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LUBBOCK — What would normally be unassuming, small parcels of land have caught the eye of Lubbock’s city leaders and have residents up in arms.
On Tuesday, Lubbock City Council approved changes to two parcels of land — one to annex an 8-acre tract of land into city limits and another to rezone 52 acres of land from single-family residential to industrial.
The 8-acre tract of land sits in North Lubbock near a rail line, and the other is on the opposite side of the rail line near Interstate 27. Lubbock Economic Development Alliance, or LEDA, requested the changes.
While city leaders haven’t explicitly said what the properties will be used for, residents suspect the locations will serve as a gateway to connecting an industrial site — specifically a data center — to the city’s main utility lines.
Prior to the City Council meeting, a group of residents started a petition that would force the council to vote on an 18-month data center moratorium. Before the petition could be verified, however, the council placed an agenda item to change the two pieces of land.
What resulted was a tense confrontation by residents who cried, shouted and threatened to recall city leaders.
“You can vote with us today, the people that voted and put you in place, or you can watch us do a recall,” said Phyllis Gant, a Lubbock resident and community activist.
Lubbock residents have been embroiled in a monthslong fight with city and county leaders about a possible hyperscale AI data center project. They aren’t the only ones. Texans all over the state have pushed back. Some have successfully gotten data center projects pulled.
Concerned Lubbock residents have taken their worries to meetings all over the city — from City Council to county commissioners. Earlier this month, hundreds of residents packed the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center to once again express their concerns to city leaders. They also held a protest against data centers, which current Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller attended.
Despite several meetings, many residents in Lubbock felt their pleas fell on deaf ears, which is why the petition was created. If the council votes against the moratorium the petition would prompt, the organizers can elect to put it on the ballot in November. This would give Lubbock voters a say on any hyperscale data center developments, and if they approve the moratorium, it would effectively stop all the plans the city has been working on. Organizers are planning to submit the petition and its nearly 2,500 signatures, next week.
Lubbock Mayor Mark McBrayer recently said the council would not be in favor of the moratorium, saying “a lot of what they want to happen during that moratorium, we’ve already been doing.”
Terry Holeman with Hugo Reed and Associates, a land surveying and planning firm working with LEDA, said one of the properties was never purposely zoned as residential and the label was the result of when the property came into city limits.
Councilwoman Christy Martinez-Garcia, who represents a district that is largely in Lubbock’s industrial zone and voted against the zone change, asked Holeman directly if the property will be used for a data center. Holeman deferred to John Osborne, LEDA’s president, who told Martinez-Garcia neither piece of land would be conducive for a data center development.
Osborne said one piece of land has a rail line going through the property, and the other has narrow dirt roads. The annexation would help them connect utilities to the smaller land. He said the bigger piece of land is good for a manufacturer, but not a regular-sized or hyperscale data center. “While technically a data center could go on a property like this, it’s not the highest and best use for that property,” Osborne said. “A data center could potentially go there, [but] I don’t anticipate a data center ever going there primarily because we’re trying to put the highest and best use for properties.”
Stephen Sanders, one of the organizers of the petition, spoke to the council and encouraged members to listen to their humanity.
“If you approve this, tomorrow morning, I believe LEDA will take a permit out for a data center,” Sanders said.
Sanders also said if the council does approve a data center, the citizens will “have to recall you.” His statement was met with applause and cheers from the crowd.
Speaking with The Tribune, Osborne said he did not know about the timeline of the petition or when it was going to get turned in. The land annexed is not being marketed to data centers, he said, and they submitted the request to the council before Tuesday. However, LEDA owns the 377 acres around the property, and is allowed to have utilities go through the site. The annex brought the land into city limits so LEDA can use the city’s utility services.
“We’re not trying to market this property to data centers. We’re trying to market it to manufacturers that need rail service,” Osborne told The Tribune. “I don’t understand all the major concerns being presented because that’s not our intention. Our intention is to bring the manufacturer here because that’s the highest and best use of it.”
Tensions flared during the meeting. Martinez-Garcia tried to calm the crowd by saying residents can meet with council members individually instead of making assumptions on where people stand on an issue. She also said LEDA is not a bad organization and has to work with sensitive information. Someone in the crowd responded by cursing at Martinez-Garcia.
“We are very aware of your interests, but we also have to have a balance,” Martinez-Garcia said. “So just be understanding of any decisions that are made.”
Brayden Rose, an outgoing council member, said the city can help with some resources that people are concerned about, such as providing water. He reiterated that a data center would not be going up in that location.
“We’ve already come up here and said a data center is not going here,” Rose told the crowd, who began talking back to him.
Sanders said the annexation approvals do not stop the purpose of their petition since it is aimed at the possible hyperscale data center. He said the meeting Tuesday was an opportunity for people to see how LEDA and city leaders operate.
“We are still on the right path,” Sanders said. “We will be able to stop those big massive hyper-scale projects, and that is a blessing.”
On Tuesday night, hours after the council meeting ended, a local news station revealed a partnership between LEDA and CORVA, a data center company. The deal was approved last month to put a small data center in East Lubbock. The plan for “Project Infrared” is for a 50,000-square-foot inference data center within city limits. Osborne confirmed it is not connected to the zoning cases debated Tuesday.
“We purposely had not announced that project coming to Lubbock primarily because it’s not a done deal,” Osborne told The Tribune. “They still need to get their interconnect with ERCOT through Lubbock Power and Light, and if that fails to happen then they would not end up coming to that site at all.”
Osborne said he has heard the concerns residents raise about data centers. At the same time, he said, he hears about people wanting lower tax rates and the way to do that is with an increased tax base.
“While not every data center is a good project for Lubbock, there are projects that are out there that fulfill the needs of those that want additional properties on the tax rolls at significant amounts,” Osborned said. “As well as ones that don’t use our local resources in a way that would be difficult for our community.”
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