Residents opposed to data centers at 61st and Colorado voiced their opinion loud and clear both outside city hall and then again inside at the Hobart City Council meeting.
Dozens of protesters stood in front of city hall on Wednesday, prior to the city council meeting, hoisting no data center signs as cars passing by on Main Street honked and waved in support.
“The no data center opposition is doubling in growth and expanding,” Hobart resident Joseph Conn said.
Barbara Koteles, one of the organizers for the protest, said she and others are attempting to get the word out to stop two proposed data centers, which have received rezoning but have yet to present their plans to city officials.
“It’s not a done deal yet,” Koteles, wearing her “no rezone” t-shirt, said.
A signup table was set up by protesters outside city hall on Wednesday and plans are to have a Listen and Call In from 6-7 p.m. on Monday on WAKE 1500 AM radio station, Koteles said.
Koteles, Conn, and other residents spoke against the data center at the city council meeting.
Comments by the protesters came at the end of the meeting and followed final approval by the city council on vacating an unimproved platted right of way of 2.84 acres located south of the 61st Avenue and Arizona intersection.
The 2.84-acre easement is owned but not used by the city of Hobart, city officials said.
The city council, at the meeting two weeks ago, held a public hearing and heard a response from petitioner Todd Leeth, who was at the meeting on Wednesday but didn’t speak.
Leeth is an attorney for Hobart Devco, LLC, which is proposing a data center to be built on an 168-acre parcel on 61st Avenue, roughly half a mile from the roadway’s intersection with Colorado Street.
The 168-acre parcel, which has been given M-1 zoning approval by both the plan commission and city council, still needs to go before city officials with site plans provided by the petitioner, Mayor Josh Huddlestun said.
Leeth, at the meeting two weeks ago, said that even if city officials didn’t approve the easement, the remainder of the property is zoned M-1 so data center plans for the acreage, now part of Ewen Farm Subdivision, can proceed.
He said once the easement is approved his client can go forward with designing and planning of the data center.
Hobart Clerk-Treasurer Deborah Longer said when the easement is vacated, Hobart Devco can finalize the purchase of the land.
“They can’t build what they want with the easement sitting there. Once that happens, then they’ll purchase the land and they can go forward with plans,” Longer said.
Conn, at the meeting on Wednesday, questioned the council’s action and the city vacating land that was valued at $56,800 in 2016.
He also questioned who the owner of the vacated property would be and what residents would get out of it financially.
“We have just vacated our interest in the property,” Conn said.
Beth Blomiley said she has lived in Hobart her entire life and her concern about the two proposed data centers is the great amount of water that is needed to operate them.
She’s also concerned about the noise level generated by data centers.
She told the city council to rethink its stance and think of the residents.
“Hobart has always been a beautiful home for people,” Blomiley said.
Resident Chuck Layhew, who clapped and gave high fives to those speaking in protest of the data centers, said: “I’ll beat the drum again. No one is living next door to this (data centers). I think that what is behind this is money…Is Hobart overspending and you want to make it up real quick on the data center? I think you are chasing money and you’re doing it on the backs of us.”
Molly Arroyo said she is an educator and former Realtor and is strongly opposed to the data centers.
She will be living across from one of the proposed data centers and is already packing boxes and planning to leave Hobart if it becomes a reality.
“Data centers are not good for realty property,” she said.
The city council on Sept. 3 unanimously gave final rezoning approval to another property — from R-3 to M-1 on 400 acres at the southeast corner of 61st Avenue and Colorado Street — but specified must be used as the site of a data center only.
Protesters packed the meeting room on Sept. 3, with many angrily walking out then returning to speak at the end of the agenda when public comment was allowed.
Huddlestun, who last summer hosted a public hearing on the issue and traveled with other city officials to Virginia to visit a large data center in that state, said the next step in the process is for the petitioner to present site plans to the Hobart Plan Commission.
Neither Wylie Capital nor Hobart Devco, LLC, have done so, he said.
Deborah Laverty is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
