporated Wake County for nearly half a year, the leaders of another Triangle-adjacent community are considering a yearlong ban on any new data center proposals.
Today, Chatham County’s Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing “to consider a temporary moratorium on the permitting of data centers, data processing facilities, cryptocurrency mining operations, and any other associated uses within the unincorporated areas of Chatham County,” according to the agenda description for the commissioners’ special session.
A vote is expected to immediately follow the hearing with an ordinance going into effect today if the moratorium is approved. It comes as the rise of artificial intelligence is accelerating demand for large data centers across the state, leaving local governments largely unprepared to manage their rapid, water- and energy-intensive expansion. That’s not to mention the close proximity of Chatham County’s eastern border to the proposed 190-acre Wake County data center site.
According to the agenda, Chatham County leaders will decide whether to give county planners time to study the impact of data centers, develop regulations to mitigate negative impacts, and draft a legislative text amendment to the county’s planning documents. The county cites “considerable amounts of water and energy usage” as a necessity for the moratorium; the scope of the ban includes any proposed facility associated with AI computing and modeling, cryptocurrency mining, web services and hosting, and genome sequencing.
Meanwhile, residents of western Wake County continue to pressure Apex town leaders to reject a proposal for what’s being marketed as the “New Hill Digital Campus” by Maryland-based developer Natelli Investments LLC. The developer would have to receive annexation and a rezoning from the town to build the 300-megawatt facility.
Last month, across two work sessions spanning more than five hours, Apex town staff presented information on data centers to members of the town planning board and Town Council covering everything from energy and water consumption, noise and environmental impacts, and land use and regulatory requirements to how such a facility could impact traffic, fire response, and public safety. Town officials had the opportunity to ask questions, express concerns, and request more information.
While much of the information presented wasn’t new, town staff, including the fire and police chiefs, raised concerns to the council about their departments’ capabilities in regard to the facility.
Data centers are relatively firesafe, Apex fire Chief Tim Herman said. He said research from town staff found that there have only been 22 fires in the 12,000-some facilities around the world between 2014 and 2023 and no major disasters. But the area proposed for the data center is currently underserved and in need of a fire station; a new station is planned for construction beginning in 2030.
From the police department’s perspective, concerns were less technical but more wide-ranging.
Apex police Chief Ryan Johansen said the police department would be tasked with protecting the community in the event of demonstrations or protests against the data facility, noting that town meetings where the data center is under discussion already require a heightened police presence. Johansen said the department would have to conduct increased security checks and risk assessment with federal partners, as a large data center could be a potential target for terrorism. And Johansen raised concerns about the accessibility of such a facility to local law enforcement.
“These companies are very protective of data,” Johansen said. “And so getting access for emergency responders on the regular has traditionally been very difficult.”
And the Apex police department would be tasked with dealing with all data center-related calls about noise or suspicious activity.
“I just have to acknowledge that anything new like this coming in increases the workload [and] that we’re all pretty well strapped,” Johansen said. “There are a number of things that maybe we don’t think of as being directly associated with the data center but which are likely to increase costs for service.”
At the Apex Town Council’s regular meeting Tuesday evening, residents responded to some of the information presented at the work sessions—especially related to utilities use and environmental impacts—with skepticism. One resident, Michelle Hoffner O’Connor, accused the town and Natelli Investments LLC of understating the proposed facility’s water usage, energy consumption, and air pollution output.
“I don’t necessarily believe misrepresentations of information that come from our town are malicious, but it does beg the question: Who are the real subject matter experts being consulted? Who is performing review to verify what is said?”
The data center is also emerging as an issue in the upcoming Democratic primary for the 4th Congressional District. With much of western Wake County, including Apex, newly drawn into incumbent Rep. Valerie Foushee’s Durham-centered district, some residents have asked Foushee, and the four other candidates running in the primary, to oppose the New Hill Digital Campus “and any other potential data centers that could be built in [the] district” in an open letter and petition that 260 people so far have signed.
“Further, we urge all five of you to reject any donations or Super PAC support from the big tech lobby, especially AI executives and companies,” the letter states. “In 2022, a cryptocurrency billionaire, who was later convicted of fraud and campaign finance violations, spent $1 million to sway this race. This cycle, we must feel confident that our Congressmember—regardless of party or ideology—will put our community’s interests above those of corporations or billionaires who could stand to profit from this or any other data center’s impacts on our neighbors.”
So far, Foushee has not taken a position on the data center proposal specifically, noting that whether to approve it will be a question decided at the local level. Foushee’s top opponent, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, has gone on the record opposing the New Hill Digital Campus and large data facilities in general.
Allam’s campaign has attempted to make the connection between Foushee and the technology industry that’s accelerating the rapid expansion of such facilities across the country. (Foushee is a member of a bipartisan U.S. House task force on AI.) But last year, Foushee received just $1,000 each from Google and Meta in a haul totaling $350,000, according to the latest campaign finance reporting; Foushee received $30,000 from PACs affiliated with tech companies in her past two congressional runs.
Still, the opposition is real—more than 4,500 people have signed a change.org petition opposing the data center, with most of them appearing to be local—and data centers are an issue elected officials at all levels will increasingly have to navigate.
“I do believe that your local representatives understand that it is essential that everything that they consider has to be what is the benefit for the citizens in that community,” Foushee said at a recent candidate forum in response to a question about balancing the potential higher energy costs incurred by the data center and advances in technology that are driving them. “While we’re talking about how we set up guardrails, what we make by way of framework for AI has to be where data centers can or should be located. What I don’t want Congress to do is to preempt what a local government decides for itself.”
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