Leland town council hears public on budget, approves text amendment defining data centers

LELAND, NC (WWAY) — Leland Town Council held its regularly scheduled meeting Thursday night, where several major topics were discussed.

A brief update was given to the council about the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge replacement project and where that process is right now.

Trevor Carroll with the North Carolina Department of Transportation Division 3 said a date for a public hearing about the bridge would be announced shortly.

Following that, the council held a public hearing for residents to give input about the town’s budget.

Council is still hammering out the details of its $50-million budget, ahead of its approval.

The budget includes a reduction in the tax rate from 27 to 25 cents per $100 of property valuation, $2.5 million dollars for street resurfacing, and several new firefighter and police positions.

Bob Lazaro spoke during the meeting and said he calls it a good news budget.

“It cuts the tax rate by 2 cents, it invests in roads and sidewalks, in programs for Founders Park; public safety, which is critically important; public safety equipment, which is critically important,” Lazaro said.

While the town’s budget has not yet been approved, the council did approve a text amendment to the town’s ordinances regarding the definition of a data center.

Any data centers would have to be built within the town’s innovation district; they couldn’t be built within 500 feet of residences or subdivisions, schools, or agricultural land.

A public hearing was held about the text amendment, where several people voiced concerns about the potential impact on their power bills if a data center were built.

Leland’s text amendment requires data centers to have at least 60 percent of it’s energy consumption come from on-site renewables

Ben Watts, a planning supervisor with the town, said town staff initiated creating this text amendment late last year, as a way to get ahead of any proposals for the construction of a data center.

“We wanted to get ahead and proactively craft some language centered around data center uses specifically,” Watts said. “We noticed, you know, a lot of local municipalities near as well as in the state and across the nation were, were starting to getting the ball rolling on data center ordinance requirements.”

The text amendment was passed by a 4-1 vote, with Frank Pendleton voting against it.