[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/TheGreen_07252014_1-DataCenterPostMortem.mp3|titles= Delaware Public Media's Tom Byrne and contributor Larry Nagengast discuss where Newark stands following the resolution of the data center controversy.]
The sudden end to the controversy over a proposed data center/power plant at the University of Delaware’s new research campus in Newark may make it easier for residents, government officials and community leaders to smooth over their differences and begin working together, participants in the year-long battle say.
“I’m feeling a lot of love,” says Newark resident Amy Roe, conservation chair of the Delaware Chapter of the Sierra Club and a leader of the grassroots opposition to the project. “People are really excited about the potential to work together with the university, the city and the community to make decisions that would benefit everybody.”
Early this month, the consensus in the city seemed to be that the battle, which included a Superior Court challenge to a city zoning decision and a state hearing on an air quality permit, could easily stretch into the middle of next year.
Then, on July 10, the university, which had signed a 75-year lease that would have permitted The Data Centers, LLC (TDC), to build a data center powered by a 278-megawatt combined heat and power (CHP) cogeneration plant on its Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) campus, the former Chrysler assembly plant site, abruptly backed out of the lease after a committee examining the project determined that it was not consistent with the university’s long-term plans for the campus.
The data center, essentially an office complex for massive computer servers, would have cost $1.8 billion to build and generated an estimated $11 million in annual state, local and school taxes. It was expected to create nearly 300 permanent full-time jobs, though TDC initially touted up to 640 permanent jobs after construction was completed, according to an economic impact study prepared for the company by Econsult Solutions last fall.
However, opponents raised questions about estimates of pollutants generated by the power plant, TDC’s business plan (which called for selling excess electricity generated back to the grid) and whether the power plant was an “accessory” to the data center or the other way around.
The controversy was one that left longtime observers of the city grasping for comparisons. Veteran business journalist Doug Rainey, a former editor of the Newark Post, said he hadn’t seen anything like it in his 20 years in the area. Phillip Bannowsky, a retired auto worker who now teaches English part time at the university, reaches back to the 1960s, the era of the civil rights movement, when protesters targeted two racially segregated institutions in the city, the Deer Park Hotel and the Newark Country Club, which also would not accept Jews as members.
“We need to be proactive and work together to make a better community,” says Jennifer Wallace, chairman of Newark Residents Against the Power Plant (NRAPP), the grassroots group that led the opposition. “The way to do that is to be engaged.”
Wallace says the group’s leaders and many of its members “believe there is a need moving forward for residents to become more involved” in city government. The group has a mailing list of about 600 people and could often count on about 300 of them to turn out for meetings, protests and other activities.
Mayor Polly Sierer could not help but notice the dedication of NRAPP members during the controversy and is hopeful that, with the controversy seemingly over, some of that enthusiasm can be channeled into working with city government. “We need to corral that involvement and use it to help solve our challenges,” she says.
“I don’t think anybody was too happy with what happened,” adds City Councilman Stu Markham, “but I think we can learn from this and move forward.”
“I see opportunities if people take advantage of them,” Bannowsky agrees, but he warns that “there is a danger if people dig in their heels and feel bitter.”
Bannowsky and others will be watching how the university interacts with the community and with city government.
“The university has a special motivation to make it right [because] they did kind of screw it up” by jumping into the project and signing the lease in 2012 before fully vetting the plans, Bannowsky says.
David Carter, conservation chair of the Delaware Audubon Society, which supported NRAPP, said that while there was “some tainting of the [university] administration” for quickly embracing the plan, “they are in a pretty good situation to rebuild relationships with the community” because it so decisively scuttled the project.
While the university is sometimes viewed in Newark as a behemoth that usually gets its way because of its size and influence, Wallace noted that “one of the things that make our town special is the University of Delaware.” She pointed out that the university adopted some of NRAPP’s arguments in its decision to back out of the lease. “This is a great opportunity for the university to realize that we can actually be partners and work together moving forward,” she said.
“This is about building relationships. Relationships are complex and they take time,” UD Vice Provost Charles Riordan told Newark City Council last week.
Markham notes that the city council is looking at reconstituting its “Town and Gown Committee,” a panel that had tried to maintain steady communications between UD and city hall but had virtually disappeared in recent years.
Several steps have been taken that suggest an easing of tensions and new opportunities for collaboration, but the case is not completely closed.
The city has withdrawn a letter of sponsorship it wrote to the Delaware Economic Development Office in April 2013. That letter paved the way for TDC’s application for a $7 million state grant to pay for some of the project’s infrastructure.
Lawyers for the city and NRAPP agreed to a one-month delay in filing briefs in a Superior Court suit in which NRAPP is challenging an April decision by the Newark Board of Adjustment upholding a zoning verification letter written by the city planning director in January. There is some question as to whether the suit will now go forward. City Manager Carol Houck believes the UD decision may have made the matter moot, but NRAPP and other opponents would like the city to officially rescind the zoning approval that would have permitted construction of the TDC project.
Sierer says the city has begun looking into several issues that came to light during the TDC controversy, including the way “neighborhood” is defined in the city code and whether a better city noise ordinance is needed.
Markham thinks the city has to look closely at its entire zoning code, giving special consideration to “what we feel is acceptable manufacturing [uses in the city] and standards for power generation facilities.” And, he says, “we have to make sure we don’t do anything that limits clean energy.”
Houck and Markham also agree that developers should be required to provide more detailed information than TDC did before the city’s planning and zoning officials begin reviewing project proposals.
Sierer cautions that although NRAPP succeeded in its campaign to derail the TDC project, its membership should not necessarily be equated with the feelings of a majority of Newark residents.
“The organizations that have been most active are not necessarily representative of the entire community, but that’s usually how it happens anyway,” she says.
Houck hopes that the TDC episode will lead to greater involvement by residents in city government. She plans to be more proactive too. “We’re looking at maybe doing more surveying on topics that are coming up,” she says. “We need to find a way to reach out on a more regular basis to more people.”
Carter lamented that a lack of transparency in state and city government enabled the TDC project to advance without insufficient vetting before citizen activists raised enough questions to prompt a more detailed review.
“I hope they learned the lesson that they need to be more open and engaging,” he says. “Public pressure is part of the governing process and I think we need a lot more of it.”
To some extent, Markham agrees. “This was a wake up call to the city staff and council. Something went wrong here and we’ve got to fix that.”
But the fixes must be enacted with care. “It’s hard to write a good law and easy to write a bad one,” he says.