Amazon's Quiet Power Play: How Zoning Loopholes and Nuclear Bets Fuel Data Center Expansion

$2 billion Amazon data center approved without public meetings or votes

The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon Web Services is building a $2 billion data center in Gilroy with no public hearings and no mention in the San Jose Mercury News until the construction cranes had gone up. The Merc’s first story in June was published after the community had discovered on its own that they were getting a 438,500-square-foot data center. No public hearings The Amazon project at 8050 Camino Arroyo, near the Leavesley Road …

Amazon's Quiet Power Play: How Zoning Loopholes and Nuclear Bets Fuel Data Center Expansion

Residents of Gilroy, California, woke up one day to the rumble of heavy machinery. Construction had begun on a massive data center. Few had any idea it was coming. The project, spanning 56 acres of former farmland, measures 438,500 square feet. It slipped through under 45-year-old zoning rules that permitted industrial builds along a local freeway. A single city staffer, the community development director, signed off. No public hearings. No adva…

Amazon reportedly uses 45-year-old rules to get around AI data center opposition - California residents left fuming after Gilroy facility begins construction

Amazon revealed plans to build Gilroy, California data center were first submitted in 2020Gilroy citizens have accused the city council of inadequate communications concerning the developmentThe 438,500-square-foot data center occupies a 56-acre chunk of farmland 30 miles south of San JoseCitizens of Gilroy, California, have expressed dismay at the building of an Amazon data center, which they say they were not informed of - and when one residen…

Amazon Used a Startlingly Dirty Trick to Build a Data Center Without Consent of Community

A quiet war is playing out in rural communities across the country. City council meetings are bursting into conflict as local residents try to keep AI data centers out of their backyards. Americans are starting to see through the promises of tech companies and the local politicians they’ve wooed, realizing that the advantages of hosting a resource-hogging data center in the neighborhood are slim. Yet tech giants are finding creative — and someti…

Amazon Advances $2B, 439,000 SQFT Data Center Campus in Gilroy as Approval Path Narrows for Developers

Amazon Web Services has begun construction on a two-building, 438,500-square-foot data center campus in Gilroy, a roughly $2 billion project that advanced through entitlement under decades-old industrial zoning even as data center approvals grow harder to win across California. The post Amazon Advances $2B, 439,000 SQFT Data Center Campus in Gilroy as Approval Path Narrows for Developers appeared first on The Registry Northern California Real Es…

Amazon's $2B Gilroy AI Data Center Cleared by One Bureaucrat, No Vote

A 45-year-old zoning rule handed a single city administrator the authority to greenlight a 49-megawatt AI data center. Gilroy residents found out after the fact.Key takeawaysAmazon's 49-megawatt Gilroy data center was approved at the staff level by Community Development Director Sharon Goei under a 1981 industrial zoning classification that requires no City Council vote and no Planning Commission review.The facility sits above the sole-source dr…