Pushback to a planned data center near Nashville’s zoo has been gaining political support in recent days, including from Mayor Freddie O’Connell and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who is also running for governor.
O’Connell signed an executive order Monday directing Metro departments to study potential impacts of large-scale data centers, and putting his support behind a Metro Council effort to pause permits for such facilities. The order requires Metro departments to report their findings and make policy recommendations within two months.
“We don’t want the potential negative impacts of large-scale data centers in our neighborhoods, so in partnership with the Metro Council, we’re taking action to ensure we put proper regulations in place before any more of these things are proposed,” O’Connell said in a statement. “We’ll work with Metro departments and the Metro Council to ensure Nashville remains a place where our residents’ health and safety always come first.”
Nashville already has 13 data centers built or in development. But a recent effort to build one near the Nashville Zoo has sparked massive community pushback.
A petition, started by the zoo, has more than 400,000 signatures in opposition. Celebrities, like country star Brad Paisley, have spoken out against it. And hundreds of residents showed up last week at a public hearing of the Metro Planning Commission to rally against it.
Blackburn also released a video on social media saying that, while data centers are “going to be a good and important part of Tennessee’s economic growth,” the data center by the zoo needs to be revisited.
“There are so many communities across the state who want data centers,” Blackburn said. “But we’ve got to look at this placement of this data center up against the Nashville Zoo, which is a very important educational resource for our children, and it’s also an important economic engine. So, since there are so many counties that want these, communities that want these, let’s be careful on this placement.”
Like Nashville, many communities in Tennessee have expressed opposition to such facilities. At least nine rural cities or counties in Tennessee have set up moratoriums on construction, and several others are considering their own.
Nashville’s proposed moratorium, which has advanced on the first of three required votes, would pause new permit acceptances or approvals until November, or until the council passes a different measure enacting zoning restrictions around data centers.
Like the moratorium, those zoning restrictions have only been approved on the first of three votes. If passed, that measure would create an outright ban on data centers over 500,000 square feet (like Elon Musk’s xAI facility in Memphis), and establish limitations around smaller facilities.
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