INDIANTOWN, Fla. — Indiantown council members voted 4-1 against pausing data center applications Tuesday, opting instead to seek a new legal opinion and lawsuit-proof language before taking action.
The vote came after hours of public comment from residents divided over whether hyperscale data centers belong in the rural village.
Carroll McAlister, who has lived in Indiantown her whole life, said she worries about what large-scale development means for the community.
"We have lost and are losing our rural lifestyle," McAlister said.
She said she fears data centers would accelerate that change.
"I do not want it to turn into an industrial corridor," McAlister said.
Other residents echoed her concerns during the meeting.
"I do not support what's going on with these data centers. I don't support, you know, taking agricultural land away," one resident said.
"Slow down; study the profound, irreversible risks that they pose," another said.
Not everyone opposed the projects. One speaker urged the council to keep options open.
"Vote down on this one year pause and to keep this door open — keeping the door open does not approve data centers, but it means giving us time to learn it," the resident said.
Another argued the developments could benefit the village if handled correctly.
"I think smart development can really help improve the lives of people, and these data centers, if zoned appropriately, can be a game changer for the village," the resident said.
During the meeting, an attorney for Silver Fox 606, a proposed data center project in Indiantown, threatened to sue if the village moved to pause data center projects.
Concerns over the language of the proposed resolution was ultimately why council members opted to seek additional legal guidance before acting.
"Our responsibility is to understand both what the law prevents us from doing and what authority remains available to this village," one council member said.
Some residents left the meeting feeling cautiously optimistic that the village could still find a path forward.
"There's a common ground that says we need to take a pause and that pause needs to be that if we're going put 12 million more square feet of roof in this town that our infrastructure at a governmental level can handle that," resident Eric Miller said.
The data center debate came during a turbulent meeting for Indiantown leadership. Just two weeks after three new council members unseated incumbents, the city manager was fired, the city attorney resigned, and Michael Giardino was named interim city manager just one week after losing his city manager job in Stuart.
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