At a Sept. 24 hearing, the Baltimore City Council’s Land Use and Transportation Committee recessed consideration of a bill that would require data centers to obtain conditional-use approval and undergo a Health Equity Assessment. It did not vote on the bill or recommend it to the full council at that meeting.
Bill 26-0174, sponsored by Phylicia Porter and six other council members, proposes to make data centers a conditional use by ordinance and require a Health Equity Assessment for a data center conditional use. The proposal would put a planned data center through an individual approval process with a health equity review. The bill’s purpose statement does not establish what the assessment must measure or whether it could stop a project.
Despite the lack of progress, many locals showed up to the hearing to tune in to legislator proposals and shared their concerns about data center construction in Baltimore with The News-Letter.
Musician Black Assets said, “I’m just here to support Baltimore black and brown communities. My stance is simple. We need more resources allotted into the community, poured into our rec centers, our schools, our neighborhood. We need assistance with our energy bills with all the prices that increase. Our communities have always needed more from our government. Unfortunately, these data centers aren’t coming through alongside us, in support of us. In a community first mindset, [they] would be taking more from a community that is already in a sort of deprivation.”
Dustin Branch, a Baltimore Regional Coordinator of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an organization focusing on preventing climate change, spoke about his concerns with the The News-Letter.
“Seeing incredible grassroots, average everyday working class people coming together and speaking out. People all over Maryland and all over the country are struggling. We are in a cost of living crisis that is created by the very same companies that are trying to move into our neighborhoods... I live in Mount Vernon. I’m close by to several data centers here in the city...This AI speculation, every single person that runs these AI companies was at the [presidental] inauguration.”
A social worker in Baltimore named Mars commented, “Data centers are really bad and there are really very few upsides to them... We should recognize that this bill does nothing because data centers are very unhealthy for the world. My purpose in coming here is to oppose the bill on the principle that having a health equity angle on data centers would only create the impression that there is such a thing as a healthy data center.”
The News-Letter had the opportunity to speak to electricians who shared their perspectives on how data centers would harm Baltimore residents.
Babatunde Salaam, a local electrician, shared his thoughts about the bill in an interview with The News-Letter.
“The grid that we are all reliant on is strained as is. Maryland imports 40% of its energy. That is not sustainable. The bill that’s proposed would allow for further drainage of 25, 30, 50 mega Watt or even larger. Those [data center projects] would further erode our grid infrastructure, while providing absolutely no benefit to the city and the benefits, as well as being tax-exempt.”
Tewodoros Desta El added, “Many [minority based contractors] are [supporting data center construction] because they believe they just want to be in front of whatever technological advancements data centers bring... They feel themselves to be a stepping stool for helping uplift black communities, especially in Baltimore City... On the workforce level and on the company level, there may be a need for workers because they need money now and there may be a hope for contractors who would like to make money off the data centers. But at the end of the day, you can’t rush to hope to be the savior for the Black community right now when its a still long term effort for this because you still have to protect the community itself and also respect the wisdom of the community who are not the contractors, who are not the current workers, but also for the neighbors who have to walk one block up and all of a sudden they deal with pollution,“ he continued.
Desta El’s comments highlight a tension between minority communities who could benefit from the jobs added by data center constructions and the potential marginalization those same communities could face from pollution and energy usage brought by the centers.
Salaam and Desta El spoke about their advocacy to city council members to spur other types of development projects that could increase employment in the black community. They shared project ideas like sustainable energy and mass transit that could help alleviate Baltimore city congestion problems and provide work to thousands of residents. They hope that city legislators would pursue projects that benefitted community residents and promoted public spaces instead of benefitting private contractors.
The next step is for the Land and Transportation Committee to continue considering the bill and decide whether to amend it and vote. There is reason to believe that the bill will undergo significant changes before being brought to a vote. The Planning Commission recommended disapproval and encouraged city council members to pause deliberations until the release of a city study of data centers, which is expected in March 2027. The Law Department raised further issues about conflicts between the bill and the city’s current data center moratorium as well as concerns about giving the Health Department the power to block a zoning approval.
