The Vineland Planning Board voted 8-1 late Monday to approve the second phase of the DataOne AI data center campus, a 2.6-million-square-foot project that will be one of the East Coast's largest when complete. The vote came after a meeting that stretched past 11 p.m. and drew shouts of "You sold us out!" from residents who have spent months fighting the project over noise, water use, and flooding concerns.
The approval clears the way for DataOne to add hundreds of outdoor cooling fans, an onsite natural-gas power system, a water-treatment plant, a covered 27-million-gallon reservoir, and a 1.5-million-gallon liquefied natural gas tank. The facility is expected to draw about 300 megawatts of power and use millions of gallons of water annually to cool its equipment.
Netherlands-based Nebius Group will operate the AI equipment under a five-year, $17.4 billion computing agreement with Microsoft. At least three data halls with servers are already operating on the site, which sits in a heavily agricultural part of the city surrounded by farms and residential neighborhoods, about a mile from a public school.
Residents cite noise, unanswered questions
The vote followed two lengthy hearings, including an Aug. 5 session that lasted six hours and ended at midnight without a decision. Residents living within a mile of the site described sleepless nights from a persistent hum generated by the facility's equipment.
"I would put my children to bed and hear this humming sound going off the windows in our house, off our metal roof, and it would never go away," said Andrew Gretsch, who lives on Hance Bridge Road. He said the sound often continued through the night and into the morning.
The Cumberland County Department of Health cited DataOne earlier this year for violating nighttime noise ordinances. The noise is also the subject of a proposed federal class action lawsuit accusing the company of creating a nuisance for more than 1,000 nearby households, according to court documents. DataOne has attributed much of the disturbance to temporary construction activity and told the board a 35-foot sound wall would be completed by October.
Stormwater management drew sharp debate. Clay Emerson, a professional engineer with Princeton Hydro testifying for project opponents, said the proposed drainage system is undersized and could overflow during heavy rain, sending water toward neighboring properties. DataOne's engineer pushed back, saying the system meets state requirements.
Other residents said their trust in the company has eroded as project details changed over time. "Every time we hear from them, something has changed," Vineland resident Nicole Gardner told the board. "So it doesn't really give us any confidence that they actually know what they're doing."
Board acknowledges public process failures
Before the vote, the city's solicitor said data centers had been deemed an allowed use under the property's zoning in February 2024, leaving the board with little legal basis to reject the latest plans. The board approved the original project later that year, followed by amended plans in 2025.
Planning board member John Cassidia cast the lone dissenting vote, saying too many environmental and safety questions remained unanswered. "We need a thorough investigation of all the unanswered questions before this project should move forward," he said.
Board members conceded the project was poorly communicated to the public. Planning board member Dave Catalano said the city should have held more public meetings, provided clearer notices, and kept its online zoning maps updated. "As a city, we could have done much better with this," he said.
Why this matters for real estate and construction professionals
This project is a case study in how AI infrastructure is colliding with local land-use rules. The Vineland board had little legal room to reject the plans once data centers were classified as an allowed use - a zoning decision made quietly in early 2024. For developers and contractors working on similar projects, the lesson is that community opposition can delay approvals and shape design, but it rarely stops a project once zoning is settled.
The scale of the buildout also signals what future AI data center contracts will look like: multi-billion-dollar operating agreements, on-site power generation, and water treatment as standard components rather than add-ons. Construction firms that can deliver these integrated systems - and manage the public relations burden that comes with them - will have a competitive edge as more of these campuses move through approval processes across the state.
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