Millville joins NJ local bans on AI data centers, as Kenilworth plan rankles locals
💻 More NJ towns ban AI data centers amid fears over energy use, noise and environmental impact.
🏘️ Local officials say facilities could strain power grids and disrupt communities.
💻 Residents are divided as huge AI projects move forward in Vineland and Kenilworth.
Another handful of New Jersey communities have banned data centers as concerns mount about long-term impacts.
In Cumberland County, Millville adopted its own ban on Tuesday after a month of debate.
As artificial intelligence explodes across the country, communities in New Jersey are increasingly finding themselves on the front lines of a growing fight over what it takes to power the AI boom.
Massive data centers — the warehouse-sized facilities that fuel everything from ChatGPT to cloud computing — are drawing backlash over fears about soaring electricity demand, which has been blamed for New Jersey's skyrocketing electric utility bills this year.
There's also worry about water consumption and nonstop industrial noise.
New Jersey officials are now scrambling to decide whether the promised jobs and local tax revenue — desperately needed to mitigate some of the highest property tax bills in the country — are worth the long-term costs
Millville joins growing list of NJ towns banning AI data centers
In Millville, a company dubbed A1 Data had been pitching a 66-acre project, though no plan was ever submitted to the city, officials confirm to New Jersey 101.5.
“Engineered for Hyperscale Dominance,” according to a speculative website for the project.
The A1 Data Center campus could have spanned up to 2.9 million square feet with “heights expandable up to 150 feet for multi-story data center operations,” the website said.
Millville Mayor Dan Dixon said in a Thursday call to New Jersey 101.5 that their ordinance against any data centers being built was about being proactive and cautious, and not a responsive to any specific proposal.
Dixon shared the motivation for the ban in a Facebook video on April 7.
“There have been a lot of concerns — we’re concerned about water usage, we’re concerned about pollution, we’re concerned about noise,” he said.
“Power usage concerns — there’s a lot of concerns that when you’re using more power than an entire two or three cities use in one spot, that the supply and demand causes electrical bills and gas bills to go up.”
Millville’s ordinance also amends the city’s master plan, spelling out definitions of warehouses, fulfillment centers and telecommunications facilities to close possible loopholes used by developers around the country.
A massive AI data center already more than halfway finished in Vineland has appeared to be a driving force in this wave of bans.
That DataOne/Nebius facility is being expanded to about 2.6 million square feet.
Read More: Concerns rise over noise and environment at Vineland data center
More New Jersey municipalities move to stop AI server farms
In Gloucester County, Harrison Township has also adopted its own local ban on AI data centers, Harrison Mayor Adam Wingate said Wednesday.
Logan and Monroe townships have similarly adopted bans in the past two months.
In Monroe, the ban squashed a planned facility by Hexa Builders.
On Tuesday, the Monroe Planning Board denied an application for a proposed warehouse and data center on 172 acres of farmland along the South Black Horse Pike.
In Burlington County, Pemberton Township was among the first to adopt a local ordinance back in February, prohibiting construction and operation of data centers.
In April, Waterford Township and Phillipsburg also both approved similar ordinances that bans data centers in all zoning districts.
Read More: Andover NJ data center meeting erupts into clash with police
After initially exploring plans for a data center, Andover officials did an about-face and introduced a local ban on such projects.
Massive public turnout and online response to a meeting that got physical were met by the ordinance, which is slated for a vote next week.
Read More: Andover Township moves to ban data centers after meeting chaos
Frustration mounts over high-profile project in Union County
It is a different story in Union County, where many residents have grown frustrated by CoreWeave’s plan to build an AI data center at the former Merck property it bought last year.
The pharmaceutical giant launched its massive Kenilworth campus, along Galloping Hill Road just off the Garden State Parkway, in 2015. It then sold the entire 108-acre, 2-million-square-foot facility in 2023.
CoreWeave — an AI cloud-computing company now based in Roseland backed by Nvidia — first leased one of the buildings at the Northeast Science and Technology Center (NEST). It then bought the vacant campus for $322 million and has been working toward a roughly 400,000-square-foot data center for almost two years, after Gov. Phil Murphy signed the state’s Artificial Intelligence incentives legislation into law.
Read More: NJ data center bans grow as towns push back on AI projects
PSE&G said they would be readying the area’s electrical infrastructure to support the energy needs of the new data center facility in Kenilworth when the deal was first announced in November 2024, ROI-NJ reported.
At that point, PSE&G was already serving over 30 large data centers.
Both AI data centers in Vineland and Kenilworth were highlighted in an NJ Spotlight report in December about the looming demand on the region’s already slammed electrical grid.
Residents clash over economic benefits and environmental fears
Borough Council meetings have been packed as word of the project has spread.
Kenilworth Mayor Linda Karlovitch has defended the project, pointing to the heavy loss of tax revenue from Merck.
“As one of Kenilworth’s largest ratables, its departure could have resulted in a devastating financial impact on our taxpayers,” Karlovitch, a Democrat, said in a Facebook post in April.
“Through strategic rezoning and a forward-looking redevelopment plan, we transformed what could have been a severe economic setback into a substantial financial opportunity.”
She also countered some of the concerns about the impact on the electrical grid and water usage.
“This project leverages the property’s existing infrastructure, including a dedicated power substation that has reliably operated 24/7 for decades. Additionally, the facility will utilize a closed-loop cooling system. The cooling system works like a home or car central air conditioning. There will be no water usage or evaporation,” Karlovitch said.
The mayor said that specifically chosen equipment and barrier walls around the chiller equipment would dampen most of the noise at the data center.
Despite those reassurances, residents voiced doubt that the electrical and environmental impact will stay contained within the old Merck campus.
A Facebook public group "Stop CoreWeave's Data Center in Kenilworth, NJ" had just over 200 members late Wednesday.
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