(The Center Square) –Broward County commissioners are considering a yearlong pause on large-scale data center development in unincorporated areas while the county evaluates regulations addressing infrastructure, environmental and land use concerns.
Commissioners held the first of two required public hearings Tuesday on the proposed moratorium. No action was taken. The next public hearing is scheduled for Dec. 8.
The proposal would pause acceptance and processing of development applications while the county determines whether its existing regulations adequately address the facilities’ demands on infrastructure and compatibility with surrounding land uses. The county describes large-scale data centers as facilities with an anticipated monthly peak electrical load of at least 50 megawatts.
The moratorium would remain in effect for one year or until amendments to the county’s code of ordinances become effective, whichever occurs first.
Broward resident Chris Nelson said during the hearing that his opposition to data centers goes beyond concerns about noise pollution and environmental impacts.
“It’s really what do these things represent?” Nelson said. “We don’t want AI coming in and supplanting the human experience and taking our jobs away.”
He said the argument that data centers would be local job creators does not hold water.
“These things don’t bring jobs. They’re staffed by a very minimal amount of people. And they’ll probably be H1Bs too. The idea that these are going to be huge job creators is just ridiculous. And in this case, we’ve got a governor coming in, Governor Elect Data Center Donalds who took tens of millions of dollars from big data centers and he says oh no I’m going to leave it up to the local governments. He wasn’t saying that before.”
Contributions from the data center industry to Friends of Byron Donalds PAC and Donalds’ candidate account totaled at least $2.6 million between June 2025 and June 2026.
Gov.-elect Byron Donalds reiterated his commitment to local control Tuesday.
“What I said on the campaign trail is my commitment. If a local community says no data center, then no data center. Florida will protect water and the people’s electric bill. We will also protect residential neighborhoods,” Donalds said on X.
Broward County is among more than 20 local governments that have either considered or approved a data center moratorium.
This article was originally published by The Center Square and is republished under its open-access guidelines.