Maybe I missed it, but the article doesn't seem to say what the "circumvention"/"loophole" that Amazon used was? It seems like Amazon went through the correct city permitting/legal processes years ago, and now residents want to complain about it years later because data centers are this year's culture war hot topic?
Like if Amazon followed the official process here, what's the problem? At some point you have to declare an approval final and allow a company to move forward with construction.
> ...the site had gone through a long approval process, which required public notices and public-comment periods. However, when Gilroy resident Rosa Rodriguez wanted to state her concern about the damage a data center can do to a region suffering from drought, she was told that the comment period had already lapsed in 2024
Is the "circumvention" the headline refers to that public commentary periods are time-boxed? But how could they not be time-boxed?
In fairness to the residents, the negative implications of data centers was probably not well known to them in 2024, but it seems to me that (at least based on the article) all the processes & rules were followed.
[0] https://www.wsj.com/us-news/how-amazon-built-a-data-center-i...
I mean, yes. Amazon can likely do this. But is this strategy really in keeping with its long term interests? I mean, look at the comments in the rest of this very topic. Do you want a communist insurrection? This is literally how you get communist insurrections. People are fucking pissed, and the bourge^M^M^M^M funding-focused growth-minded startup set here are throwing gasoline on the fire.
Nobody intelligent opposes data center construction.*
* There are weird places that daya centers, solar panels farms, adult stores, and all kind businesses have attempted to build. Opposing a prominent location for an undesirable business is not what we are talking about.
I’m glad they were able to build their datacenter.
Building infrastructure and housing in the US is painfully slow and a huge tax on everyone, almost everything should be fast tracked. We have some of the most productive economic zones in the world (SF <-> LA, Boston <-> DC corridor) and we have made it largely illegal to build housing and transit in these areas due to bureaucracy and red tape.
Do you think the high speed rail between SF and LA needs more rounds of community input?
I hope one day Amazon or any AI company installs a data center next to your home. Then you will finally understand
If someone’s house has a dog that barks continuously, you aren’t going to say building houses here are restricted. Instead you restrict barking dogs, which is what cities do.
The problem here is that the "justice" system is all too happy to come down on individuals, while giving corpos a pass. If you or I buy a loud car stereo, we can get a ticket for making too much noise. Cities can even pass new noise ordinances or new methods of measurement that are post facto of our purchase, and we still have to conform to them! But when a corpo does something similar, the kid gloves go on and their ongoing behavior (eg noise pollution) gets "grandfathered", and there is nothing that anybody can do. Restore the rule of law - meaning equal protection under it rather than one-sided laws written by corpos - to restore the public's trust. But barring that, I'd say it's only smart to prevent this industry from getting a foothold in your community. Most are going to be great neighbors, but the few that aren't you can't do anything about.
Arguably if new information arrives which changes the risks or impacts of a project, especially if the project was initially on some kind of fast-track process, then projects should be subject to re-reviewed and scrutiny (which I would expect to have a standard legal process).
What "new information" arose aside from the general datacenter backlash that's been brewing this year?
This ain’t the culture war. The public at large is fairly united on one side of this across the typical US political divides. If you want to dismiss this with a cute label to pretend that there aren’t any real concerns here, the only label that comes close to matching the actual dispute is class war.
> because data centers are this year's culture war hot topic?
Or because they didn't notice until they saw actual construction.
> There were no public meetings or votes before a lone city staffer gave Amazon.com the green light last July to build a 438,500-square-foot data center on 56 acres of farmland 30 miles south of San Jose.
> Amazon’s project was approved with a single signature—by the town’s community-development director—because it met zoning criteria set 45 years ago for industrial development along a freeway.
> Mayor Greg Bozzo said other big industrial projects have been approved in the same manner over the years, but didn’t cause any uproar.
> “It didn’t bother them that a food-distribution center came to Gilroy without their engagement, but now it bothers them that a data center is coming to Gilroy without them having the possibility of engagement,” Bozzo said.
On it's face this is an incredibly dim-witted comment by the mayor. The people are generally angry about Amazon building data centers, but they're particularly angry at their city council which has been working to conceal the project from exactly the people they have a duty to inform.
It's not about excoriation of Amazon. It's about regulatory capture. And saying Amazon "did nothing wrong" is just being blind to the problem.
[0]: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/how-amazon-built-a-data-center-i...
(Instead of just downvoting this, I'd appreciate it if you could point out exactly what I said is wrong. Thanks.)
*French nobility circa 1789
Should 6 years of planning be thrown away because data centers have recently become fashionable to hate?
rvz•55m ago
Amazon believes that the AI agents need a new home more than humans do and would rather build homes for these agents than for humans.
But of course, the advantages are obvious to them:
1) 24/7 intelligence when you need it.
2) Tokens can be generated cheaply, meaning lots of work for 1 / 100th of the price of a human.
3) Knowledge can stay with the agent and will never leave the company and the agent has no breaks or weekends.
No wonder Amazon saw something like this, wanted it so badly and ignored humans to build more homes for c̶l̶a̶n̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ AI agents. Such a sad state of affairs.
sokoloff•13m ago
I can only imagine the level of outrage that would instantly ensue if Amazon announced they were getting into the home-building business.