David Fleisher has promised there will be no AI data centers in the township while he’s mayor.
“We are already in the process of researching the best way to get in front of that issue,” Fleisher said at council’s May 26 meeting. “I’ll go as far as to say that there won’t be a data center built in Cherry Hill while I’m mayor. But we know that that needs to be memorialized.
“Council and I are committed to making sure, with the help of attorneys, that we’re taking the right steps to making that a reality.”
Jeffrey McKenzie asked council during public comments at the meeting to take action.
“Across New Jersey and the country, we’re seeing substantial impact from data centers to electricity bills and water supplies,” he explained. “The AI hyperscale data center in Vineland for example has been the topic of countless news stories regarding the noise emitted and the massive scale of the project just up the road from people’s housing. And residential communities are also being affected by this now.”
McKenzie pointed to a data center in East Greenwich proposed to the township on May 19 by American Tower. He asked council at its meeting if it would support the general ban, citing a sample ordinance put forth by the Pineland Alliance, a conservation group based in Southampton, adopted in Pemberton Township.
“We have the opportunity here to be proactive and prevent something like this from happening in our community as well,” McKenzie noted. “I’m asking you, the council – as well as individually – if you’d like to speak for yourself in the next section of the meeting, if you would be for an ordinance that bans the construction of data centers in Cherry Hill.”
Data centers have become a flashpoint in municipalities across the state and nationwide that have approved ordinances banning them, in part, because of public concerns. Monroe Township passed its ban on April 22; a proposed ordinance in East Windsor Township would do the same until the end of 2027.
Residents have cited concerns about water use, noise pollution and energy consumption from data centers; they require higher cooling requirements compared with a space only used for cloud storage.
According to Pew Research, there are more than 3,000 active data centers in the U.S. More than 1,500 of them are currently in development, mostly in the South and Midwest, and 67% in rural areas. Virginia and Texas are the states with the highest number of planned and active facilities.
The issue has prompted Gov. Mikie Sherill to announce a set of guardrails. They include legislation that would require data centers to pay for their own energy and require them to publicly report energy and water use every six months.
As for the mayor’s pledge, his office did not respond to a request for further comment.
