Housing & Environmental Advocates Urge Montvale Mayor to Drop Data Center from Affordable Housing Plan
At Tuesday’s Montvale Council meeting, residents and advocates spoke out against the borough’s proposal to develop a 322,822-square-foot hyperscale data center alongside new affordable housing units as part of its settlement with the S. Hekemian Group.
Data centers are large industrial buildings that house computer servers. In the last few years there has been a surge of data center development across the US tied to the artificial intelligence and crypto boom, driving up energy costs and water usage.
“A data center has no place in Montvale, and no place directly adjacent to a housing development,” said Paula Rogovin, volunteer with Food & Water Watch. “Data Centers like the one that would be allowed under Montvale’s settlement drive up utility rates, drain precious water resources, create a constant hum often compared to a jet engine, and often house backup generators that release harmful particulate matter and volatile organic compounds. Montvale must drop the data center proposal from its affordable housing settlement.”
In April, the Borough of Montvale submitted a revised settlement agreement for its affordable housing plan for the 44-acre KPMG property located at 3 Chestnut Ridge Road. This agreement would allow the S. Hekemian Group to develop the site with housing units, designating a portion of them as income-restricted affordable homes. The developer would be given the option to create fewer housing units along with a data center under a PILOT.
"Montvale’s decision to tie affordable housing to a data center project is deeply troubling," said Milady Ramos, Policy Analyst at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. "This agreement is not a good faith way to address affordable housing and threatens future residents with severe environmental burdens - ranging from skyrocketing energy bills and contaminated water to unbearable noise pollution. New Jersey families urgently need affordable housing, but not at the cost of their health and well-being."
“Working families are told there’s never enough money to fix roads, improve schools, or make housing more affordable. But somehow there’s always room for tax incentives when a data center comes calling. Montvale should be building homes our state desperately needs, not giving developers the option to replace them with another sweetheart deal for an industry that demands enormous amounts of land, water, and electricity," said Ben Dziobek, Executive Director of Climate Revolution Action Network. "Young people need places to live, not more corporate giveaways.”
“We do not agree that AI and hyper scale data centers represent the future of our economy and labor, or that New Jersey must get onboard with the ‘coming wave of technology.’ The future of our state, our labor force, and our economy is what we craft it to be - and it can be one where all persons have housing, clean water, clean air, and a safe community,” said Brooke Helmick, Director of Policy at the NJ Environmental Justice Alliance. “We urge the Montvale Council to hear the call of their community in prioritizing housing over data centers, and people over profit.”