Palm Beach County hearing on Project Tango draws hours of opposition over noise, water and precedent

County staff presented a master-plan amendment Tuesday that would add roughly 1.5 million square feet to an Economic Development Center (EDC) master plan in western Palm Beach County, potentially taking the plan’s total toward the mid‑millions of square feet and increasing the portion allowed for data/information/processing uses.

Wendy (zoning/planning staff) told commissioners the property now totals about 202.67 acres and that the original development order from 2016 authorized 2,020,000 square feet of EDC uses including warehouse, data/information/processing and other light-industrial uses. She said applicants can swap uses administratively within that square-foot cap if the changes meet the county’s three administrative standards — consistency with the comprehensive plan, compliance with the code and adequate public facilities — but increases above the 5% administrative allowance require a development-order amendment before the board.

The current application asks the board to add about 1,500,000 square feet to the master plan and to approve site-specific conditions staff developed to limit off‑site impacts. Those conditions include landscaping and berming, limits on building heights near adjacent neighborhoods, an 850‑foot setback for data/information/processing buildings from the eastern property line, requirements for generator testing windows, battery siting and fire/environmental safeguards, revised noise studies and limits on lighting.

Commissioners pressed staff on how much of any future data‑center conversion could be handled at the administrative level, how the county would enforce conditions, and whether modern hyperscale AI data centers belong in an EDC category that the county’s comprehensive plan describes as a “light‑industrial” use that typically does not cause undesirable off‑site effects. “This isn’t what was approved in 2016,” said Commissioner [role: Committee member] who pressed whether the project’s scale and continuous operations make it qualitatively different from the traditional data centers the county contemplated a decade ago.

Legal issues were also raised. Tara Dewey, attorney for WPB Logistics (a property owner inside the MPUD), asked the board to postpone consideration so owners could be fully heard and to protect due process; county counsel and the county attorney said a circuit judge denied a motion for a temporary injunction and that state statutory time limits for processing land‑use applications (about 180 days) supported proceeding. The county attorney also said staff had certified the application as sufficient for public hearings.

Opposition presentations combined science and local testimony. Attorneys and national and local experts retained by neighborhood groups argued that hyperscale AI data centers operate 24/7, use far more power per computing task than traditional server farms, and require advanced cooling that generates heat rejection and either large fan arrays or substantial water handling. Earthjustice attorney Christina Rykart told the board those operational differences can create impacts beyond the property line — heat, low‑frequency noise, water and wastewater issues — that the current code does not explicitly address.

Acoustical expert Dr. Santiago Latencio (LM Engineering) said the developer’s noise work lacked complete calibration records, omitted low‑frequency metrics used to assess infrasound, and did not model the full build‑out and the warehouse configurations that are part of the master plan. A water and watershed expert warned that rejected heat or blowdown from closed‑loop systems can alter nearby water temperatures and ecology. Several professional planners testified that if a use causes off‑site impacts, the comprehensive plan’s “light‑industrial” definition would not permit it in an EDC and that the county should create a distinct regulatory category for AI/hyperscale data centers.

The applicant’s allies and an economic-development advocate urged the board to respect property‑rights processes and staff findings. Brandon Tucker of the Florida Landowners Association said the county should apply the standards in the record and the recommendations of professional staff.

Florida Power & Light told the board it has a large‑load tariff and a process to study and require a large load customer (50 MW or greater) to bear the interconnection and infrastructure costs needed to serve the facility so that ordinary residential customers are not subsidizing large users. FPL said it performs system studies and will require any large user to pay for needed upgrades.

Public comment lasted several hours. Dozens of residents from Arden, Loxahatchee and nearby communities — including teachers at the adjacent Saddleview Elementary School — described health, sleep and learning concerns from low‑frequency noise and constant hum, worries about groundwater or chemical cooling agents, fear of heat‑island effects and impacts to wildlife and nearby Everglades resources. Several speakers said zoning and planning commissions had previously recommended denial, and many asked the board to wait for the county’s moratorium and code revisions before taking action.

No final vote was recorded during the period covered by the transcript. The board paused the public comment segment for a break and signaled it would continue its proceedings after the public‑comment period. The record includes competing expert studies and legal briefs; commissioners repeatedly asked for clearer, independent data on noise (especially low‑frequency components), water use and heat rejection before a final decision.

What’s next: the hearing continued after a scheduled recess, and board members said staff would finalize findings and proposed conditions. Commissioners also noted the broader code work already underway — including a moratorium process and potential ULDC revisions — that could change how the county classifies and regulates hyperscale data centers going forward.