Officials in a small New Jersey community are moving to remove data centers from a redevelopment plan after weeks of opposition from residents. The change comes after weeks of backlash from the community of Wallington, a borough in Bergen County, who feared a proposed ordinance would pave the way for data centers to be built across 33 acres of land near a number of homes. Officials have now revised the wording in the project on a former dairy site, removing the mention of data centers.
"The Redevelopment Plan is hereby amended to remove all references to ‘Data Centers,’" an official borough notice stated. The land once housed the Farmland Dairy plant, which processed milk until 2014. The plant was later demolished, and the land was designated for redevelopment in January 2023.
But it was not until August 2026 that Ordinance 21 was introduced. While no data center had been formally proposed, the redevelopment amendment explicitly listed data centers as a permitted use and set standards for infrastructure associated with them, fueling residents' concerns that one could be built there later. Wallington resident Simon Sikorski has documented a number of public records relating to the project and argued that the August 2026 Ordinance 21 "rewrites the rules for what can be built on the property." Wallington Mayor Melissa Dabal said in a statement on September 10, "There are no proposals, plans, or applications, written or otherwise, from the property owner to construct a data center that have been presented to the Planning Board or to the mayor and council." Newsweek reached out to Mayor Dabal via email for comment.
But residents remained unconvinced, and subsequently packed a September Planning Board meeting as opposition to the proposal grew. The distinction became central to the dispute: residents were not arguing that a data center had already been approved, but that adopting the redevelopment plan could make one possible in future. This concern led to officials presenting a reworded ordinance that is scheduled to be introduced on October 29.
This will remove data centers from the redevelopment plan entirely. The rapid development of data centers across the U.S. has become a political flashpoint ahead of November’s midterm elections, with residents and lawmakers voicing concerns over the facilities' potential electricity and water consumption, and environmental impacts. President Trump has backed data center building, arguing that areas that reject the developments risk becoming "backwards and poor," but research shows that Americans’ views on data center projects have soured.
In September data from the Pew Research Center found that more than half of Americans (54 percent) said that data centers are mostly bad for the environment, up from 39 percent in January, while 49 percent said they are mostly bad for people’s quality of life nearby. It is also a key issue among New Jersey voters. A Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released October 16 found 72 percent opposed a data center being built in their own town or city, while 21 percent supported one.
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