Spartanburg County leaders say they only recently learned of proposed data center. Some residents aren’t buying it.

SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - Some Spartanburg County residents are questioning whether county leaders knew about a proposed data center at 300 Jones Road long before they say they did.

County Council voted Monday to direct staff to draft a one-year moratorium on data centers. Several council members said they only took up the moratorium after recently learning a data center was being proposed for the site.

But some residents say that does not add up, arguing the project at 300 Jones Road has been discussed publicly for months.

Public discussion dates back to March

Fox Carolina reported on the proposed data center in March. Wharton Digital’s planned partnership with Lighthouse Data Centers called for the development of a 151-acre data center campus at 300 Jones Road. Public records showed the property had been acquired by an affiliate of Lighthouse Data Centers.

On March 16, Spartanburg County resident Courtney McClain spoke at length about her concerns regarding the proposed data center during a public meeting.

Spartanburg County resident Emory Caraviello said a group of residents has met with some council members for months to discuss concerns about the proposed data center at 300 Jones Road.

“I think it’s just a very interesting way to finally bring it to the public in forms of a moratorium when we’ve known about this for a few months now, at least,” Caraviello said.

Council says permit filing changed their view

County Councilwoman Jessica Coker said council was aware of Project Lighthouse but did not believe it was an active proposal until a permit request was filed for the address.

“We were aware of this Project Lighthouse, as we named it Project Lighthouse. However, I was pretty confident. Council was pretty confident. Administration was pretty confident, given past history, that companies tend to explore other locations once council made a decision not to offer tax incentives for these types of projects,” Coker said.

Coker was referring to a February discussion in which council said it did not intend to offer tax incentives for data center projects.

“So that’s when we said, okay, this could be a real project. And so we want to make sure that we put the brakes on this and give us time to evaluate,” Coker said.

Coker also said a permit related to the project had recently been filed. Due to an internet outage affecting Spartanburg County offices, those records were not available Tuesday.

Timing raises questions

County Council members Jack Mabry and Jessica Coker are both seeking re-election this year. Early voting began one day after council announced plans to draft a data center moratorium.

Some residents questioned the timing.

“I think election season has brought up some very interesting tactics,” Caraviello said.

Coker said the timing was based on when the project applied for a permit.

“It is the timing of when the project applied for their permit. And we needed to respond. That just happened to fall around the same time,” Coker said.

Caraviello said she and others have been speaking with council members about their concerns for months.

“I don’t really understand why they would have presented this as an option to stop new data centers until regulation was coming back in March, and now we’re still having this conversation in June,” Caraviello said.

When asked whether council should have been considering a moratorium before Monday, Coker said that if council had been thinking about a moratorium, “the clock would have already started.”

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