A public gathering in Lubbock largely rejected proposed restrictions on data centers in Lubbock – favoring instead an outright ban or a moratorium on any such new facilities inside the city.
More than 500 people filled the Civic Center banquet hall for a public discussion with the City Council.
Jarrett Atkinson, city manager, announced roughly 60 people signed up to offer public comments. Nearly all spoke against the idea of hyperscale or large-scale data centers coming to Lubbock.
The meeting started at 5:30 and wrapped up just before 9:30 p.m. A few speakers identified themselves as out of town residents – places like Amarillo, and Abilene.
“We will fight them in the city. If they leave and go elsewhere – if they go to the county – we will fight them in the county. If we have to go to the Capitol, we will fight them at the Capitol. We will go wherever they are. We only need you to represent us here in the city. We will take the fight to them!” said Xan Argo more than two and a half hours into the meeting.
At the start, Mayor Mark McBrayer outlined the importance of setting the city’s policies now – not waiting.
“The reality is that large scale data centers are already being built near us in Abilene, Abernathy, Childress and in Dickens County. Before long, they’ll come knocking on our front door, wanting zoning approval so they can build inside our city limits,” McBrayer said.
A recent report from the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance (LEDA) indicated 11 “high power user” projects, but not of all them are necessarily data centers.
A small data center started operating in Lubbock this year near 19th Street and Avenue Q. A larger data center had been proposed in Northeast Lubbock but was withdrawn after failing to get the support of the Planning and Zoning Commission.
The purpose of the public meeting was not to convince anyone to be for or against data centers, McBrayer said.
“Our goal here tonight is aimed at helping you understand better how we, as your elected officials, are trying our best to address the issues and concerns,” McBrayer said.
Many of the public speakers rejected McBrayer’s framing and assumed the City Council was trying to push through data centers.
What is a Data Center?
Source: City of Lubbock
“A physical room, building or facility that houses IT infrastructure for building, running and delivering applications and services. It also stores and manages the data associated with those applications and services.” (IBM website)
- Common in many businesses, schools, hospitals, etc.
Hyper-Scale Data Center: “Ability of a system to scale and meet growing data demands.” (Fortinet)
What is a large-scale data center?
- No common definition located, but essential to define
Suggested definition for discussion:
- 100 MW or more of electricity per day
and/or - 100,000 gallons of water per day
and - Primarily supplying information or processing to one or more off-site end users
Read for yourself
Related story: Process starts for moratorium on new data centers in Lubbock – what it would do, who supports it, what critics say
Possible regulations
Atkinson made a presentation before audience members spoke. The city has, in some cases, more authority than the state or the county to regulate the behavior of data centers, he said.
“Zoning authority resides with cities,” Atkinson said.
And if a data center is in the city, then the city can restrict how much water is used. It can regulate lighting, landscape, noise and wastewater. Air quality is regulated by the state and most electric usage is regulated by the state.
By contrast, Atkinson said the county cannot regulate those same things except noise. A data center in the county can use water wells and neither the city nor the county could stop it.
“We’ve done numerous site visits to other cities. We’ve done everything we can do. … We’re not talking about those data centers that are in a school or a hospital or a business,” Atkison said of the city’s research before the public meeting.
“A note to keep in mind … $100 million of taxable value generates about $472,000 to provide for city services,” Atkinson said.
After taking out money for police, fire and other services, the city would collect roughly $3.3 million every year for a $750 million data center – and that’s after the cost of police, fire and animal services protection. Other city expenses like parks and streets would not apply.
Before the meeting, an online survey on the city website found the biggest concern was water usage.
Atkinson described an imaginary data center using a “closed loop” system (to recycle water used for temperature control), just to see how it might compare to other large water users.
If the imaginary center used 110,000 gallons of water per day, it would be the 13th or 14th largest water customer in the city, he said.
“While 100,000 or 110,000 – that’s a big number, in the scale of a 13-billion-gallon water system, it’s really not,” Atkinson said.
Lubbock total water usage for 2023-25 was at or a little above 13 billion gallons per year. Lubbock average water use is just above half of its total capacity.
Eric Rejino, assistant city manager, laid out potential regulations that do not currently apply to data centers, but the council could adopt them.
The city could restrict data centers to two zoning districts – light industrial and general industrial. In addition to that, the city could require a specific use permit, Rejino said.
“So, ‘specific use’ is basically an additional criteria within a zoning district,” Rejino said.
“You have control over annexation, zoning, noise mitigation, lighting, infrastructure requirements, utility service agreements, as well as any other enforceable contracts that the Council chooses to enter into. That’s within your authority,” Rejino said.
The council could add restrictions for:
- Water usage
- Wastewater
- Setback requirements (up to 500 feet of buffer between the data center and a residential area)
- Landscaping and screening (like wall or berms)
A “specific use” permit could require the developer of a data center to pay for a power usage study.
Air quality is not under the city’s jurisdiction, but there’s a catch.
“One thing we could do – that you could consider – in that ‘specific use’ permit is to require that those permits [and] compliance documents be provided to the city,” Rejino said.
The city could require a decommission plan in advance for onsite power generation in case the data center went out of business.
Council concerns
Gordon Harris, councilman for District 2, asked, “What is the benefit of this data center?”
Rejino answered, “There’s a lot of folks here that probably – including myself – that use some form of AI related to processing data – finding information.”
David Bruegel, councilman for District 3, asked, “What’s the purpose of these – the industrial purpose?”
“They’re used as AI hubs, crypto mining – they’re used for a combination of things,” Rejino answered.
An audience member later added data centers are used for developing new medical treatments and pharmaceuticals.
Christy Martinez-Garcia asked where Lubbock’s big transmission lines are located – the kind that could supply a hyperscale data center. She was told they come in from the north and south with a big connection point outside the city’s east side.
“What you’re saying, the location [of a new data center] then would be in areas like District 1 and District 2,” Martinez-Garcia said.
“District 1 and District 2 already have most of the industrial companies as it stands. So, now we could potentially have all of the industrial. Now we’re going to add all of the data centers. Somehow that just is a little bit concerning to me,” Martinez-Garcia said.
Public input
Joshua Shankles, president of Lubbock Compact, was among the opponents. Regulating was not enough, he said.
“Those are all nice and fine regulations. The problem is your governing record has shown you cannot be trusted to actually deliver those regulations for us and you cannot be trusted to make a deal on our behalf,” he said.
“People don’t want the money, and we don’t want the jobs. And we don’t want the revenue. We want our quality of life. We want our way of life. We want our peace and quiet and we want our water,” Shankles said.
Kyle Rable, the Democratic candidate for House of Representatives District 19, and Clayton Tucker, the Democratic candidate for Texas Ag Commission, also spoke.
“That is not something we can handle in West Texas and especially in Lubbock, because we already have a homeless population that we are incapable of doing enough for,” Rable said.
Tucker said, “I know these data developers will promise you to send the moon the stars. Thankfully, this is where us ranchers come in. Having been raised around cattle, we know what bull smells like.”
Lubbock resident Melanie Parks said, “We need to stop calling them data centers. They are surveillance centers. They are data collection hubs.”
Parks invoked the Bible and said data centers sound a lot like end-time prophecies.
A man identified as Michael Homer said, “Supposedly there’s job creation. Not really. There’s a relative handful of construction jobs that will happen pretty much right away in the construction phase. … after that, it’s IT maintenance. Period – full stop.”
Of those who spoke, only a few said anything positive about data centers. And only one offered a full defense of actively encouraging them.
Kevin Allen called himself a patient advocate. His Facebook page revealed a serious medical condition.
“I spent most of last month in Dallas, Texas fighting for big pharma healthcare companies – medical equipment suppliers to come and develop here in Lubbock, Texas. And I can tell you that at some point we’re going to need one of these AI data centers,” Allen said.
“That type of data center can be used for medical and healthcare, something we need to capitalize on,” Allen said.
It’s better to have them in the city and mindful of restrictions, he said, Out in the county or out in some other part of Texas, Lubbock residents lose their say in how they’re run.
“We lose our chance. We don’t have a say in it. We can’t complain when everything goes wrong afterwards,” Allen said.
Correction: The city would collect roughly $3.3 million every year for a $750 million data center, according to Atkinson’s slideshow presentation. The taxable value of the example data center in this story was corrected and updated.
