Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...SAN JOSE — Subdivision proposals typically make for dull and routine hearings, but a recent San Jose decision to split most of a tech campus into two parcels spurred opponents to denounce a data center proposed for the site.
San Jose city planners have given final approval to the subdivision of a 157.4-acre parcel that is within a 176.3-acre tech campus occupied by Western Digital.
Residents generally ignore such matters. But not this time.
A city staff decision on Aug. 12 to split the parcels sparked dozens of speakers to voice their opposition to a data center proposed for one of the two sites that resulted from the subdivision.
“I’m concerned that the subdivision could lead to more industrial uses and the data center,” said Sonal Nayak, a resident of the area where the computing hub is proposed. “It could increase traffic, noise, energy use and demand for water.”
The proposed data center is being eyed on a rectangular 15.5-acre parcel on Charlotte Drive between Raleigh Road and Lexington Avenue in South San Jose, city planning documents show.
The other and much larger parcel totals 141.9 acres and is being retained by San Jose-based Western Digital for its ongoing South Bay operations at and near 5601 Great Oaks Parkway.
“The subdivided land would be an excess component that Western Digital hopes would be made available for another entity to take the project forward,” Jason Victor, a Western Digital representative, said at the hearing, referring to the smaller parcel and the planned data center.
Besides the tech campus, numerous homes, shops, restaurants and medical hubs are located near the data center’s proposed site.
“It seems like this subdivision is the first step leading to a project that will become a data center,” said a speaker who identified herself only as Stacy H. on the Zoom conference call for the public hearing.
One speaker warned that “thousands” of residents are poised to oppose the data center when that proposal proceeds through a full review.
“We need a lot more transparency about this subdivision,” a speaker who used the name Abhinav T. stated on the Zoom call.
Now that the subdivision has been approved, a tentative map will be published for the new parcel boundaries.
“It’s the first step,” city planner Manuel Atienza said during the hearing. “Tenative maps do not authorize new construction, nor do they serve as approval of a project.”
Although current residents of the growing number of residential hubs in the area are concerned about the data center, tech operations on the campus have preceded the vast majority of the existing uses, often by a span of decades.
The site has continuously been a tech campus since 1957, when IBM began operating on the property, later being succeeded by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and then Western Digital. The tech campus was established even prior to the 1974 opening of Kaiser’s huge medical center near Cottle Road and Highway 85.
The data center is expected to total 444,400 square feet. An existing building on the 15.5 acres would be bulldozed.
City planners have begun a separate review of the data center proposal.
“The city is very aware about the community’s concern over data centers,” Manira Sandhir, San Jose’s deputy planning director, said during the hearing.