County judge vetoes Pulaski County data center ordinance; override of veto expected

Three days after the Pulaski County Quorum Court passed a long-sought ordinance to put legal guardrails around data centers, County Judge Barry Hyde vetoed it, saying the measure went too far and would open the county to expensive lawsuits.

The ordinance, aimed at a data center being planned for the Wrightsville area but applicable to any high-intensity industrial enterprise, passed on an 11-to-4 vote. To override Hyde’s veto, nine votes would be needed. And an override vote is where this is headed, according to Justice of the Peace Julie Blackwood, who sponsored the ordinance. 

“I was expecting it to happen, but I was hoping it wouldn’t,” she said on Friday night. “I was hoping he would listen to his constituents. I think it’s an excellent, excellent ordinance and was written well. I think Wendell (Griffen) did a fabulous job on it. But Judge Hyde doesn’t agree, so we’ll pass the veto. That’s just what we’ll have to do.”

One of the ongoing issues has been whether the county, at this point, can slap regulations on AVAIO Digital, the company behind the Wrightsville data center. Former county attorney Hamilton Kemp warned the justices of the peace that a moratorium – one of the options considered by the Quorum Court – would likely lead to a lawsuit because it would slow down the project.

The measure passed on Tuesday goes into detail on a number of issues, including the permits such an industry would have to get from the county, as well as citations on ways to abate noise, safety requirements, environmental impact and setbacks to buffer the operation from other property owners.

Hyde, who filed the veto with the county clerk’s office on Friday afternoon, repeated the concern that the county could be opening itself up to a lawsuit.

“That leaves the County in a difficult position,” Hyde wrote. “A substantially advanced project could become subject to new restrictions while the central question – whether the owner already possesses legally protected rights – remains unresolved.”

“With projects involving extraordinary levels of private investment, that is not a minor drafting concern,” Hyde added. “It is an invitation to costly litigation over vested rights, due process, contractual interests, and constitutional protections.”

Hyde also said that saying no to this development would close the door on tax proceeds. 

“Projects of this size can produce substantial additions to the local property tax base,” Hyde wrote. “Those revenues can directly affect the resources available to our schools, libraries, and other public institutions. …Those benefits do not buy immunity from regulation, but neither should we pretend they do not matter.”

Griffen, the Democratic candidate for county judge, said on Friday night that Hyde should have been more specific in his objections to the language in the ordinance.

 “(R)aising legal questions is not the same thing as establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework,” Griffen wrote. “Most importantly, his veto does not provide Pulaski County with an alternative regulatory framework. After months of discussion about hyperscale digital infrastructure, Pulaski County residents deserve more than objections. They deserve answers.”

Griffen ended by saying he supported the Quorum Court in overriding Hyde’s veto.

The AVAIO Digital project was first billed as a $6 billion, 150 megawatt data center on the outskirts of Wrightsville. Recently, however, AVAIO purchased about 300 additional acres, bringing its total to about 1,000 acres, with apparent plans to increase the project to 1 gigawatt with an estimated investment of $21 billion.