New Brunswick City Council cancels proposed data center

Residents gathered at City Hall on Wednesday night to demonstrate against a recently proposed data center on Jersey Avenue. The Jersey-Sandford Redevelopment Plan Area was originally zoned for mixed-use commercial and residential purposes, as the site sits next to a local middle school. Messaging from NJ Build Up Resistance Now (BURN) called on people to voice their opposition to data centers in New Brunswick.

Organizers from Climate Revolution Action Network and more spoke on the harms of data centers, including massive pollution, skyrocketing energy bills, water shortages, rolling blackouts, and possible health problems. Demonstrators were located in two spots during the City Council meeting: outside of the front of City Hall, and at the back entrance waiting to join public comment against the ordinance. Hundreds of people showed up amidst gloomy weather and rain, and the plan for the data center was ultimately cancelled within an hour.

Ben Dziobek, executive director of Climate Revolution, spoke to WRSU about the effects of data centers in communities, and what residents—and Rutgers students—can do in order to fight for climate justice in New Jersey.

During the meeting, the Council advanced the redevelopment ordinance in the agenda, to accommodate for the large numbers of public commenters. A statement from the City of New Brunswick said that the City Administration asked for City Council to amend the redevelopment plan to remove data centers as a permitted use and to reinsert the requirement for inclusion of a park on the site. The motion for the amendment passed, and the plan is once again to create a park, with the developer instead making a contribution to the City to fund local parks in the neighborhood.

Attendees of the City Council meeting, and those outside City Hall, cheered once the amendment to the ordinance passed, and stayed in the space in order to voice their joy and the need to continue organizing.

John Hsu, candidate for NJ’s sixth Congressional district who was present at the demonstration, told WRSU that the harms of AI need to be examined, and that tech companies have gained undue influence in politics.

Data centers pull massive amounts of electricity from the power grid and large amounts of water are needed to keep servers cool, and legislators in Trenton have approved a bill aimed at the power usage of data centers. The video footage of the City Council meeting is available to watch on Youtube, with meeting records available on the City of New Brunswick website.

Story by Keya Raval. Rahil Chatterjee contributed to this report.