Good evening.

I would like to call the planning and zoning commission meeting for November 5th, 2025 to order.

Thank you, and let's get started.

Secretary Wright, please conduct roll call.

Abu Baker?

Here.

Lonzel.

Here.

Castignoli?

Here.

Long and ball?

Here.

McDaniel?

Here.

Namas?

Here.

Rogelia.

President.

Robins?

Here.

Wright is here, Madam Chair.

We have a quorum.

Great.

Thank you.

The first order of business tonight is the public forum.

During the public forum, members of the public have the opportunity to address the Planning and Zoning Commission on issues which are not part of tonight's agenda.

Please keep your comments and limited to three minutes.

Also, for the sake of all those in attendance, please refrain from clapping, shouting out in response to comments made by any speaker.

Secretary Wright, do we have anyone signed up for public forum?

No one signed up.

Great.

Thank you.

Our next order of business is public hearings.

There is one public hearing on tonight's agenda.

Because this hearing was continued from the prior meeting, we'll reconvene public comments and then allow for the petitioners' closing remarks to ensure that we have an opportunity to hear from each person wishing to speak.

Please keep your comments specific to the request under consideration and try to avoid repetitive comments.

Also, for the sake of all of those in attendance, please refrain from clapping and shouting out in response to comments made by any speaker.

Following all public testimony, the pet the petitioner will probably provide closing remarks just prior to the closure of the public hearing.

No further public testimony will be taken after the petitioner begins their closing remarks or during the planning and zoning commission's deliberation.

I will now swear in any member of the public wishing to speak.

Those who wish to provide testimony, please stand up.

Please raise your right hand and respond.

I do.

I swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

Thank you.

As noted, the only case on tonight's agenda is the reconvening of the public hearing for DEB-0057-2025, 1960 Lucent Lane, Harris Critical Data Centers.

We will continue hearing from the members of the public who would like to speak on the case.

Again, speakers should avoid repetitive comments, testimony, and questions.

All comments provided at prior public hearings on this case are included in the record in minutes and will be transmitted to the city council as this case moves forward.

Please note that the PCC pie laws state that these meetings conclude at level at 11 p.m.

Unless the meeting is extended by a vote of the commission.

Now I would like to hear from any members of the public present tonight to speak on this case.

Secretary Wright, please call the first speaker.

Olivia Wallace, followed by Joseph Lambert.

Is this thing ready?

Yes, it's on.

Okay, thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Olivia Wallace.

I live in Naper Commons with my daughter and her family.

When we chose to move here, one of the biggest reasons was the clean air and the forest preserves, a place where our family and especially.

Now we've learned of a proposed data center at the edge of our neighborhood.

It would include 12 to 24 diesel generators, diesel exhaust and fine particle pollution are proven to harm lung lung health in critical ways, and even more so for children and anyone with respiratory conditions, let alone the noise pollution that has also been shown to damage health.

I apologize for my emotions.

But a data center of this magnitude running massive backup generators is a whole different level of industry.

Even Naperville's own master plan designates this area for future residence or residential use, not heavy industrial use.

Families moved here for peace, clean air, and nature.

This project doesn't fit that vision or the spirit of what this community was promised.

I urge the council to reject this proposal until it can be located in a true industrial zone away from homes and forests preserves.

Thank you for your time and for protecting the health of families like ours.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Joseph Lambert, followed by clapping.

Joseph Lambert, followed by Rich Jenner.

Good evening.

My name is Joseph Lambert.

I'm a resident of Donata Woods.

We've met.

If I could with a bit of an oral demonstration, Mr.

Butts, would you help me out with this, please?

Want to demonstrate what kind of sound and what levels we're talking about.

Let's try to get 50 dB.

All right.

This is the existing ambient noise of a data center.

Just for demonstration's sake, uh August 12th, my wife and I, who I'm giving this presentation for since she is unavailable this evening.

Uh we took a drive out to Aurora to see the data center at the intersection of Iola and Deal Road.

We took a uh calibrated measurement of the sound from about a thousand feet away in a parking lot across the street.

The levels there were measured at 64 dB.

We then went around Deal Road to one of the neighbors that back up to this to this development, and from 1,500 feet away, the levels were 46 dB.

Fast forward October 18th this year, uh our neighbor uh Nokia, whose property adjoins the property in question for whatever reason had to run their generators for the day.

They have two generators on site.

I don't know any of the specifications on them from 400 feet away, which happens to be the closest town home to the to those uh to that site, 70 dB.

Now you just heard the constant sound.

Uh walking the neighborhood.

Donata woods, we measured 700 feet away from these generators, and it came up at 62.9.

As the day progressed, generators continued to run.

We had a continuous smell of diesel.

We talked with neighbors from the second story of their home, they could feel the vibrations of these generators.

That's two generators running.

The new development is planning somewhere between 12, 24, if a second building goes in, up to 48 of these generators.

I understand rarely will these all be running at once, but they're not going to run them one at a time on their testing days.

So you'll have two, four, six running at one time to get all their testing done.

Generally made it uncomfortable to be outside.

At this uh at the time that uh that we created these uh this information, the local petition, uh, which is called deny the proposed data center, had swelled to 2,829 total signatures.

1,010 of them are from Naperville itself.

Now, my portion of this, I am a telecommunications engineer.

I design fiber optic pathways to facilities just like this.

I'm not here because it's gonna support my business.

In fact, it could affect my business in a small way without having the customers trying to get into this facility, which brings up the point.

Customers are going to want to come into this facility.

They don't work together.

So each time another client wants to come and bring their data via fiber optic cable to this facility, they have to build fiber optics into the facility and across wherever they're coming from, probably Naperville.

So that means every client that comes in very well could be causing disruption to the general public of Naperville with construction of various fiber optic lines.

Uh pulling cable, pulling conduit, cutting across roadways.

I can go on and on with that.

Um I did notice something.

Actually, my my next door neighbor noticed something and pointed it out to me on the uh legislation text.

Page three of five item number eight.

Uh, it's a reference to the cooling center or the cooling systems of the data center.

The last sentence gives us a bit of a concern.

In the event that the cooling system will be replaced with an alternative design that does not comply with the city of Naperville noise regulations or substantially increases the water use associated with the data center, a major change to the conditional use shall be required.

My question would be what happens in the interim.

Will that data center be the uh shut down?

Will they be allowed to continue and then attempt to get a variance because the initial equipment that was provided is not adequate for the task.

These are just uh a few more of the things that concern me with the propriety of the developer and the truth, the truthfulness that they have uh approached the city of Naperville and us, its residents.

Thank you for your time.

Have a good evening.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Rich Janner, followed by Bernie Worley.

Good evening.

My name is Rich Janner.

I reside at 1155 Hibbert Road here in Naperville.

Like to first thank you for your volunteer service to the community.

I've had the honor of serving as your elected Naperville Park District Commissioner for almost 15 years and have evaluated literally hundreds of projects during my tenure.

I feel like I now have a keen eye for what types of projects are a good fit for our community.

I'm here to speak as a resident tonight and not as an elected representative of the park district in any official capacity.

As a Naperville business owner, also for over 20 years, I've always been pro-business, pro-job creation, and fiscally conservative.

That said, I am an adamant opposition to the proposed data center.

This development would be within walking distance of the following.

One Naper Commons Park and Playground.

Two, a sensory garden playground specifically designed to serve children with autism and other special needs across all of DuPage County.

If you're unfamiliar, please visit play for all dupage.org.

Three, forest preserve, prairie path, and natural recreation areas with tranquil bicycle and walking trails.

And of course, quiet residential neighborhoods, all within walking distance.

Data centers by definition are industrial facilities, and this is absolutely not an industrial area.

For anyone hung up on potential jobs and tax revenue, consider that developers of casinos tout the same benefits with the same glossy brochures, professional websites, and digital advertising.

They tout increased employment and greater tax revenue to local governments.

Would anybody here support dropping a casino into a family-friendly community like Naperville?

My point is, of course, the jobs and tax revenue are appealing, but a project has to make sense holistically and long term.

We need to see the big picture.

We shouldn't force in a puzzle piece that doesn't clearly fit.

As for jobs specifically, job creation during construction would be short-lived, while the negative impacts on the community overall could span generations.

Once the monstrosity was constructed, ongoing jobs would be comparatively minimal.

If we let the genie out of the bottle here, it's not going back in, and there's no turning back.

We know the planning and zoning commission doesn't have the final word, but you are the first line of defense against ill-conceived projects like this, and your voice is heard, respected, and important.

In closing, keeping in mind the children that play in these playgrounds and are growing up in the surrounding neighborhoods.

I'd like to quote the late great Dr.

Seuss.

We do not want it here or there, we do not want it anywhere.

We do not want it up or down.

We do not want this thing around.

We do not want it big or small.

We do not want this thing at all.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

It's going to be a long night.

You guys please refrain from clapping out.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Bernie Worley, followed by Sunjay Shaw.

Um good evening, um, ladies and gentlemen of the commission.

Uh, my name is Bernie Weiler, and I am an attorney uh practicing law in the in the state of Illinois.

I've represented many communities, so I understand the nature of these hearings.

Uh, and I do represent a significant number of homeowners uh who are concerned about this project.

Uh so of my understanding of how these uh hearings go, uh I am very, very uh uh uh aware of the uh nature of the repetition that can be done, and so we have constructed our presentations uh in order to uh assuage the repetition that uh had naturally occurs uh in these types of hearings.

One of the things that I wanted to uh first address is the uh nature of the ordinances that um uh and the decisions that have been made based upon uh the ordinances and this process.

Um not too long ago, uh this commission uh approved and made a determination that 250 residential homes should be built in uh the area that is uh uh directly contiguous to this property.

That determination was made that there would be harmony between the residential uses and the uh ORI development uh that was then in existence.

Uh the people who bought those homes with regard to the determinations that were made by this body and by the city council were in agreement with the harmony that was uh that was in place between those two uses.

There was then a change in the ordinance with regard to where do you put data centers with regard to the permitted uses within your zoning ordinances?

And the determination was made that they would be placed in ORI, but only as a conditional use.

So at that time, there was a recognition by this community that data centers were not necessarily the same as the ORI uses that were permitted without further uh without further determination.

These data centers now have been, and so my experience, and I've done um uh quite a bit of work in this area, and uh representing communities such as this.

I knew that 10 years ago, there was competition among communities to bring data centers in.

People that they would say, well, we're starved for development, so we need to have these.

So developers would come in to various communities, and there would be a beauty pageant with regard to which community is going to be embraced by the developer.

And so many of the communities who were not selected said, geez, we're the big losers, and the people who were selected say, Well, our community had a big win.

Those communities who thought they were big winners are now regretting the prize that they accepted into their community.

And there is there is universal evidence to that effect.

The people that I represent, and I believe the people that are here are not here as many.

I know that you see many times that there are people who are anti-development for anything, and it was as oh, think about the children, everybody's gonna die, there's going to be a you know, the the world will be on fire.

This is not the nature of the objections of the people in this room.

The people in this room have carefully studied the the advantageous effect of development in comparison to the deleterious effect that it has on the on the quality of life around them.

And I would just ask for a show of hands of the people who are here who have made a conscientious examination of what the data has shown about the factors that negatively impact upon the uh livability of residences that are near uh data centers.

And so we'd ask the people to show what that uh what their concerns, what generates their concerns, okay, so that there is a plethora of information that is out there that is fueling the interest as to what happens.

Also, the people that I represent are not opposed to data centers.

Data centers, if we want to send pictures to our friends of what we're having for lunch, we need data centers.

Okay, that's just the way of life.

But it's the location of the data centers which is uh which is at issue here.

Okay, and so knowing that uh that these data centers are are an animal that isn't quite quite ORI, we now need to think about how what are they.

We have a community next door, the city of Aurora, who now has a moratorium on data centers.

And the reason for that is that all of the all of the suggestions as to how these data centers that were built relatively recently responded to all of the deleterious effects that were reported throughout the throughout the United States, particularly in Virginia, where there is a it was there's a high concentration of these data centers.

So knowing what these problems are, there were mitigated factors that were placed into those plans.

Those mitigated factors were placed there because there was a known negative effect on the surrounding community.

The problem was nobody knew whether or not those mitigating factors were going to work.

So in essence, anything that we do to mitigate the effects that this has on the uh the surrounding community is an experiment.

And if we are going to conduct that experiment, which is useful to our community, to know that experiment should be placed in an area that is not surrounded by residences and has not been sold on the basis that people wanted to locate their homes in a place that was in harmony with an ORI designation without a special use.

So the people here are depending upon this commission to be the conscience of this community, okay, to take uh to take a decision from neighbor to neighbor to say, is this a wise thing to impose upon our neighbors without the knowledge that we need to have in order to abate the problems that we know have been that have been created in other communities.

One of the problems that has been that has been experienced in Aurora is that people cannot live in their homes.

And the and the mitigating solution was we will put you up in hotel rooms.

We'll pay for you to leave your homes because of what these data centers are doing to your community.

With regard to the mitigating factors, one of the issues, the first issue was it consumed all the water, and it was it was emptying the aquifers and some of the communities.

So the mitigating factor is well, we will air cool these, uh we will air cool these facilities.

The air cooling facilities then became so noisy that people could not sleep around them.

Okay, so then they say, well, we will mitigate that by having these noise uh levels.

And one of the problems with the noise levels is where what are the standards?

So the standards became based upon the decibel level that are admitted by the cooling fans.

However, the decibel level is not necessarily the issue because with sound studies, you have a number of factors, such as uh low tonal emissions, the monotony, the constancy, uh, and the pitch of these things.

And one of the things that was done here today was this is exactly what the data center sounds like, and it was a relief.

How many people were relieved when the uh when that sound stopped?

You can't stop that sound.

Once this is done, once this is done, it's permanent.

You are entitling this developer to this use to operate with whatever with whatever conditions that you set, and we are not qualified to determine what those what those conditions are, because is all we know is that the data centers that have been developed have interfered with the use and enjoyment of contiguous property owners, and it is not fair to sell 250 homes to a community with the prospect that it is harmonious with an ORI use, and then to say, but by the way, we've got uh we've got this other thing called the conditional use for a data center, and one of the problems that we have, so we want to look at the uh at the determinations that you must make today.

Uh one of those is health and safety, and is it going to be deleterious to the public health?

That's above my pay grade, but Dr.

Shaw uh will be following me, and he can give you uh some extremely relevant data on uh that aspect.

But with regard to the impact that it has, the second condition is the impact that it has on the value of homes.

And I've spoken to a number of people that I am representing who say that if this data center is uh is approved, that they will consider or have already determined that they will sell their homes.

Who around here has made that consideration?

So the fact is is that if people are selling their homes because it has become undesirable, the people who are purchasing those homes are going to want to have a uh to have a value that is consistent with accepting an undesirable element.

So that impacts upon your decision with regard to whether or not these data centers uh have a negative impact upon the value of homes.

Uh with regard to, and I won't go on and on because I know a number of people are going to be speaking to uh how this uh how this uh creates an injurious effect to the uh you to the peaceful enjoyment of properties that have already been approved by uh by this process, uh and so that others will be talking about um you know some of the factors, and there'll be a PowerPoint presentation uh made.

But one of the salient points, and I want to emphasize, and I know that we're not supposed to be repeating it, but when you uh when this conditional use is done, it is based upon a development agreement.

And we heard a very very salient um point of the development agreement that has been proposed by one of the previous speakers is we're gonna do a different, we're going to we're going to use a different method of cooling, okay.

And we're telling you in this agreement that we are proposing that we need to have a safety valve that we're gonna come back to you and say, if this doesn't work, let's try this.

If this is a if this is a trial and error proposition, which that provision of the agreement says that it is, that experiment needs to be done in a place that does not affect the value of the homes and the ability to live in them uninterrupted.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Sanjay Shaw, followed by Nikki Sheridan.

Sharon.

Sure, I feel like my three minutes are almost up by just walking here, but um let me get started here.

One second.

I have some slides.

Um I guess it's right here.

Okay.

So good evening uh members of the commission and to my community members uh in the audience here today.

Uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

Uh my name is Suj Shaw, and I live in the Naper Commons neighborhood that's uh right next to the proposed data center.

I'm a physician, I uh specifically a medical oncologist, and so I've unfortunately seen uh way more cancer uh than anybody should have to see.

I've also unfortunately seen firsthand uh how much of this can be linked to environmental toxins, um things that we breathe every single day without realizing the harm that it can cause.

And so tonight I'm here as your neighbor, as a father and as a physician, deeply concerned uh about the proposal to build a heavy industrial data center uh directly next to our homes, playgrounds, and schools.

Let me start with a quick show of hands in the audience here.

How many of you have been touched by cancer, either personally or by somebody that you know?

Everybody.

And how many of you here have young kids, young grandkids, or live next to a family that does?

Pretty much everybody.

And so that's why this issue matters.

We've learned so much in the past decade about the role our environment plays in our health, especially what we breathe.

And these risks do not start in adulthood, they start when our kids are very young.

And so that's why it's been long understood that heavy industry does not belong next to neighborhoods.

But unfortunately, here we are entertaining a project that includes 24 trailer-sized diesel generators right next to our homes and parks.

Even if they're labeled as backup, they're still gonna be running regularly on a monthly basis for testing.

Additionally, the power required for this data center is equivalent to powering thousands of homes.

And given that approximately 80% of Naperville's power comes from dirty coal, that is a big problem, not just for the adjacent neighborhoods, but for everyone in this room.

We know that air pollution affects our critical organs, it causes lung cancer, it causes strokes, and it causes heart disease.

Now, what comes out of diesel generators?

It's quite simple, it's diesel exhaust.

Diesel exhaust per the World Health Organization is classified as a group one cancer-causing substance.

That is the highest level of evidence linking it to cancer, the same as tobacco and asbestos.

Diesel exhaust contains over 40 toxic substances, including these very, very small ultra fine particles that are on the size of nanometers.

When you breathe an ultra fine particle, that sits deep inside your lungs permanently, where it then can be directly transmitted into the bloodstream and cause systemic issues.

And the EPA has been consistently clear about this.

There is no safe level of diesel exposure.

None.

This means that every single breath you take of diesel emissions increases your risk.

Now, the petitioner has mentioned that using tier four emission controls for these diesel generators is going to be something that should be reassuring.

It may sound reassuring, but it's not the full full story.

Tier 4 emission control systems make diesel less dirty, not clean.

And two major issues remain.

Number one, in real-world testing, data has shown that these systems can fail to control emissions during startup and short-run testing.

This is exactly the sort of scenarios that these generators would be utilized under.

And importantly, number two, they do not effectively filter out the ultra fine particles that we just touched on, which can be so dangerous.

And this can lead to significant health impacts over time for the surrounding communities.

Now we live in an unfortunate reality.

Adding more of this right next to our neighborhoods and playgrounds is a recipe for more asthma, more heart disease, and yes, more cancer.

And we heard about young children already.

So let's not forget our young ones who are at an even increased risk.

Children's lungs are developing during the first 18 years of life.

Exposure during these critical early years has an outsized impact for the rest of your life.

Kids actually breathe more air per kilogram of body weight.

They spend more time outside, they're playing on playgrounds, and in this case, as was highlighted before, they're gonna be playing in three playgrounds right next to this data center.

The Naper Commons Park, the sensory playground, and the Science of Spirituality Playground.

Now, I recognize the counterargument.

We hear that this project brings economic value to the city.

But let's look at what's already happened elsewhere to see what we may end up seeing down the line.

In Virginia, where unfortunately many data centers have been built right next to neighborhoods.

A recent study has estimated that these diesel generators have been linked to approximately 14,000 asthma cases and an estimated nearly 300 million dollars in health costs.

And this is just the beginning.

This is expected to expand over time.

So what are the local implications for us here in Naperville?

I think quite frankly, the long-term health and economic harm are likely to far exceed any of the monetary benefits that may have been supposedly promised by the petitioner to the city of Naperville.

So, in summary, data centers can should have their place, but not right next to neighborhoods.

These health risks are real, and not just for the neighboring neighborhoods, but for all of us in this room.

It is in that context that the proposed data center violates the critical standard for conditional use, which states that a project must not endanger public health, safety, or welfare for the surrounding communities.

And this is a critical point for this commission to consider.

Therefore, as your neighbor, as a father, and as a physician, I urge this commission to reject this proposal and protect the health of our children, our families, and our future.

Thank you.

Please.

Next speaker.

Nikki Sharion, followed by Bertha Design.

Thank you guys so much for your time.

I'm gonna tell you my own personal story.

So I was about six weeks postpartum when in the middle of the pandemic, we decided to move three kids under three all the way to Chicago from the East Coast.

At the time, education was still competitive in private schools.

And we had built a home during the pandemic remotely.

And because the school's values over there in that city, about 45 minutes south of here did not align with ours.

We sold a home, rerouted our moving truck to a storage facility, and couch surfed from my parents' home in South Naperville to a rental in Aurora to an apartment in Warrenville, waiting patiently for our home to be built in Neighbor Commons.

A show of hands.

If anyone knew at this time when they were buying a home that your children and you would be exposed to cancer, would you buy that home?

No, no.

All right.

So no one would buy that home.

So we wouldn't have either.

But the reason that we waited patiently is for this community.

A community that's united, a community that shows up, and a community that's united in its goal to protect and preserve the essence that's kept Naperville highly ranked on lists in the country throughout many, many, many decades.

When we built our home, we didn't put down our roots, having been told that these roots would be polluted and our children exposed to cancer causing carcinogens.

I had to educate myself on what the PCC is before coming here.

And as I did, I learned that you guys advise on the best land use for the community, and you play a critical role in shaping this community.

All of you are members of this very community.

My call to action to you is very simple.

Not to put your families, your children, or your grandchildren at risk or ours.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Followed by Sarah Gone.

Hi, good evening, everyone.

My name is Brutha Desai.

I'm a very proud resident of the township of Naperville, a very proud wife and a very proud mother to two beautiful young boys aged five and one.

So, like uh Nikki said before, I went up here.

Um, I had I'm gonna share a personal story, my personal story with all of you.

I grew up in the Chicagoland area.

My family moved to Naperville about two years ago.

I had no idea I would ever end up living in Naperville.

It was always very far away.

Um, didn't want to live here.

And then we've been here, and I cannot tell you what a wonderful community Neighbor Commons has been.

It is just the most wonderful place.

Our neighbors have become our family.

We can count on them day and night to be there for us and to support us.

So going from not wanting to live in a place to it being our home, um we we built our forever homes in this neighborhood thinking we're gonna be here forever.

What a lovely place to live.

And um, sorry.

Um it makes me emotional to think that when we bought our homes, there might someone may have known that this could happen, but we were not informed of this.

Um I wanted to bring up um that over and over again, Naperville has been voted the top place to live in the whole country, and it's because we stick to our value of Naperville being that we pride ourselves in being family friendly.

And you know, we go to our local restaurant fiamme, it's our favorite place to go, and over and over again, we see that their grandparents are there, the parents are there, and the grandchildren are there.

And it's because what Naperville is such a wonderful place to raise a family that people, even when they go away, want to come back here.

And that is the dream and the ideal that Naperville is built on and that we should care about.

Um, we all, you know, you don't live in my neighborhood, but a lot of these people in this room do, and you are all proud Naperville members.

Um, and you would not want this in your own backyard.

So consider that it is happening in your township, and just say no to it, because although Naperville is a very successful township and revenue is very important, it should never trump its core values of family health and energy conservation.

And if the data center were to happen, we would not be in line with these values that we all take a lot of pride in to live in this township.

This is a place I want to raise my children, my family, and feel like I'm not disappointed by my community and my township because when time came for them to stand up for us, they didn't.

Um, instead, revenue is important.

So I was speaking with a councilwoman last week for a good amount of time, and um I brought up, hey, now this is a residential area that's been built behind industry, so we should have a grocery store, we should have a coffee shop.

We should have other means of revenue that makes sense for a residential property.

And she was mentioning that that's something that we would need to apply for rezoning, and you are the committee for planning and rezoning.

So as this neighborhood, that's new, neighbor commons.

We have, if you walk down our streets, it is filled with young children and pets and just thriving families that are so happy to be here.

None of us want to move, and we we don't want to we want to stay there, but how cruel to know that if there's a data center that's being built or that's built, the air that my children are breathing could be harmful and potentially toxic.

That is not something I feel comfortable with, and as you being my community members, my neighbors in Naperville should also take to heart that there will always be sources with deep pockets to fund any project that might seem appealing when you look at it from a monetary standpoint.

However, ethically, when you look at a residential neighborhood that's brand new, and we were not informed that this project was possibly in the works, that is highly inappropriate and should not happen in our neighborhood.

Not in my backyard, not in your backyard, not in anyone's backyard.

My husband is um a urologic surgeon at the hospital in downtown Naperville at Endeavor Health, and that's the reason that we ended up moving here.

I meant to mention that at the beginning when I started speaking.

Um that's the reason we're here.

We're proud members of this community.

Um we we love this.

It has become our home.

We're so happy and proud, and we share a joy to be from Naperville with other people, and we do not want anything to taint that pride that is Naperville.

And this data center, as others before me have mentioned, it's not that it doesn't have a place, just not in our neighborhood.

It can be elsewhere in Naperville that's in an industrial region, and you know, as a community, we would like to ask the planning and zoning community to consider rezoning this region for a grocery store and things that make more sense for a community.

Um, like people have mentioned there's a sensory park.

Um, I don't want to repeat myself, but essentially I'm just requesting um for us to stick to the core members of core values of Neighborville, which are family.

I want to live here forever.

I want my children to come back home.

Um, and I know everyone in this room feels the same way.

Speaking on behalf of a neighbor, um, she couldn't make it here tonight, but she wanted me to share that um uh Keris states that uh the data center is 500 feet away from the nearest residential home.

However, this is factually incorrect as it is um or sorry, they state that it's about a thousand feet away, but that's factually incorrect, it's about 500 feet away.

Um, and then additionally, they have proposed um sending tax dollars over to the neighborville school district.

However, neighbor commons are a neighborhood, we fall within the uh Whittier School District 200, and I have a tax bill if anyone like would like to look at it that shows that even though our address is Naperville, um, $9,000 out of this 12,000 dollar tax bill goes in fact to the school district 200, which is wittier.

So, how dare anyone put a data center in my neighborhood, and then on top of that, pro the profit of that goes to different school district that is also not okay.

So, a lot of factual um inaccuracies in um the other party.

Um, thank you so much for your time this evening.

I hope you will take it to heart, the facts and the emotions and the pride that we take as Neighborville residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Sarah Kahn, followed by Lindsay Mason.

Hi, thank you so much for letting me speak today, council members.

My name is Sarah Kahn, and I am a practicing dentist, and my husband is a practicing physician.

We have two children the age of five and four, and we live in this neighborhood with everybody else in Neighbor Commons.

We strongly strongly oppose the building of this data center.

When we were searching for a home last year, Naperville was on the top of our list because it was on the top of everyone's list.

The number one place in the country to raise a family.

And a data center is against all of those values, like what everybody talked about earlier.

You guys would, as Putha said, you guys wouldn't want this in your neighborhood.

You wouldn't want this in your backyard.

You guys are also Naperville residents.

So please do not make our dream of living in a Naperville in Naperville town.

Please do not turn that dream into a nightmare.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Lindsay Mason, followed by Veronica McClellan.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I will be brief.

As so many good points have already been made, and I'm sure that you'll hear many more.

Lindsay, can you say that?

How about now?

There you go.

Hi.

Thank you.

I will be brief.

I'm concerned with what I've read in the legislative text here around.

I'm worried about accountability.

I I don't.

There's this piece in there that says that the city has the right but not the obligation to hold the petitioner accountable for any sort of um conditions that are are included in what would be an approved proposal.

And they're not clear enough.

I really have to please request that you would um recommend denial of this proposal.

I just want to say that on the behalf of uh the water and of our land and our children and our elders, and anyone else who breathes this air.

Our world is changing.

We do need to be able to text pictures of our lunch to people because sometimes that's the moment that gives us joy in the day.

But we don't need to have a data center here where our families are.

Please, please, don't do this.

And thank you.

You have such a huge responsibility on your shoulders to make sure that this goes in a way that is good for the people, for the land, for the water, for the children, for the elders.

So thank you for listening.

Thank you for your consideration.

Please, please have this go in a good way.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Veronica McClellan, followed by Dan Johnson.

Good evening.

My name is Veronica, and I was going to bring up the notion about accountability.

Same point, it was number 14 in this legislative document that cited that the city does not have the obligation to hold them accountable to the agreements made.

But that was just brought up.

So then my other concern surrounded item number nine in this legislative document, where it's talking about the waste management.

As has already been established, there is no amount of safe exhaust from the type of generators that would be here supporting the planned.

And in addition to that, when I look at item number nine, it's cited here that the petitioner, it is up to them to make the plan, adhere to the plan, maintain the plan, and update the plan for their waste.

And I'm really unclear as to what oversight that will be given and who's holding them accountable.

Um, my first thought was that it would be the city that they would be holding them accountable to that plan.

It says here that it's available to the city upon request, so it seems as if it's not going to be actively monitored.

I'm concerned by that.

And then if you follow then with number 14, where it cites the city is not obligated to hold them accountable.

Now I find it extremely concerning.

And so, with those items in mind and with the points previously made, I would certainly hope that you would be moving towards denying this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Dan Johnson, follow Bob Bunkham.

Uh Desai.

Uh just turn on.

There it goes.

All right, I'm gonna try to do a video I've heard and might be a lag, but we'll give it a shot.

All right, good evening.

My name is Dan Johnson.

My family and I live on Weatherby Lane and Naper Commons.

Our home is the direct line of sight on the proposed development and on the park you can see on the screen.

I prepared several pages of comments, which were emailed at a time, and I hope you had time to read them.

However, in the interest of time, I'm just gonna highlight my four main concerns.

What you're looking at right here is a block party we had over the summer, where one of our many talented residents produced the video for no other reason than to share their joy in the community.

We did not think it was going to end up here today.

My first concern, let me try to do this.

That's not the right button.

Okay.

My first concern in the timeline here on the screen is that shortly after the Naper Commons PUD was developed, City Council approved the land use master plan, which shows remaining portions of Nokia property to be medium density residential.

After Naper Commons residents began moving in, the city amended the zoning for the remaining Nokia lots to allow data centers as a conditional use.

Once all the residents moved in and Poulty homes no longer had an interest in the property, the developer announced their plan to build the data center.

There are hundreds of residents in Naper Commons who moved here without any notice of the pending project, which will greatly impact our quality of life, the character of our community, and the value of our homes.

The petitioner in this latest submittal submitted a pricing impact analysis for home sales near data centers, which includes five locations.

Four of the locations they submitted are on the screen and are located within nondescript buildings that house other tenants and don't include the fortifications proposed for this development, which include controlled entry points and anti-scale fencing, which is marketed towards military sites, ports of entry, and petroleum and petrochemical facilities, along with data centers.

This is a picture of what the petitioner has supports has submitted for this development.

The fifth location is somewhere comparable.

However, their fifth location that was used as a comparison was constructed prior to the adjacent community.

The potential home buyers knew they were moving near a data center and their homes were priced accordingly.

So basically, all the study really shows is that homes next to data centers appreciate similarly to the overall market.

It does not acknowledge that the baseline value of the homes is presumably lowered by the data center itself.

The analysis does not represent any findings of the effect of a new data center on existing homes.

So unless they omitted data, the petitioner just demonstrated there's no precedent for the project in DuPage County.

Why is there no precedent?

I would suggest it's because communities don't usually build data centers next to established neighborhoods.

People don't want to live next to them, and home prices will reflect that.

So that's my guess as to why the petitioner didn't announce the development while Poulti was selling homes in Naper Commons.

They waited for them to get out.

My third concern relates to petitioner sound study.

Excuse me.

My third concern relates to petitioner sound study, which suggests the data center noise will not be disruptive to the neighboring communities.

The study assumes Nokia building will act as a permanent sound barrier.

That building is over 60 years old.

I've roughly sketched in the contours of what it appears the sound bands will be after the building is torn down, which it will be.

It looks like approximately 75 adjacent homes will be in the zone of influence.

Although the question of what to do with that building isn't on the table today, it will be.

The bottom line is the petitioners called their own credibility into question with the timing of the announcement of the development by waiting for Pulti homes to leave, submitting a property analysis without any relevant comparisons, and including maybe false or at least misleading claims as a basis to collect signatures in support of the project.

I think this reveals their nature.

Approval at all costs.

The future is watching, and it's not as far away as we think.

Thank you for your time and service, this great city.

I urge you all to find the wisdom and the courage to pose this development.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Bank and Sai, followed by Steve Jarvis.

Good evening, honorable members of the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Thanks for providing an opportunity to homeowners to present our side of the story.

So here I am.

My name is Bankim Desai, and I live in Napal Commons, very in close proximity to proposed data center.

I'm a grandfather to four beautiful grandkids.

We moved from Richmond, Virginia to Naperville to be closer to my son and his family, and making sure that we play with our grandkids for the rest of my life and our lives.

We are retired and seeking a peaceful, healthy, and safe living environment for us and for our grandkids and for the whole community nearby.

The very thought of having a data center in close proximity to our communities is really heartbreaking and shocking beyond our belief.

Our children's health and safety are of the highest priority to us in addition to the collateral damage to the home property values and strain on these scarce resources like water and power will be devastating to the nearby communities and Naperville as a whole.

Again, close to all the communities which are purely residential.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Steve Jarvis, followed by Eric Plotch.

Good evening.

My name is Steve Jarvis.

My family and I are residents of the Neighbor Commons community, and I want to share my personal deeply held concerns about what this proposed data center could mean for my family.

Neighbor Commons is still a relatively new neighborhood that embodies the core values of Naperville.

It's safe, family-friendly, and connected.

It feels like home in the truest sense, warm, welcoming, and full of life.

You often see families out for walks on the sidewalks, children riding bikes and scooters, and neighbors gathering at the Naperville Park District's Neighbor Commons Park.

It's a place built on trust and belonging.

If you haven't already, I respectfully respectively invite each of you to take a short drive through the area and witness firsthand how peaceful and active our community is.

I'm sorry, the idea of constructing this massive data center complete with 24 diesel backup generators right next to our home directly threatens everything that makes this area special.

We purchased our home in 2022, believing that the future development nearby would respect the residential character of our community, not introduce an industrial size operation to our doorstep.

We've been told by the petitioner that the generators would only run occasionally for testing.

However, with the city power outage that we experienced just last week on Monday, October 27th.

This serves as a clear reminder in a real emergency, all 24 generators would be running at once.

This would produce significant noise, vibration, and diesel exhaust that drifts into the air of my family breeze.

This is not just a nuisance, but it's a serious health risk for all, especially for children, as Dr.

Shaw mentioned earlier.

My wife and I are parents to a four and a half year old boy who loves being outside, riding a scooter, playing at the Naperville Park Dick Park District Park with his friends and exploring the world around him.

We moved to Naperville because, as we've heard before, it's the best place to raise the family.

A place where children can grow up safely and what would I like to hope continue to breathe clean air?

I worry deeply about this project would mean for him and his friends' health, his friends' health, their safety, and the kind of childhood they're they'll have moving forward if it if this moves forward.

Like every parent here tonight, I simply want my child to grow up in the neighborhood that feels safe, healthy, and healthy.

That's what Naperville stands for, and it's what we're asking you to protect.

This is not about opposing progress.

These are my and my family's sincere concerns about protecting the people in the Viber community that makes Naperville such a great place to live.

Once a project like this is approved and built, there's no undoing it.

The noise, emissions, the lights, they will permanently change our neighborhood.

So, as many have mentioned tonight, I ask you to consider from a residence from my perspective.

Would you want this next year home?

Would you want your children playing besides a 24 continuous operating diesel generators?

I'd ask you to please stand with your fellow Naperville residents and other families who believe this city's promise.

Say no to this proposal, not out of opposition, but out of care for the people who call this community home.

Thank you for listening, and I surely and and for truly considering the voices of the families you represent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Eric Plotch, followed by James Butt.

Hi there.

My name is Eric Clock.

I'm here representing myself and my wife Mary Beth.

Um, my daughter, who's two, and my son who's six months old.

I also live in Naper Commons like so many of my friends here today.

Um, health should be the number one concern, and there's no question on that, and that's why it's been most talked about today.

Um, I do want to talk about how Naperville has so many strong and honest businesses, from family-owned to corporate entities.

Um, many of us here work in Naperville and have um you know work in an honest way.

Uh in my two plus years living in Naperville and 10 years visiting, I've been met with honesty and transparency in nearly every interaction I have with the city's businesses.

Um living, in my opinion, the petitioner doesn't necessarily seem to fit that mold.

Living in Naper Commons, not once they try to come into our community and talk to us about what was going on and what how we could be impacted or how they could ease our concerns.

They have a Facebook page called Naperville Data Center.

They say, quote, they are committed to answering questions and transparently sharing its plan.

It's interesting, this was created on October 14th, so months after the initial plan actually came into place.

Um if they were committed to transparency, it would have made sense for to share the plan from day one.

Beyond that, they have 27 comments across three posts on that Facebook page, um, and not a single question is answered from a member of the petitioner.

That seems completely at odds with their commitment to answering questions.

Earlier it was asked if anybody here knew someone that had been impacted by cancer, had kids, had grandkids, live next to kids.

Those who previously have confirmed to represent the petitioner did not raise their hands to any of those questions.

Maybe they didn't hear the question, maybe they didn't care.

Maybe they are lucky and don't know anyone impacted by cancer.

Maybe they live a quiet, lonely life with no kids around.

Or maybe it was just another example of the misleading, if not dishonest actions they've taken from day one and will continue to take.

Again, health should be number one.

That should be enough to not move this forward.

But going beyond that, we shouldn't be welcoming dishonest and misleading businesses into our community.

They haven't been honest and transparent since day one.

They weren't honest and transparent tonight.

I don't know how we can expect them to be honest and transparent in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

James Butt, followed by Linda Scotty.

Uh presenting.

I am going to present things I have not uh talked about before, and a lot of it is uh based on things that were just uh updated on the site this past Friday.

Um ultimately, you know, this this is going to be an industrial facility.

There's no other way to look at it.

So the reason why we have zoning laws is so that households don't have to be next to an industrial facility.

Um this area is going to turn an area that's already very noisy, much and make it much more noisy.

Um there's just no way around that.

You can't add the noise and and not have it uh affect the overall noise.

One of the biggest things, and and others have brought it up uh to a certain extent is once the facility is built and it's making noise, it's gonna be really, really hard to figure out if it is actually causing a problem and what is causing a problem with noise.

Um, you know, it's it's really hard to pinpoint the noise uh when there's lots of other um high noise sources in the area.

So um establishing a very accurate background noise measurements uh to allow baselines to happen are very critical to this.

I'm gonna go into some more detail about this uh through my presentation.

But you know, once it gets created, or once the facility gets built and it's making noise, it's again, as other people have said, they're not just going to turn it off.

Like it would have to involve court action, right?

It's in you know that's that's really not fair to the residents that are affected by uh such a thing.

So uh these are actually um some snippets from some of the petitioners' documents that they submitted.

The top left is part of the original sound study, which uh states that uh the spectrum profile of HVAC units is assumed to be based on similar type for 300 and 400 ton units.

On Friday, one of the documents that was posted was a letter from Carlson Design Group, their mechanical engineer, uh, that stated uh that there will be 24 train ACR 450 air-cooled screw chillers, okay?

Um, each producing 555 tons.

Pretty big difference between 555 tons uh and 3400 tons, right?

It's excluding a ton of cooling capacity from it.

Now they do say similar type, and we do there are some assumptions that right uh that uh they probably have made, but they haven't provided a lot of detail on, and that is we do know that these uh air conditioning units that they're going to be installing will be operating at less than 100%.

They've they mentioned uh uh you know 50 and 60 percent um in the in the documents, but it still is a inconsistency with that 555 tons.

You'd expect the mechanical engineer to know exactly what it is.

Now, when you actually start to look at the part numbers, um, and uh I actually happen to know uh fair number of mechanical engineers in this business.

I made some phone calls, started talking to them about uh you know this statement, which which models it could mean, and quite honestly, they're all scratching their heads.

Trains model numbers are 45 digits long, okay.

So they really first off, there isn't an ACR 450.

Um there is an ACR B450 that ACR B450 is actually listed as a 450-ton unit.

Okay, circled there on the on one of the train um uh model guides for the uh air-cooled screw chiller units uh there.

So inconsistency there, right?

As to well, what is it?

Is it 555 tons?

Is it 450 tons?

And then really, how did they actually do the noise study?

What did they actually use for the noise study?

In addition, those uh 45 digit uh part numbers that train has, they they actually have a lot of other options that are available on these units.

It's kind of like ordering a car, it's kind of like a VIN number.

There's all sorts of other sound options that uh actually could benefit um uh the reduction of sound.

Um things like uh Invisa Sound Ultimate, which supposedly uh you know makes these sounds um you know less prevalent.

But we we don't know what those are because they haven't supplied the full actual model numbers.

So for me to go and validate some of this data, it's quite impossible if I don't have proper data to validate it against.

Um in addition, uh one of the other things that was uh part of uh the submittals uh from Friday uh were that um there was a response to the sound study.

And uh one line in there indicates that um number one, that letter was sent uh from the mechanical engineer uh and the sound uh GHA referred to they use that uh to understand the run capacity.

So they didn't say that they used that model number uh to actually uh understand the specific sound output from the unit.

They just said that they use that for the 50 and 60 percent um calculate calculations of the uh of the runtime.

So it's important to note train actually, you know, they make data center air conditioners.

This is you know, this is a situation where almost every data center these things are going in is under scrutiny.

They have absolutely amazingly detailed sound analysis that are available uh to the engineers that are installing these.

It would have been wonderful if they use that data in the actual sound study, but instead they estimated, um, they made assumptions that it's a 300 or 400 thing.

They they really aren't providing any detail as to how they actually did this calculation.

So it's it's a bit unfortunate uh that we're we're basing it off a similar type um uh you know, output visas tons and and and so on, as opposed to the actual things that the manufacturer would use.

Why is this all important?

Okay, and some other uh speakers have mentioned you know the the change from water cooling to uh to air cooled is variable speed fans.

So I'm sure all of you have had fans in your in your house, you know, when the fans on high, it sounds one way, medium low sounds sounds different.

Well, one of the big things about variable speed fans is it is louder when it is on high.

There's no question about that, but the noise coming off the fan blades actually changes frequency at lower speeds.

Those lower frequencies, they affect the environment differently, they fill the background noise differently.

If there is no low noises in the background noise, all of a sudden you turn the generator or they turn the uh data center on, all of a sudden you're going to hear noise that you haven't heard before because it's of noise that wasn't in the frequencies that you are hearing from the cars and everything else that makes that background noise.

So, this is actually a very important thing.

Um we're concerned about the noise, and we we want to make sure that this is done right.

It's it's it's very critical that this is done right.

So, you know, I I think you know, certainly I think we need actual train model numbers.

I think I think from uh um you know, actual sound study uh perspective that these should have been used as part of the sound study.

It should be the sound study should have actually used um the full nine octave background uh noise uh data.

You know, the the updates that they sent for for the sound study or the response that they sent.

Yes, they included nine octave uh noise uh study for what they project the output will be of their of the equipment, but they didn't go back and apply that to the background noise to show the increases and things like that.

So they did not provide the same level of detail that they did in the initial initial study.

And again, I've I've I've supplied, you know, I'm just I'm not gonna repeat some of the things I've already said in prior meetings and things like that, but you know, there's still things like you know, no full all of the janners uh generators running.

You know, I think the public should understand that, what what that would uh sound like, what those heat maps of the the sound would sound like.

Um, and and again, that Nokia building, once that building's gone, and it is 60 years old, it will change how that noise propagates through that neighborhood.

Uh the other thing, and I I talked about this last time, um, and I was kind of hoping that uh uh when the petitioner came back that they would um not do what they did.

Um the first thing is that we talked about the Illinois control board and how um they have land classes as part of how they they've written their rules, and residential uh areas are in class A, uh class B is more commercial um areas, um, and and we'll see in a second how most of the ORI, excuse me, all of the ORI, as far as I can tell, fit in class B, but they chose to use class C to show uh their uh to show that's what they're gonna be compliant with.

Now it's interesting, and I pointed this out last time, that there isn't a call out in the Illinois uh pollution control board standard for data centers.

There is one though, however, for information services and data processing industries, uh, which is uh a B land use.

Um I would think that they should have to uh fall within B, and and part of that is just due to the fact that class C is really all heavy industrial things, like things you would you know that would absolutely 100% be in a heavy industrial uh zoned area.

Um again, you just this is the same slide, I'm not gonna spend any time on it, but you know the things that are allowed that in ORI are absolutely A's and B's.

There's there's really not any C's there.

Okay, now conditional uses.

I know you guys know this.

I'm not I don't necessarily need to read uh this, but the way the conditional uses are written is that they that all of the standards must be satisfied.

And when you look at the standards or response to standards documents that are submitted by uh the petitioner, there's a number of issues uh with them, right?

So you know, this first one, other people have brought it up, not to be detrimental or danger to public health safety in general.

It's going to be.

I think there's been a lot of a lot of conversation around this.

Um I would also say that for this response, the petitioners' response, they addressed property history and general economic welfare.

They don't even try to address any of these public health and safety um uh type uh items.

I I would say, again, as others have pointed out, the Aurora neighbors certainly would think they're um their health and safety and welfare are jeopardized.

Okay, uh now we're gonna go on to the data center pricing and impact analysis.

Um again, I had disclosed in earlier meetings.

I've been in the data center um business for 30 years, I've built them, I have I have I ran space in them, I've worked in them uh for all 30 years of my career.

Let's just go through these really quick because I think this is very important uh to understand.

And I will say right off the bat, if they were putting one of these facilities in that spot, I wouldn't be here right now.

So they're just so different in size, and I talked about this before how the data centers of 20 years ago or even 10 years ago, the they're just are not the same as the ones being built today.

So let's just go through this.

Uh the first one they submitted is uh one that's in Volo.

I actually talked to the Volo City Planner uh about this.

Um happens to be a friend.

Um the uh five water-based chillers, not 24, three generators versus 24, 14 megawatts versus 36 megawatts.

It's 38% of the size.

Center Square Data Center in Lyle used to be the ATT data center.

I've spent months in equivalent time within this facility.

I've been in this building a ton.

I've been in this facility most recently, about a year and a half ago.

Um, eight small generators versus 24, seven water-based chillers, much quieter than the 24 air-based chillers.

Uh they do have a number of smaller um chillers and AC units on the roof.

Uh, it's important to note that this building is not all data center.

There's a large uh multi-a large office uh space in this facility.

Um at one time it was more than half of the facility was just an ATT office.

Uh now there are other tenants in that uh facility, but again, 15 megawatts versus 36.

It's 41% of the size of the facility that is being proposed.

WoW access data center.

It's interesting.

I looked at this data center uh a number of years ago to find out if it was actually even still something that was actually real and they were still selling co-location services.

I don't think it is.

Um they have one generator, 350 amps, uh or about 168 kilowatts.

It's less than a half a megawatt, 1.3% of the size of of what uh they submitted.

Net source data center, another multi-tenant building.

Two small generators, less than uh far less than 24.

Um point eight megawatts versus uh 36 megawatts, 2% of the size.

Bite grid data center, they say data provides actually an Aurora.

Um they have various rooftop chillers.

Uh they look like they're probably air-cooled uh based on uh the roof.

I'm guessing those are for the other clients.

There are two water-based chillers uh that are uh there in red where the arrow is, as well as three enclosed generators.

Uh they are saying they're 3.5 megawatts versus 36, so 9% of proposed.

They are proposing a facility that the five comparative facilities don't even add up to.

The five comparative facilities have up to 38 point 33.8 megawatts.

They're smaller together than the single facility.

There's 17 total generators in those five facilities, much less than the 24.

I would say all of these things, a real estate agent, if if if you know your real estate agent provided you a list of compared comparables if you're buying or selling a house, and they were this different to what you what the house you were trying to buy or sell was, you'd laugh at them, right?

Like it this document invalidates you know really the content that's in it.

And and I I think that it's important to note that if they were building one of these facilities there, there would be almost no impact to anyone.

One last thing, and I this is a city council issue, but I I think it's important, right?

Um, and I haven't brought it up here.

Um I will be bringing up to city council.

I spent a lot of time on this.

Um their fiscal impact assessment significantly overstates tax revenue.

And I'm not saying significant is more than 50%.

Um their power consumption will not be what they say it is.

Yorkville also had uh a developer do something very similar, and it's been pretty widely reported.

Um, not for this uh this book, but you guys should probably know about it.

More conditional uses, so we go back to the uh not be injurious to the use and enjoyment of property in the immediate area if the purpose of already permitted, or substantially uh diminish or impair property values.

Well, I I think we can you know see that they're you know, based on what I just presented, that you know, that it's going to impact the property value, or they they really have no ability to defend against it based on what they submitted.

Um the generators certainly will you know they they they will change the neighborhood, they will make it so that uh people can't enjoy their yards and such.

Um they really didn't address these things, right?

The response to standards didn't really didn't address any one of these things in it.

Um, they did follow up with this price and impact report, but again, it doesn't address this.

Um I would say other people have said it, you know, common sense test.

Would anyone really buy a house adjacent to this facility?

Like okay, compatibility other ORI permitted uses.

Um, banks, civic buildings, engineering testing laboratories, life science, all these things, right?

Um I I will note that warehouses have been taken off the list, right?

You know, that's the normally when you see uh a data center, there's a warehouse sitting next to it.

Um warehouses have been taken out of ORI.

You know, it can't really be a warehouse.

Um I am worried about that Nokia building.

It's been there 59 years.

Um it was you know during the uh development of Naper Commons, it had been told to us on a number of times that uh that building was being used as part of a contract uh with the government, is what we had been told, and that uh there will be a period of time where that building will no longer be needed.

It's it's 60 years old, right?

It's it's it's uh, you know, it's it's probably not gonna be um used in the in the future.

What happens when that's ripped down, right?

I can tell you like if a dentist's office decided to build, uh you know, if they redevelop, you know, ripped that down and built a dentist's office, um, because that is an ORI use.

I don't think I would want a dentist working on my teeth when they fired up those generators, right?

Like I it's just not it's not compatible with even ORI, right?

Much less residence.

It's it's not compatible with RI.

Yeah, based on the conditional use standards, I do not think this should be uh should be approved.

Um let's talk about voluntary pledges.

They don't work.

Keras only has an obligation to their shore shareholders.

Um that's you guys have been flooded with information about the the risks and things like that, but at the end of the day, they can say anything they want.

They're gonna have an operating company running it and so on.

You know, these things that that are part of their pledge, if this is approved, and I don't think it should be, they really should be codified into the into the uses.

Um I do feel strongly that uh another baseline noise study should be done in accordance with an Illinois pollution control board.

I think it should have a more wide range of receptors, and that really should be used as a baseline.

Um, because once this facility is built, once they start making their noise, it's gonna be really hard to pinpoint where that noise is coming from.

Um and there's gonna be arguments about where that noise is coming from, and you know, one party's gonna have to prove to another where the noise is coming from with a baseline study uh that would be you know public and and part of uh something that Naperville has, there might be a chance to figure out where the noise is coming from.

Um for five years afterwards, and and really maybe forever.

I I really think that there should be follow-up uh noise studies as they add customers to this data center, they are going to, you know, their their air conditioning is gonna move uh is is gonna need to work harder and such, and the noise will change, right?

Day one, let's say they have a few customers in the data center, they're not even gonna run half the half the air conditioners.

They're probably not even gonna be built out.

Once they start to build this thing out, more fans, more running, more noise.

Um I think the developers should allocate funds to Naperville so they can purchase noise meters compliant with the inload pollution board standards and and training uh for Naperville staff so that enforcement actions can be taken about the noise, uh, as well as or rather uh a continuous noise monitoring solution be put in place that uh can be referenced uh continually and long-term baselines can be uh built uh with about the noise.

Um from uh another condition, I I really do think that there should be some sort of other penalty system in place.

Uh, the the Naperville uh code in in terms of of noise ordinance, um it doesn't do a lot uh in terms of of the noise.

A data center, you know, things like fines, sure, $500 a day, fine, that's a fine.

Geez, that pales into comparison to what they're paying for electricity.

That's that's nothing.

Um there really should be some other type of mechanism to hold them accountable and require you know remediation of noise issues.

It also should be written in that the generators you know can only be used for emergency purposes or short testing periods, no more than two generators to be run for a maximum of 30 minutes at a time during normal nine to five Monday through Friday, not able to be used for load sharing, high demand cost reduction or any type of uh demand preempt.

Um generator should be required to be tier four.

That should be a condition.

And I would also say, you know, um, I think the data center, you know, if they really want to uh to show uh that they're doing the environmental things right, should agree to be uh ISO 14,001 environmental management standard uh compliant and complete uh yearly audits uh by a third party uh that are delivered to the city of Naperville to uh prove that okay.

Um I think the buildings, if it was built, and again, I don't think it should be, the building should be re-oriented, reoriented.

And I have some pictures here in a second.

So the equipment yards should face Warrenville Road to reduce the sound um impact on residences.

A large parapet sound wall should be placed on the north side of the facility to block and reflect sound to Warrenville Road.

Um, no parapet wells should be constructed along Warrenville Road because we want no reflection of that sound back into that uh into the neighborhood.

The equipment yards in general should be fully enclosed within a building and roof that has highly effective sound proofing.

Other gener our other data centers do do that, right?

It's it does happen.

I would also say, and I know this is a big stretch, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Um a sound wall would really help along I-88 for the background noise in the in the neighborhoods.

Um, per the Department of Transportation's uh estimates and how they do the uh the sound walls, uh, 2.25 million dollars should uh suffice to uh build a sound wall from uh Naperville Road to Freedom Drive, and that will decrease the and reduce the uh background noise.

Um that will increase with the data center operation.

Um again, sound walls.

Uh one of the things the staff put in there is to increase the stall sound wall uh to a foot above um the rooftop units.

I think it should be much higher towards the residences, and we don't want a situation where I know this is a bad uh image.

We don't want a situation where there are tall parapets on both sides where sound is gonna reflect off one side and then reflect back, right?

We want to make the sound all the way towards towards the south towards uh Warrenville Road.

So this is a simple reorientation of the facility.

You're basically going to put the equipment yard to the uh south, um, put the parking to the north, very tall parapet wall, uh blocking the noise from the rooftop chillers, um, so that the sound mostly reflects uh down to the south.

Again, I don't think the facility should be built, but that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Linda Scotty, followed by Bill Scotty.

Good evening.

My name is Linda Scotty.

My husband and I live on Josiah Road at the corner of Lucent Lane in Naper Commons.

Our property looks out to the forest preserve.

That was one of the main reasons we bought it.

We have a beautiful view.

We see the bald eagles in these trees.

We were shocked to hear of this proposal for a data center in our residential community of families with young children after all the homes were sold and Poulty pulled out.

That's when we heard.

We purchased in April 2024.

This community borders a peaceful forest preserve, a school, a daycare for young children.

Our neighbors leave their kids there at that Montessori school for daycare.

The neighbor just next to me had a baby.

The next one has a young child.

There are many young children in this community.

There's a meditation center across the street.

The sensory garden has been mentioned many times for autistic children.

The thought of moving again, we've lived all over the world.

My husband and I have probably moved about, oh gosh, I don't know, 20 times, maybe more, maybe 30.

We've lived on four continents.

And here we retired in Naperville.

People thought we were crazy retiring in Naperville.

We lived downtown Naperville.

We had a house.

We downsized to a town home.

Our neighbors would say, why did you retire in Naperville?

The taxes are crazy here.

We go to Indiana when we retire.

Well, you know, we heard Naperville's a wonderful community, a wonderful place to live.

So here we are in Naperville, retired.

We're here today to present why this proposed data center should not be approved for this site.

I am not opposed to data centers like many of you.

Yes.

I also love to send pictures.

Offices are fine.

We understood there might be some offices being put up there and that space that when we bought this house, but never in our wildest dreams did we think it would be a data center.

We've consulted an outside expert land use city planner with more than 40 years of experience to help us.

How do we face this?

He's from Connecticut.

He has actually prepared this PowerPoint, which I'm going to move through because it's on noise.

We've heard a little bit about noise, but I have a few different slides here.

We've uh sent material critiquing an analysis of why the noise measures and the noise reports are flawed.

There's many reasons that I won't repeat and go into now.

The main reason is the low vibrational noise, that low frequency noise that you heard earlier that drives you nuts.

If I'm in a hotel and that compressor is right outside the bedroom window, I change rooms.

I can't sleep.

Personally, I am well aware of the impacts of noise on health.

As a federal government employee, I worked for the United States Secret Service as an occupational health nurse, certified in hearing conservation and OSHA compliance, where we studied noise in depth and its impact on health.

So this PowerPoint, along with other material, including an analysis of the CARES Data Center noise study, pointing out flaws in the study, as I said, have already been submitted to the commission for your review.

For the interest of time, I'll try to move through here.

So what are the health impacts of noise?

Of course, hearing loss is number one.

But those low frequency noises that kind of drive you nuts, sleep disturbance.

What happens after you you lose sleep after a few nights?

Stress, hypertension, cardiovascular disease.

This is a study by the American College of Cardiology.

Stress, chronic stress creates disease.

This is a study that was done in Virginia, three Virginia counties, and data centers are noise generators.

As you can see from the last column, these small areas that were estimated a hundred percent violated over the noise ordinance in these areas.

And on the first one at Heritage Hunt, the closest data center was 980 feet away.

And still that area violated the noise ordinance.

They're noisy.

They can put all the noise studies and say, oh, it'll be fine, but it won't.

Decibels are measured at different scales.

The A-weighted scale is designed to reflect the range of human hearing.

The C-weighted decibel scale captures low frequency sounds and peak noise levels that the A-weighted scale would filter out.

They did not use the C-weighted scale.

This is important for the low frequency and the peak sound pressure levels from data center machinery, such as the humming of the cooling fans or the large generators, which the A weighting filters out.

C-weighted sound level measures along with octave band analysis should be done for these industrial settings.

Why is this important?

Because the performance standards in the Naperville zoning ordinance only addresses noise using the decibel A weighted scale.

That needs to be updated.

These are some noise modeling recommendations, and I'll just recommend again.

Number one, they should be using the A and the C weighted scales.

Here we are back to the conditional use to determine these four factors.

And I will say property values, are they going to be adversely impacted?

Of course, they will be.

So I close here tonight with some final words.

I would like to think of all of you here today as my neighbors.

How would you review this proposal if it was in your backyard?

Should we all be paying more attention to what's happening in Aurora with residents' complaints?

Homes vibrating, they can't enjoy sitting on their yard anymore.

Should data centers be next to residential communities, especially residential communities such as ours that border forest preserves with wildlife, playgrounds for little children, a meditation center, and the school, and the school for young children, and of course the sensory garden.

We are surrounded in this area.

I wish you would come, please and visit our community.

My sincere hope would be that the Neighborville Planning and Zoning Commission give serious consideration to denying the application for the data center at this site.

Thank you very much for your time and your service to the community.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Bill Scotty, followed by Theresa Bellamonte.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Bill Scotty.

I'm a lifelong educator, scientist, college professor, and also worked for the U.S.

Department of State, retired with the U.S.

Department of State from Washington, D.C.

We lived in Arlington, Virginia, but we also lived in four continents.

I've traveled to every continent.

I traveled to many countries, many countries that most people here may not have seen.

Madagascar, Nepal, and others.

So we've traveled around.

Whenever people ask me, what was your favorite country, Dr.

Scotty?

What was your favorite country?

I tell them, all my countries, all the countries are my favorite countries.

Because I try to get the best, the quality, something good out of all of them.

I've been to Haiti.

I spent many, many days in Haiti, but I've always tried to get the positive things, even in the poorest of the poor countries.

There's something positive.

And I always tried to get that.

And then I also told them, you know, Switzerland is nice, and Germany is nice, and uh Argentina is very nice, and uh, you know, Japan was wonderful.

We lived there for five years.

Um when I came back to the United States, I kissed the ground.

That's the kind of country we live in.

And you really get to know that when you travel around.

Traveling is the best teacher.

Kiss the ground.

Every time I came back, even if it was Switzerland, Switzerland is unbelievable, the trains are all on time.

You never find a piece of trash on the road.

You don't find a cigarette butt on the road.

It's that clean.

So there's good qualities of everything, but it kissed the ground.

We lived the last uh years during my career and our career, she worked for Secret Service.

The last years we lived in Arlington, Virginia.

Arlington, Virginia.

I knew the superintendent of the schools very, very well.

We be with them, Dr.

Murphy.

Is it Dr.

Murphy?

I said, look.

I said, if you want to increase my taxes for the schools, do it.

Your taxes are something you pay for services.

Arlington, Virginia, let me tell you, it's unbelievable place.

Unbelievable place.

Lived there for over 20, 25 years.

Police, superlative, fire, exceptional, emergency services, unbelievable.

Schools off the charts.

Off the charts, and not just high-end, special needs, low end, middle kids.

Everybody was educated.

They left the school system most of the time with very, very positive reviews.

So guess what?

We're in Naperville.

Guess what?

I'm not worried about my taxes here.

The taxes are something you need to pay.

Something you need to keep the quality of schools you have.

Your police, I'm giving you uh some feedback as I'm explaining this.

The police, the fire, the emergency services, the schools, superlative.

And the opportunity to present to a group of friends and neighbors like yourself.

For me, it is an honor.

For me, it is an honor.

Some countries you can't do this.

We can do it here.

So basically, I believe in data centers.

I believe in the words of our governor, who supports data centers.

I support data centers, but not where they're proposing this data center.

Inappropriate to my point of view.

So here is some reviews of specific complaints that you might have heard.

Let me repeat, maybe I'll repeat something.

Some specific complaints and impacts.

Loud, persistent noise.

Residents have described the noise as unlivable, horrible, citing constant humming noises like idling trucks and helicopters.

Impact on daily life.

The noise which can be heard inside homes is particularly disruptive during nights, weekends, when residents seek peace and quiet.

Vibrations.

Perceived lack of transparency.

Some feel they were misled into believing the data centers would be unnoticeable neighbors.

My friends, my neighbors, which you are.

Our house, which we moved into, we were in, we were downtown Naperville for six years.

Loved it.

Loved it.

We moved here for a simpler life.

We're retired.

We've been married 51 years, going on 52.

I've been retired for nine years.

Linda and I are both retired.

Would you like to stay healthy?

To keep a vegan diet.

We exercise.

But not building a data center.

We would definitely, definitely.

We thought this is going to be the house forever until we do something else.

But we will sell the house if the Delta Center is approved.

I believe in data centers, though.

They're needed.

You know, I'm not against progress.

I believe in the governor.

Governor said it.

So I believe in it, but not in a residential community, please.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

We'll take one more speaker and then we'll take a break.

Theresa Bellamonte.

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak in opposition of the data center project on the Lucent campus.

My name is Teresa Balmonte, and I built a home and moved into Naper Commons this past March.

I do acknowledge that Naper Commons was able to come into existence because this commission and the city council approved it.

I see that as validation of our community and a commitment to support its health and welfare.

Just five years later, it is very concerning that we would even be discussing allowing such a massive and potentially harmful place to be built on top of our neighborhood.

If it was disclosed to us that a data center was in play, we would have never moved there.

In researching and visiting data centers and talking to my neighbors, we acknowledge, like many have said tonight, that they are necessary for digital infrastructure.

The question is, where do they belong?

Overwhelmingly, it has been proven that building them near residential areas can create environmental, social, and safety concerns.

This issue is not unique to Naperville, and there are countless stories of good intentions gone wrong in communities having to pay the price.

We just need to look at our neighbors in Aurora who have had to carry this burden and fight for their health and well-being.

It must be exhausting for them and the city.

The main concern my family has is our health.

We have two small children, four and two years old, who love to be outside.

In fact, our dream was to give them a house with a yard so they can run and play freely.

The awesome park we have in Naperville Commons and our neighbors are such a bonus, and so is living in such a great place as Naperville.

I cannot imagine living here, knowing that those 24 diesel generators will be spraying, fine particulate matter into the air my kids breathe.

On top of that, the peace we have come to love with this beautiful and quiet neighborhood will be gone and will be a place with the noises of generators, cooling units, etc.

As Dr.

Shaw said, the diesel exhaust from backup generators can be worse for your health than secondhand smoke, something that we're all familiar with.

In trying to scale this health threat to myself, I kept thinking about smoking and all the ordinances and legislation that local and state governments have passed to protect the public from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke.

Illinois has passed a law, and I found that in 2018, the Naperville Park District, through ordinance 641, passed a ban on smoking and the use of tobacco products in all 137 plus outdoor parks, including the River Walk.

At that time, the park district commissioner stated that through our mission we promote healthy lives, healthy minds, and a healthy community.

Here we are, seven years out from that decision.

How can we be talking about approving a data center in a residential area that will emit pollutants far more dangerous than secondhand smoke that got their attention to do something?

I've read a bunch of articles, like many other people, really had to educate myself on this.

But it it there is a public health toll associated with these data centers in the terms of air pollution.

And like Dr.

Shaw said, um, you know, death, health costs, um, interruption from school and work.

All those things are real factors here.

Um, and when we talk about the cost of these data centers and AI, there's been so much focus on, you know, very technical terms, but really health should be the one measurement we all look at.

Seldom are decisions as consequential as we think this one is to us.

And you often hear the phrase, vote like your life depended on it.

And tonight, we believe the fate of our families is in your hands.

We're here because Naperville approved our neighborhood to be developed back in 2020.

And now the decision rests in front of you to allow this data center to be turned back to turn back the success and progress of our neighborhood.

The question tonight should not be can Naperville survive without all the enticements that this data center has promised, but how will those who live closest to the data center survive?

And what weighs heaviest on our minds is how you can assure us that our families and communities will not be a fursely affected with catastrophic health issues from this data center.

The community stewardship stewardship pledge is not an actual promise.

It's voluntary, non-binding statement that will need to be under constant scrutiny by Naperville.

When, not if, diesel fuel that contains harmful pollutants starts penetrating deep into the lungs of our family with the potential to cause cancer, it will be too late.

Our families will be collateral damage, and that promise will be broken.

And we also find it hard to believe that Naperville, an award-winning community recently named the best city to live in America, is in such dire need of a data center to be in a residential area that it risks sacrificing the health and well-being of those who live adjacent to it.

There very well may be a place and purpose for this in Naperville or surrounding area, but it's not next to our homes, schools, parks, and forest preserves.

This should be the sole reason to approve this.

Finally, in the in the petition, the developer states that the property property is largely isolated.

I assure you that if that was the case, you would not be hearing from all of us, have nearly 3,000 signatures on a petition to stop the data center, nor would you have had to continue this hearing from the last month.

The developer would not be running social media ads nonstop if this was an isolated and irrelevant area that was not of consequence.

What about the 64 acres that makes up Naper Commons?

How is that isolated?

As for the 200 over 200,000 square foot data center that will be impossible to ignore every time we leave our homes and return to them.

We'll see it and its massive 24 locomotive diesel-sized generators.

We're going to hear the noise pollution 24-7365, and we're going to breathe the polluted air.

So isolated, hardly so.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you.

We will now take a short recess and reconvene when we get back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Guarmo Rodriguez, followed by Jen Borowitz.

Hello, my name is Guillermo Rodriguez, and I'm here as a concerned neighbor and also as a member of the West Suburban Illinois chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

And I'm here because I myself live in Aurora, and I know exactly what happens in terms of air pollution in my own community.

And we've heard many people here speak today about the negative effects that noise pollution, I should say, um, does to people.

And uh just to keep it brief, um, you know, a lot of people that I know, my own neighbors, my own community members have spoken to me about not wanting to live there.

We heard someone say earlier that they were being offered a place to live in uh a hotel, and it's just frankly absurd that we are living in a moment where something like that is possible because these people are trying to live their own lives, and um, you know, when when we see how detrimental uh noise pollution can be to our communities, um, I think we need to look at the real long-term effects of that uh because short-term revenue is never enough to justify the long-term health of our community members, our family members, and um, you know, something that has been brought up is things like um hypertension because of stress and uh which which is caused by like the the noise pollution and uh when we see when we see in other places around the world it being weaponized against other communities, other families.

How can we allow something like this to be done to our own community?

Um and I also saw in the third section here on uh the agenda uh about a um a noise study, and at the end of the day, noise studies and noise provisions can always be changed.

So, how can we continue to trust something right now that can be changed in the future when this this corporation, Keras, is trying to come into this community and they will not stay long term, it can be sold off to a different corporation.

Um so I think that it is it is absurd to think about uh even um allowing something like this to go through.

And I'm very strongly against Naperville bringing something like this data center to our communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Jen Barowitz, followed by Nadim Mirza.

Good evening.

I'm Jen Banowitz.

Uh, I've lived in Fair Meadow neighborhood for 24 years.

Uh we are the neighborhood that is adjacent to Naper Commons.

Um I just want to thank the commission and also really I just want to thank my fellow community.

I've been so impressed tonight how everyone has shown up and brought all kinds of different expertise.

I've learned a lot, and I just again want to appreciate all the different perspectives.

This is why I love Naperville, and this is why I live in Naperville.

And the brain power in this room, I think has given you plenty of testimony tonight.

And it really just boils down to one question.

Does the petitioner meet the standards for uh changing this use of this property?

And again, based on everything I have heard tonight, the answer is no.

So uh this is not a good fit for this property, maybe somewhere else, but this is not a good fit.

So thank you again, and uh I appreciate your attention.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Nadim Mirza, followed by Katie T.

Katie T.

Good evening.

Um, my name is Nadem.

This is my son Safe.

Uh, we're residents here of Naperville.

Uh, we live in Naper Commons.

Safe's name means strength and courage.

And I bring this up because when he was born, he was born with a life-threatening illness.

He was born prematurely, he had one lung, he spent time in the NICU, had surgery.

We eventually took him home, and the doctors told us one thing.

It's really important that he doesn't get sick.

If he gets sick in his first year of life, he could end up back in the NICU.

We took him home.

We spent the first year trying to protect him.

We lived in um my in-law's house because we needed help.

We had no social life, no real friends.

We eventually moved here to Naperville to start our home with our family.

Like so many others here, we settled down here because we heard Naperville is the best place in America to live.

It's safe, the schools are good, you know, there's parks, children, young families in these communities.

That's what makes Naperville Naperville.

Not industrial warehouses, not data centers.

We brought him here, we thought we were bringing him to our sanctuary.

And that's what this has become for us.

All these families that are here, those crying babies in the background, those are our neighbors.

Those are people that are residents of Naperville that are directly affected by this data center.

Okay.

As uh Sujay Dr.

Shaw said, the lungs are incredibly vulnerable, especially for developing children.

Through adolescence, their lungs continue to develop, and people like my son safe are incredibly vulnerable to those toxins and those chemical pollutants that are in the air from those diesel generators.

What you're telling us is when you choose a data center, you're choosing tax revenue over my son's safe.

So I want you to think about that.

When that vote comes across your desk, and you're sitting there deciding what is the impact of this data center on the surrounding communities.

Can you guarantee that this data center will not negatively impact kids like safe, kids like so many others that are here playing at those playgrounds?

And the answer I can tell you right now, I'm a physician, Sujet is a physician, dozens of us here are.

Dozens of communities have faced this before.

There's a Harvard law review out there that looks at all this stuff too.

Time and time again, companies like Keras have promised the world.

They overpromise and underdeliver.

Because as my son already discovered, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

They come in here, promise some things, and then the reality is they overpromise and underdeliver, so you're left with regulations and fines.

They don't care about fines.

They can pay fines.

They're generating millions of dollars of revenue for building data centers.

That is a parasitic relationship.

You might generate, you say a million dollars for Naperville 203 in Naper Commons, I don't see that money.

But let's talk about that million dollars.

One million dollars is approximately the equivalent of a hundred homes.

Pulti went and built almost 200 or 250 homes in almost the same amount of space.

If you zone this residential, Pulti would be glad to come back and build more than 100 homes.

So we give you more than a million dollars a year in revenue for 203.

We talk about job creation.

They run their social media campaigns, they say 500 jobs.

They even put on their own slides up there.

68 jobs, plus or minus.

His favorite restaurant is Chick-fil-A.

It's over on Butterfield Road.

Chick-fil-A normally employs in a standalone Chick-fil-A about a hundred employees.

So when you're telling me, oh, Keris is promising job creation, build one Chick-fil-A and you've already offset this data center.

Build a shopping center with a bunch of these things, you know, coffee shops, you know, uh other uh restaurants, daycare centers, things that serve the community rather than leech our utilities.

The reason Keras is so introduced interested in this property is because it's good for them, not because it's good for Naperville.

It's because they can tap into our utilities grid.

They can suck all that power, the equivalent of tens of thousands of homes off of our grid.

And who absorbs that cost?

Us.

Okay.

They say that it brings in tax revenue, we just reviewed that.

But how about the increase in the cost of utilities?

I mentioned that Harvard Law Review, you can go Google it, it exists.

We've looked at other communities, Aurora, Virginia, plenty of other communities have had data centers come through.

Harvard Law Review found that cost shifting pushes that cost and that burden onto residents.

How?

We compete for finite resources.

Okay.

When they come through, they tap in because we have an existing strong utilities grid.

It's not made to handle small cities in addition.

What happens is we have dynamic pricing.

You guys know this, Illinois competes, auctions, uh, bids on pricing through, I think it's called IPA.

We're all competing for dirty coal electricity, and we're bidding on that through an auction system.

So as the demand for utilities goes up, so does our pricing.

We see that in dynamic pricing.

They say, oh, July, you know, August, summer pricing, you pay more.

What happens when we come through and put an increased burden on the system?

That cost shift comes onto us.

It comes on to my son.

We expose our son, our families here to these dangerous chemicals.

We pay in addition in you know, utilities costs, the burden that we pay from these centers, all because of the promise of 60 jobs less than a Chick-fil-A, a million dollars to 203, less than 100 homes.

Petition right now, tell Pulti that you could turn that into residential home, they would offset that in a couple years.

My point of saying all this is to give you real life examples, faces to put to those decisions.

When that vote comes across your desk, can you in good conscience say to me that when I approve you know this change of the petition here that they want to put these diesel generators, these air coolers, these chillers, you know, trucking all this diesel and all the stuff into our communities, that those health burdens that we experience that we face that down the line when they look at reviews and they find out, oh, you know, as Sujay mentioned, it impacts lungs like his, that you can genuinely say that that trade off was worth it to get that little bit of money.

You should not put profits over the community and our health and our safety.

That's the whole point of the zoning committee.

So I please ask you to take that into consideration.

This is our sanctuary, this is our home.

We're so happy to be here.

That community, the video you saw, we were in that.

We go to that playground is, I mean, I don't know, a thousand feet, 1500 feet away from this.

Those diesel exhaust fumes that you put into the air that Keris puts in the air with these data centers, those effects are gonna be felt through generations.

It's felt through me, it's felt through my son, it's felt through all those countless other people that are here testifying from.

Please take that into consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

KDT, followed by MJ Sinatone.

Katie, could you spill your last name for me?

It's T O O O, sorry.

T-O-O-L-A-N, Tulin.

Yeah.

Did I not write it?

Oh, but anyway, it doesn't matter.

That guy stole a bunch of my points, so I'm not gonna talk for very long.

I just feel like um we have to remember that Naperville can stand on its own.

When Naperville had problems with this electric grid in the 90s, they did what a lot of other cities don't do.

They instead of just you know putting a band-aid on something, they rebuilt their infrastructure, they put their power lines underground so that they didn't have to worry about storms and all these other things, animals, all these other things that you know typically wear, you know, wear down, you know, outside power lines.

And I feel like Naperville doesn't, this is a matter of self-preservation.

Naperville, they're gonna come, data centers come and they suck energy.

They're insatiable, they just take as much energy as they can.

It's never enough.

There's always gonna be more and more data, more and more people with more and more data, and it's just it's gonna be never ending.

And even though it's called a boutique data center, that to make it sound cute, it's not gonna be cute.

It's it's really bad for this community, and it's bad for.

I mean, I understand that data centers are necessary, but it's just I don't know, it's just not a good solution for Naperville, in my opinion.

So hopefully you guys feel the same.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

MJ Cynatone.

I hope I said that right.

Okay.

Uh, and uh followed by a prior Vincent.

Good evening.

My name is Michelle Senatori, and I just really want to number one to say thank you for allowing everyone to speak, and I'm really would like to applaud each of you.

I've been watching all of your body language, and you have all been attentive, and I really appreciate that and the expertise that has come before you.

I hope you appreciate that from your community, because I have to say I've never been to a public arena like this with so many experts coming before you.

In particular, I think Dr.

Shaw sealed the deal.

I think by having an oncologist come before you that literally speaks to cancer, spoke to the specifics about the air, should be enough, but I also have expertise of my own to add to this.

Um, and I will share that I am very educated on the prior property that was the BP Amico petrochemical facility, which was down the street, Warrenville Road, in case all of you do not know.

Many of you look too young to maybe know of the story.

There were over 30, I believe 20 to 30 scientists that got brain tumors from that location.

Now, that is not to scare anybody.

My family comes from a nuclear medicine background.

I like mess, most of you here, we do agree that we need data centers.

Naperville has always been on the cutting edge in the forefront with so many wonderful things from business to humanity to philanthropic work.

But with things like what we're talking about now, the BP scientists, they did not know what was going on.

It took 20 years for them to get these brain tumors and die.

Additionally, you might remember the Nike Park.

Most people see Nike Park and think it's the Nike shoe.

That's from Nike missile bases being buried.

And if you remember the Army Corps of Engineers had to come in and actually give Naperville a water, a separate water system because of what happened with the contamination there.

You're talking about a data center here, basically down the road from both of those locations.

You're talking about a sound that hopefully all of you took the opportunity to go to Aurora and hear the sound.

I guarantee you, if you did that, you would have already excused this company from even having a meeting such as this.

Additionally, I understand the business side of this.

This is risk management.

You talked about some of these people here saying they don't care because they're gonna pay the fees.

They don't care.

This is a numbers game.

But I will assure you there will be a point in time, especially because somebody like Dr.

Shaw came and disclosed the facts about what can happen to children.

The late great last year, Sean Collins, the environmental attorney of Naperville, he was one of the attorneys that took care of the largest litigation case on air chemicals for stir, I can't remember the name of the company, over 400 million dollars to families that had problems with air solutions, so you'll have to get to look up Sean Collins.

Unfortunately, he passed away after all his extremely hard work to win that case for over 800 people.

So you have air pollutants, which these already are admitted, they have VOCs.

You have these 24 diesel generators.

I have not heard one single person talk about where are the underground storage tanks going to be placed.

Why does that bring up a question me?

Because if each and every one of you go on to the DuPage County website regarding Herrick Lake and the property right across the street from BP Amico on Warrenville Road, there's literally a in the deed, it states it's contaminated.

You're not even allowed to take one tablespoon of soil off of that land, and it's noted in the deed because it's contaminated.

Why is it contaminated?

It's because of the leaking underground storage tanks across the street from BP Amico, the way the land goes, it went through the ground and contaminated the property across the street.

So it is imperative that you find out where are those tanks going, how many are they gonna be?

From my quick assessment, it looks like there's gonna be about nine to ten um diesel storage tanks.

Where are those gonna be in proximity to these beautiful families 500 feet away?

So you have the air, you have the noise, you have the water table alone.

You're talking about for their cooling system, millions of gallons of water coming out of DuPage County for this particular project.

To me, that's another big no.

We cannot, we just had huge water increases, as you know, in the last 10 years.

So you have water issues, you have air issues, you have sound issues, you have contamination issues.

To me, it's a simple no.

I would end up just telling these people pack up your bags, go, thank you so much for the opportunity because generally speaking, it is an incredible opportunity and privilege that this sort of data company wanted to look at Naperville to bring their business here.

So it is complete.

I mean, I respect them for that, but there's nobody in their right mind that can say that they want to put this next to these beautiful families.

I'm happy to answer any questions at any time regarding any of this, and once again, thank you to everybody.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Praya Vincent, followed by Matt Drogan.

Good evening.

My name is Priya Vincent.

I'm gonna tell you this on a personal level, what this means to me.

My parents moved to DuPage County decades ago to raise their family.

My siblings and I grew up in this community.

We attended grade school, high school, and eventually went to different universities across Illinois.

This community has shaped who I am.

Uh, it is rare.

I built friendships, created memories, and developed a deep sense of belonging.

We live in a multi-generational community at Naper Commons.

Some of us are there just starting their lives.

Other neighbors are at different stages, and many are enjoying retirement.

Our community has a strong support system, and we value health, nature, and connection.

Naperville is consistently ranked one of the best places in America.

In recognition, reflect on the shared priorities of safety, education, green spaces, and public health.

From cornfields becoming industrial parks and residential areas to a single hospital building growing into a full medical complex.

Changes are unavoidable.

But all but not all changes is progress.

Some come with a high sorry, some come at a high cost.

I live with a serious health condition.

I'm immunocompromised, which means that my body cannot easily fight infections or environmental stressors.

My immune system is very extremely sensitive.

Even small changes in the air quality, noise levels or light pollution can have serious consequences.

I rely on clean air, quiet surroundings, and natural light to maintain my stability.

My recovery is slow.

Exposure to increase particle matters, chemical emissions, or low cost level noise from industrial equipment could trigger setbacks that could take a long time for me to recover.

A data center that is close proximity would overwhelm my immune system and compromise my ability to live safely in my own home that I purchased.

I'm not alone in facing this health issue.

Over 6.6 of Americans are immunocompromised.

Think about our neighbor, my neighborhood, especially there are a lot of small children, pregnant women, and elderlies, all who are especially vulnerable.

And these impacts could deeply per this becomes an imp this impact becomes a deeply personal to me.

As a lifelong residence, I've spent countless hours exploring our forest preserves, walking, biking, picnicking, and watching wildlife with my family and friends.

Since I moved to Naperville, my appreciation for nature, the natural beauty of this area has only deepened.

On any given day, I'm greeted by Finches, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Herons, and Sandy Hill cranes.

Some in the forest preserve, some right outside my front yard.

A turtle crossing the road, and sometimes occasionally I see them taking refuge beneath my Montauk daisies in my garden.

Coyote silently roaming through the backyard at night, a deer peeking from behind the trees, and foxes with striking poses sometimes appear at a distance, adding to a quite magical landscape.

Living near the forest preserve also has rekindled my childhood love of grasshoppers, fireflies, and drag dragonflies.

I enjoy seeing them in my yard.

These are creatures that remind me of how precious this land truly is.

Their presence is a sign of a thriving, healthy ecosystem.

But this is not about animals and insects.

They are part of the delicate balance that makes our community unique.

It allows us, if we allow an industrial development and crouch on this land, we we risk losing not only a div a biodiversity, but also a deep emotional and cultural ties that we share with nature.

I'm not against development.

It must be done responsibly, um, responsible.

But there are better locations for our data center, one that does not threaten our health, our wildlife, our way of life.

Please reconsider and say no to data center and protect our neighborhood.

Our forest and forest preserves and the values that brought us here.

Because once this land is gone, we cannot get it back.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Matt Dragon, followed by Erica Sutton Rivera.

Hey folks, thanks for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Matt Dugan.

Um a lot of my points are about the sound study, and they've already been covered, but I do have a couple additional ones that I just wanted to add.

So I appreciate the folks at Keras kind of putting out the sound study to maybe help show that you know the impacts of the data center will not uh violate the conditions interfering with the surrounding properties.

Um, in particular in the study, it kind of leads or kind of ends with the conclusion that says, you know, the ultimate finding is that the sound will be barely perceptible.

That's kind of the vibe of the overall study.

It's like, yeah, it's barely perceptible.

So I just kind of want to like walk back to kind of think of the assumptions of how the analysis worked that arrives at that barely perceptible conclusion.

So if you think about it, basically what they're doing is they are taking the baseline sound measurement in the area and they're comparing it to a simulation, essentially uh, you know, mathematical but educated guess of what the uh of what the proposed data center will emit.

So, first of all, with the baseline study, you know, they're saying that sure our simulated study will come in one or two dB above the baseline, but in order to measure the baseline, they had to put sensors somewhere.

Do they put them near the homes?

No.

Do they put them near the nearby sort of grassy areas?

No.

Did they put the sensors for the baseline near the large Nokia building with tons of industrial equipment?

Yes.

Does that spoil the baseline measure?

I would argue, probably.

Is it an unbiased measure?

Probably not.

Um and then so that's the baseline.

When you think of the simulation, they have to again make an educated guess of how much sound they think this new system will emit.

Other folks have made good points about the DBA versus DBC.

I think that's a great point.

The other thing I want to add too is one of the loudest noise contributors are, of course, the 24 generators.

At no point in the sound study do they do any simulation where any more than two of the 24 generators are active at once.

So when we're coming to this conclusion and saying, yeah, it's barely perceptible.

I just want to point out that it's barely perceptible when a small fraction of the overall proportion of generators are running.

Um I think those are all my points.

Thanks for your time.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Erica Sutton Rivera, followed by Harris Sidippi.

Okay, Harris, I think it's Sadippy.

Followed by Asim Bobar.

Good evening, committee members.

Um, and thank you, first of all, for not only listening to the community, but as volunteers taking out the time uh and sitting here in front of us, right?

This is not opposition.

We recognize that you're here for the betterment of this community and you're making these decisions as volunteers.

So we as a community as a collective really appreciate your time and effort uh in listening to us.

I've been a resident of Neighbor Commons uh for about six plus months now.

We build a beautiful home with my lovely wife and my better half and two kids, a four-year-old son and a joyous nine-month-old baby girl.

I've been in DuPage County for over a decade now, and I've been in Chicagoland area most of my adult life.

Uh, you have and you will continue to hear from a number of experts, right, that talked about some of the concerns that we have, the negative health and environmental effects of this potential construction of the data center itself, right?

Whether it's Dr.

Shah talking about the health risk, whether it is uh Mr.

Bernie who spoke about the legal implications of how this data center has come about, uh, or Dan who discussed zoning discrepancies, right?

Or in some cases, even false advertisement in relations to the number of employment that the said data center uh will have.

Um and then Dr.

Mirza, right, who talked about the effects that it can have to his son, who's not too far away from my son in age, and they often play together at the Napoleon uh or neighbor commons park.

Uh and then lastly, right, um, as Matt just mentioned, the barely perceptible implications of sound.

I'm not gonna stand here and go through detailed studies.

I think everyone has done a phenomenal job of doing that.

I'm gonna pivot actually a little bit and really focus on what this means to us as young working individuals, as parents that have young kids and the effect of that um to the community itself, right?

Um Dan earlier uh showed this excellent video.

So as I talk, I'm hoping this is gonna continue looping.

Um, just so you can you can see exactly what this community represents.

If we smile I can smile.

I can smile.

And it's late at night, so I'm gonna put the audio off.

Sound on the raffi.

If I can make there we go.

Just so I can keep talking while this keeps playing in the back, right?

But I really want you to visualize and look at this video in the community.

This was a few months ago that we recorded.

It was a spontaneous day in the neighborhood, a phone party where our kids are.

But I guarantee you, this is the site of this neighborhood multiple times throughout the years, and on most days, if you come to Naper Park, you will see kids there at very close proximity.

In fact, we mapped it out, it's about seven to eight hundred steps from the actual site of the data center itself.

What I wanted to also sort of cover here is that I ask you if there was even a tiny chance that your child could suffer from some of the health risks that were mentioned today.

What would you do?

What would be your considerations?

How would you make this decision?

And that's a pivotal part for us to consider as we move forward on whether this development continues or not.

We have young couples and families such as myself that were attracted to this community with the hope of building a family and living a peaceful life, a life in which we're not concerned about dangerous chemicals impacting our young ones or the effects of sound that as some of the studies suggested, right?

Whether it's hypertension, stress, state-related issues, these are genuine concerns that we have.

When dusk approaches, you can find most of these incredible people that you see in this video on these parks.

They're there.

And in the last year alone, and this number may shock many of you, in just the last one year, we've welcomed eight new babies in just neighbor commons alone.

So that should just give you an idea of how young and vibrant this community is.

And these are our kids that are going to get impacted.

To be clear, I'm not against data centers.

I work in tech.

I recognize the importance of data centers.

I recognize how much they charge, the basic things that we do in our lives, all the compute that's required.

However, what I am concerned about is the proximity to a residential neighborhood.

The proximity that is more recent in nature, and as many mentioned before, was not something that was made apparent to many of us that decided to build our very first homes, right?

It took months to build this property and see it go up layer by layer.

It was a beautiful thing for many of us.

We want to be here for a very, very long period of time as tax-paying citizens of this county, of this community.

And now that is at risk.

You've already heard a number of community members mentioned that they are willing to move out of this community.

That has a whole host of negative effects to us.

Home values, the community that we've built, the friends that my son now has in the community, and the risk of losing them.

That is real for us.

It is not superficial, it is not hyperbole.

These are actual concerns that we genuinely have.

So I implore you that the data center of this size, with these types of environmental concerns, should not be next to a residential community with 200 and plus 50 families living in there.

And I'm not even talking about you know Donata Woods or Fair Meadows or all these other communities are also close by.

But what's important is any perceived economic benefit cannot and should not overlook the health of our kids, the health of this community, the health of the young, and the health of the elderly that live within our community.

Noise pollution, air pollution, water pollution, you know, and even power consumption concerns or water consumption concerns are all real.

I know Naperville is in the process of renegotiating some of the contracts in relations to energy.

Based on what I understand, and I'm sure this could be fact-checked further, right?

This data center is going to consume 40 plus percent of the energy that all of Napoleville currently consumes.

That is a concerning number.

That is a concerning number because it also will affect the prices of energy for us in the long run.

You know, she was making her noises, she's nine months old.

I shouldn't have to be here with my daughter at that time of the night.

We had to leave our son home, but the idea was so we could be present and we could show that these are lives that are getting impacted.

But while she was making those sounds, I could see people turning back and just looking, right?

You know, why is this child here?

Because that little sound that she kept hearing was annoying.

And like I said, I promised she was not a paid actor.

So I looked it up quickly.

I was like, well, what is the sound that a child makes, right?

Not when they're screaming, but kind of like the sounds that she was making.

And it said it ranges between 40 to 60, maybe 70 decibels.

Think about that.

Those sounds that had heads turning, is what we are expected to be exposed to day in, day out.

If that was discomforting, imagine what we will have to live through in that community.

That's the real impact of the decision that this committee and council will make.

What would you do if this was your child?

What would you do if this was your grandkid that was living within that community?

How would this impact your decision?

What would you do in the face of this unified opposition, right?

We have folks from different communities that are present here, making time.

Once again, not because we have anything against data center.

It is the proximity and the location that was selected.

It was the manner in which this location was selected.

That is what concerns us.

Concerns us to the point that you have dozens and dozens of people sitting here opposing this and will continue to oppose it.

The question really is would you roll the dice with this future for the community members?

And if you do, would you be comfortable looking back at this point in time and recognizing that this was a bad decision?

And would that change anything in the lives of these community members and us?

It won't.

It would be late, or as they say, day late dollar short.

And we don't want that to happen.

So I urge you, dear communicate committee members, please really really consider the implications of this decision, and I really implore you to choose wisely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Asim Babar, followed by Neil Mata.

There it is.

Good evening.

My name is Austin Baber.

I'm a general cardiologist and member of the teaching faculty at Heinz VA Medical Center.

Tonight I will be briefly previewing the cardiovascular risks of data centers, not on behalf of my employer, but my employer, but as a concerned citizen, a husband, a father of three, and a neighbor residing in the community of Neighbor Commons.

Just briefly by show of hands, who here has a heart.

I I would venture to say I think everyone in this room does.

So as many of you know, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the US still.

Most deaths occur in people over the age of 65 years, but the disease starts developing many, many years before that, even as early as childhood.

It's present in one in three Americans, and classic risk factors include male sex, older age, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking.

However, there are other environmental exposures that have been identified as well.

So this you know, busy diagram here is from the American Heart Association published last year.

Um talks about the environmental exposures that can affect the heart.

And of these, I picked three that are linked with data centers, which we've obviously talked many times about already: air pollution, noise pollution, and chemical pollution.

So again, the hot topic today is noise pollution, but I'll go briefly uh over my points.

So it's associated with annoyance, stress, sleep disturbance, and impaired cognitive performance.

There's an increased incidence of uh arterial hypertension, heart attacks, heart failure, and stroke, especially nighttime noise levels increase stress hormones, which lead to uh stress on the blood vessels, which can lead to a dysfunction of the lining of the blood vessels leading to hypertension or high blood pressure.

And there's been decades of data on this that's been compiled that shows that these effects can take place at as low of a threshold as 50 decibels, and there's a four to there's a six to ten percent increase in every 10 decibels after that.

So we're talking about the range that even with the most conservative estimates that were presented by those studies are well within the range that we'd be dealing with here with these data centers.

Uh just to touch on air pollution.

Um, this was also touched on by uh by Dr.

Shaw uh really well.

Uh but fine particular matter can both lead to developmental and exacerbate uh preexisting cardiovascular disease.

And this these are quotes taken directly from the EPA exposure to increased concentrations of that particular matter, uh 2.5 microns over a few hours to weeks can trigger cardiovascular disease related heart attacks and death.

And this diagram just gives you kind of an idea of how small these uh particles were talking about.

That's a human strand of hair in comparison to these that are less than 2.5 millimeters coming from these diesel generators that we've uh already talked about.

And then longer term exposure can lead to increased risk of cardiovascular death and decrease in life expectancy.

I don't know about you, but I want to at least live in long enough to pay off my mortgage.

So finally, just to touch on chemical pollution.

Uh I think one of the speakers earlier did briefly touch on this that there are byproducts that can leak into the soil and the surrounding water reservoirs.

And so some of these that are included are you may have heard POS or what are colloquially termed forever chemicals.

So these get deposited in our bodies and they essentially never go away.

Uh these can also increase blood pressure and increase cholesterol.

On top of that, there are other heavy metals that have been linked with data centers, such as lead, mercury, cadmium, that can also increase the stress on the linings of our blood vessels, inflammation, and high blood pressure.

And this uh diagram was taken from the New England Journal of Medicine.

Here are all my references, and in summary, I don't believe that the environmental exposure concerns have been adequately or appropriately addressed.

No residential community, neither ours nor any other, should have to be subjected like guinea pigs to the development of an industrial project and potentially wait years or even decades to confirm the long-term health risks.

In my professional opinion, approval of this project would be considered nothing short of irresponsible, and pardon my bluntness after hearing these testimonials, frankly, heartless.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Neil Meta, followed by Gary Peck.

Good evening.

Uh my name is Neil Metha, and I want to thank you all for allowing me to talk today.

Um I'm a physician, a father, and a resident of Naper Commons, uh, the community adjacent to the proposed data center, which we've been hearing about for the last couple hours.

It's my job every single day as a gastrointestinal specialist to biopsy and diagnose my patients with cancer and break that advice to their loved ones.

Oftentimes these are linked to environmental exposures.

Therefore, I strongly oppose the construction of the Care Standard Center in my backyard.

I moved from out of state to Naperville in 2022 due to the long-standing reputation of this community as a family-friendly place to raise a family, its commitment to public health, and its abundance of community resources.

I believe that building this data center would oppose these core values that Naperville was built upon.

Although I cannot speak in detail to the undoubted environmental strain that the environment the data center will have on our community, uh resources and surrounding wildlife, which we've already heard about from many other people, I can speak to the potential severe health impact it may have on our residents, especially our most vulnerable, those including children, pregnant women, and the elderly, both of all of whom play a vital role in our community.

We've already heard that these data centers uh emit diesel exhaust, which is a mix of particulate matter labeled by the World Health Organization as a group one carcinogen on the same tier as tobacco and asbestos.

It can lead to both short-term and long-term effects, which we've heard about, uh starting with you know stress, hypertension, and can eventually lead to chronic bronchitis, heart disease, cancer, and even death.

Although the developer has stated they will utilize uh the most advanced emission control systems that are there are studies stating that even these tier four emission systems do not effectively filter these ultra fine particles.

Therefore, I asked the council do we want to subject our children and our elderly and our and their developing lungs and pre-existing conditions to this environment.

It is clear that the negative impact and the risk associated with building a data center adjacent to our community is detrimental and a danger to our public health.

As you have heard and seen repeatedly over and over again, physician after physician here, these are health risks, are real and they are significant.

I would like to note that 25 physicians from our community have signed a document that opposes the proposed data center in the context of the health risks that it poses surrounding families and children.

The document provides additional details and supporting data as well, including references.

If it's okay with the commission, I would like to uh pass out the letter for all of your to all of you for your reference.

Um thank you for your time.

All right, next speaker.

Gary Peck, followed by H A D I no Last Name.

Hi, folks.

Uh I spoke to you uh at the last meeting about uh you know the potential long-term risk to the health and happiness of the dozens and dozens of children who live in Naper Commons and all the surrounding communities.

You've obviously heard a lot more evidence of that this evening.

Um I hope that all weighs very heavily on your minds as you consider your vote.

More importantly, I hope it weighs very heavily on your hearts as you consider your vote.

Tonight though, I wanted to talk to you about what you created.

Uh I'm sure when uh you approved gave uh Pulti the Green Light uh to uh to develop Naper Commons, you had high hopes for what that development would become.

And as a development um as a and as a frequent visitor to development, I can tell you it's been a brilliant success.

That's beautifully laid out.

The homes themselves are beautiful, well maintained, park's a big hit.

So uh on that score, you know, um, it's been an unqualified success.

What I don't know that you planned on uh or expected is the culture that all of these residents have created.

You've certainly seen some evidence of that tonight.

Um, but if you were to wander over there on any weeknight or any weekend day, you'd see dozens and dozens of people out and about engaging with each other.

They invite each other into their homes, they plan events like the ones that you saw.

Um they plan on raising their families there for years and years to come.

In short, it is everything that Naperville says it wants to be, and for many already is for the life of me.

I can't understand why you would jeopardize all that for something that we don't need and nobody wants.

Finally, uh I also asked you a question last time.

Uh you've heard it from several others tonight about how you would feel uh if all of a sudden the data center was your neighbor.

I'd like you to give that really some serious thought again uh this evening.

Because when you ask yourself that question or ask your family that question, would I well would I you know happily gladly welcome a data center in my backyard or next door?

When you ask yourself that question, if the answer that you get is anything other than a resounding yes, absolutely I would, then you should not force one on these people who do not want it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

No last name.

Followed by Josh Carson.

I rise today to reject the proposed data center near Neighbor Commons.

My family lives in Naper Commons.

Um I just have a few points.

Um is gonna tell us that they they'll pay for 100% of the upgrades to the Indian Hill substation to support this new data center.

But for those that know with electrical uh grids, they're distributed interconnected network.

So when one substation goes down, the load gets distributed across the rest of the substations, rippling through transmission lines, transformers, and the entire grid.

So, in other words, the impact of this project, one stop at the Indian Hill substation, it will cascade across the electrical system in Naperville, and the cost of reinforcing that system will ultimately fall on the residents.

Second, the demand.

Right now, the average Naperville household takes around eight, 44 kilowatt kilowatt hours per month.

That means that this one data center is gonna be approximately as much electricity as 31,000 homes, half the city's households combined.

Now, with the rise of AI hyperscale racks, each rack can draw around 60 to 100 kilowatts, equivalent to a power equivalent to the power of 40 to 80 homes.

Hundreds of these racks together can hundreds of these racks together create a demand that rivals entire neighborhoods.

So, what's stopping care is critical from increasing the demand even further once the infrastructure is in place?

Once it's once the substation is upgraded, there's nothing preventing them.

They can push the limits as much as they can, and the residents will be footing the bill.

Third, the reliability.

Um on October 26th, we had a power outage uh at Naper Commons for about two hours in the middle of the night.

Uh, it affected other communities as well.

Um, electrical grid system, our city's own website acknowledges the need to replace aging underground cables and transformers.

Shouldn't we be prioritizing the reliability for residents before bending over backwards and adding a new data center into our electrical grid system?

I just so I just want to make sure that you guys understand all these points.

Uh, and I respectfully urge you guys to vote.

No.

That's all.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Josh Curson, followed by Hamilton and Che.

Josh.

Hamilton and Che.

Hamilton.

No Hamilton.

Maxwell Watkins.

Hi, uh, thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak.

So I I spoke last time, and I just want to reiterate my strong opposition to this this data center proposal.

I think that there are there's so many reasons to oppose this proposal that could really stand on their own.

And a lot of others here have done a fantastic job of addressing some of these issues, in particular the noise pollution.

I think a lot of the stuff that's been presented has been really great, so I'm gonna try to stick to new points.

Um I'm uh I'm a chemist by training.

Uh I could probably stand here and talk about the risks of spills of some of the chemicals that could be stored on site in large quantities, not only the diesel and the generators, but also potentially even the coolant, which I assume is some sort of high concentration of ethylene and proponent glycol and water, which is toxic, by the way.

Um, but I honestly kind of think that these risks are in some ways self-evident.

And so I would instead like to elaborate on a point I brought up at the last hearing, and that's specifically uh the danger of putting significant unnecessary strain on local electrical grids in a warm inclimate.

So the phase one proposal is this 10% increase on electricity demand, something like that.

Uh, as has been made clear is something that can nominally be absorbed by the grid.

However, given that the uh 24, 28 percent, I forget exactly strain of the original two-phase proposal could not be absorbed.

That's a signal that this increase will represent a significant shift towards being closer to grid capacity, especially during high demand events such as extended heat waves.

So, to put it very mildly, climate change is a problem that concerns everybody and should necessarily um and should necessarily inform any responsible policy or development decision.

Uh the resilience of localities to increasingly severe climate impacts over the next 10, 20 or 50 years is really gonna depend on infrastructure and development decisions made now and going forward.

This, of course, applies from everything from land use choices to water conservation to building codes to transportation infrastructure, but in this particular case, the risk that you really want to consider is that you do not want to be in a situation where you risk grid failure or blackout, and we were just talking about a power outage during a record-breaking extreme heat wave, which I really want to strongly emphasize is absolutely going to happen during the lifetime of most of the people in this room.

Um in the spirit of like my professional scientific career.

If anyone is interested, I'd be thrilled to provide peer review literature to show as much that this is going to happen.

Um, and so this scenario could really just be made significantly more likely because of substantial percentage of your energy is wasted on a facility like this instead of something like critical active cooling for communities.

Um, and again, as we need to move quickly as possible away from these dirty energy sources towards renewable energy, um, adding giant unnecessary energy black holes of AI slop generation, which is what this is gonna be, uh, just makes that goal harder and harder to accomplish.

I also think speaking to more media concerns about cost of living, that we are seeing a nationwide a confluence of pressure on electricity prices, and I think it would be deeply irresponsible to approve a facility, which will clearly and obviously make this problem worse.

Um, the other thing that I would like to point out that I I don't think I've heard brought up is that currently this is the only proposal of this sort in the state being considered in somewhere that isn't already heavily industrial zoned, which I think this should give you just a fundamental pause is that it's a type of facility that this is and the locations where it should and should not be allowed to be built.

As it has been noted, nearby Aurora has been in place a moratorium on data center development in part due to the insufficiency of the proposed mitigation to the strongly negative effects that these facilities have on local areas.

Um, I just want to say that I think that the attendance and the energy in this room speaks for itself in terms of how the community feels about this proposal.

People want a government that makes it possible for them to live healthy, safe, and dignified lives.

And a proposal such as this just goes against all of that.

And so I think approval will be an abdication of the responsibility of government to work to provide those conditions.

Uh, thank you for the opportunity to speak, and please consider what you're doing with as much due diligence as you possibly can.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Sarah Centani, followed by Michael Plata.

Good evening.

My name is Sarah Satanny, and my husband and I have been living in the Naper Commons community for about a year and a half.

I am also currently pregnant, and we are expecting our first child, a baby girl, in April.

When we were deciding where we wanted to live in the Chicagoland area, we did a lot of research, and as others have said tonight, we kept coming across all those ratings and articles about Naperville being one of the best, not only in Illinois, but also in the country for families.

So therefore we were thrilled when we learned about Naper Commons, and it's in Naperville so many great amenities, and we love living here.

What we must remember, however, is that Naperville getting those high rankings and praises as a great place to live is not something that happens by accident or automatically.

It's occurred because of a multitude of good choices made over the years.

And at any time, choices are made that can either make Naperville better or make Naperville worse.

So the choice to allow a data center with these 24 diesel generators that accompany it in Naperville of all places is one that could have far reaching negative consequences, not just in our neighborhood in Naper Commons, but far beyond.

The high energy and water use could strain Naperville's power and water supplies, in addition to raising utility costs for all residents, as we've heard from other speakers.

Property values throughout Naperville could suffer.

And I know that the presence of the data center would further reduce interest in the area.

With last month's approval of the new Northwoods of Naperville town home community, it's clear there is still residential interest, which I do support residential interest in the area, which I support.

However, this interest will decrease if this data center is approved.

And the noise pollution and release of harmful particles from the data center could also negatively affect not only those who live nearby, but also those who use the many trails as a part of the DuPage County Forest Preserve.

At the end of the day, I'm very hopeful that you do actually want to make the choices that are best for Naperville, both now and in the future, and that you aren't trying instead to make short-sighted choices that support corporate interests, negative health outcomes, negative environmental outcomes, and uh instead of supporting the lives of those who actually live here and will pay the price for this development.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Michael, excuse me, Michael Plata, followed by Hiba Suleiman.

Michael.

Good evening, members of the board.

Thank you so much for hearing us out tonight.

I know it's been a marathon, not a sprint, so we thank you for hearing us out.

My name is Hibasoliman.

I live in Naper Commons with my husband, who you heard from earlier, my four-year-old son, and my nine-month-old daughter, who you also heard from earlier.

I want to start with a short story.

Um, I grew up in Indianapolis, a small town outside of Indianapolis called Plainfield, Indiana.

I lived seven miles from the Indianapolis International Airport.

In the late 90s, just a few years after we built our house, the airport built a new runway.

The runway happened to be in our general direction, which meant that any incoming or outbound flights now flew over our neighborhood.

Now, as you can imagine, flights leaving approximately every 37 minutes, which yes, we did write down every time we heard an airplane fly over our house, caused quite the disruption in our household, as well as our neighbors' homes.

So our neighborhood banded together and sued the airport and won because of their interference with our quiet enjoyment.

Just based on the sounds, it wasn't because of diesel fuel or toxins or any of the plethora of harms that you've heard about today.

It's just the noise.

And we won.

This was 30 plus years ago.

What we're facing now is a company coming in to build a data center, an entity that will cause harm in the lives of the residents near us.

Now, all these years later, now that I'm an attorney, I must ask if something goes wrong, who do we sue?

I'm here tonight, not as a resident, but as a concerned citizen, asking this board to uphold its fundamental duty to protect the welfare, safety, and accountability of residents in your jurisdiction.

We heard from other residents that showed concern that Naperville is trying to distance itself from accountability, uh based on damage caused by Keris, but then who do residents hold accountable?

But then who do residents hold accountable?

Who precisely is responsible for building and operating the massive industrial facility next to our home, potentially poisoning the ground, the water, and the air, causing immense physical harm to our children, our pets, our family members, our home prices, and so many other things.

The layers of corporate veil seem designed specifically to obscure ownership and limit liability when it comes to CARIS.

This project is being developed and promoted by KARIS Critical.

Yet it seems that the Naperville application documents list the applying organization as Keras Critical Member LLC.

If residents were to sue for interference of quiet enjoyment, for example, do we list Keras Critical as the owner or developer?

Keris Critical Member LLC as a promoter or parent company, or the tenant slash operator, which is unnamed but listed on Keris' website.

We are dealing with a company named Keris, but when we take a look or take a closer look, that name is merely a front for layers and layers of limited liability partnerships.

We the residents most affected do not know the principles, we don't know the actual operator.

We the residents do not know who ultimately is going to be signing the checks or making the decisions or is legally bound to the city of Naperville.

This murky structure is not merely an inconvenience.

If this project is approved, who will be hold accountable?

Is a question that I keep asking myself.

For the noise ordinance violations, for traffic management issues, for environmental damage or in construction, for respiratory harm to our children, cardiovascular harm to ourselves, our children, the impact on wildlife and nature, impacts on, as I said, home prices, the potential for cancer, further degradation of air quality, and so much more.

If a problem arises, we risk spending taxpayer money in court trying to pierce the corporate veil just to find a responsible far party, only to find that the entity has maybe transferred assets or dissolved.

If we cannot identify responsible parties today, we certainly will not be able to enforce accountability tomorrow.

I implore you before making this decision, accountability must precede approval.

The city of Naperville should not grant zoning or building permits to a phantom operator.

Approval under these conditions essentially gives a blank check for development without the necessary mechanisms for enforcement or community recourse.

This law requires clear lines of responsibility.

The current structure as it stands provides an intentional shield against that responsibility.

Ladies and gentlemen of the board, I'll leave you with this.

KARIS and its unknown representatives would come, build their data center, cause irreparable harm to the environment, our health, and our right to quiet enjoyment of our property.

And then they'll leave.

But we are here, the recognizable citizens, the faces you see here, our neighbors, we are here, and we will continue to live here.

We care about Naperville, and that's why we are here.

We care about our children, we care about our neighbors' children.

Um we we want to prevent this data center, not because we don't believe in the importance of data centers.

We know that they run our everyday lives, but the proximity to our neighborhood will cause harm that we may not know of until decades from now.

And by then, I ask you again, who will we hold accountable?

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Melissa Erickson, followed by Kelly McBeth.

Melissa Erickson.

Kali McBeth.

Josh.

She's Josh, could you spill your last name for me?

Uh yes.

S-C-H-R-E-I-B-E-R.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Hello again.

So again, I'm coming before you to tell you that diesel engines are very noticeable, uh, even from far away and even with soundproofing.

Um I live almost twice the distance from the Neighborville Metro station as the data center is proposed to be from residences and on the opposite side of the building from the train tracks themselves, and I can tell when a train goes by.

Those trains have about a 30 to 45 second dwell time in Naperville station, and then they leave.

And there can only be ever two at a time in the station.

Never is, but you know.

But at this data center, there would be 24 diesel engines.

And they would be running, you know, tests that can take up to 30 minutes.

And, you know, even if you split it among different days of the month, that would be taking up literally half the month.

And supposedly they'd only be used in emergencies when you know what, the grid crashes, can't handle it to, you know, generate enough power.

Just so some kid halfway around the world can maybe generate an AI video of Tom Cruise bursting out of someone's chest.

You know.

And that's uh that's my time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Amanda Laughlin, followed by Michael Thibodeau.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Amanda Laughlin, and I'm a resident at Naper Commons.

I purchased my home in 2021 as part of the first round of sales and moved in over the summer in 2022.

Coming from a different townhome community, my husband and I didn't form any neighborly connections there.

We didn't know what to expect at Naper Commons.

Fast forward to now where I'm a member of the social committee that plans almost monthly events for the entire neighborhood, and we've developed well over a dozen true and deep friendships with our neighbors.

For someone on the outside, it's difficult to understand the bond of our community.

We gather on holidays, we attend each other's baby showers, and our children play outside together in the park every single night.

Just last week at Halloween, our community gathered in the park for a children's uh costume parade before chick-or-treating, where there were over a hundred people in attendance.

Being a part of such a large community that wants to actually get together on a regular basis, it requires a majority of our events to take place outdoors.

This proven uh negative noise effects from the proposed data center would absolutely affect our ability to gather outside as a community, walk our dogs, play with our children, and unite with each other's families.

This is something special that you helped create.

This is a community that we all want to thrive in Naperville.

Now that it's full, everybody's moved in, and the magic actually happened.

We shouldn't be changing the master plan in the wrong direction.

This should be a community that you're proud of.

My family alone has amassed over 200,000 in increased property value and just over three years of living there.

There are so many brave and determined community members speaking on so many different points this evening about our water electric bills, the decreased property values, and of course the adverse health effects from the continuous uh nearby exposure.

A lot of other speakers have had a lot of factual data points that are incredibly important to understand when considering a site like this, but I can only speak from my heart.

The negative health effects in particular strikes the chord with me because I have two little babies, two years old and six months old.

You heard from my dad earlier, someone as my today affectionately refers to as Papa.

He asks you to think long and hard about whether or not you'd want this nearby your own home.

But more importantly, if you have any question or any hesitation at all in approving this uh proposed data center, the answer should just be no.

The stakes are absolutely too high.

Many of us neighbors feel so deeply integrated into our community that we've said this is it.

This is where we want to raise our children until they leave us.

But this is these are the same neighbors that are now saying if this is approved, we'd have to sell to protect our families.

Please don't ruin this for us.

We've created a wonderful community.

Don't make our energy bills too expensive for a current residence to afford, and please don't give our children cancer.

I would have brought them here tonight, but they're already asleep peacefully in their beds without extra noise disturbances and without polluted air.

In 10, 15 or 20 years, you're not going to remember me, and you're not going to remember my children.

But if you approve the site, they're going to remember you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Michael Thibodeau.

Michael Thibodeau.

Barbara.

Oh, sorry.

Followed by Barbara Benson.

Good evening.

My name is Michael Thibodeau.

I stand before you remember the West Suburban Illinois chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and a proud resident of the Neighborville community.

My child goes to District 203 schools.

He plays youth sports for Naperville teams.

I love this community, and I feel moved to speak out in its defense.

I don't want to retread old ground.

Everyone else has already made brilliant points here.

I want to try to get us out of here before 11 o'clock and not have a repeat of the last meeting where we were here very late at night.

They want to make sure that their voices are heard, the same that these petitioners from KARIS here have had with you.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Barbara Benson.

Followed by Miguel Beltron.

Hello, um, Madam Chairperson.

Barbara was contacted by her family and had to leave.

Uh my name's Ted Bellard, and I'd like to give voice to her public comment with your permission.

Uh can you spell your last name again?

B is and Baker O-U-R-A-R-D, speaking for Barbara Benson.

Understood.

That's fine.

Um, Barbara and I are both members of NEST uh leadership team.

Um I'll keep this to three minutes, as is uh my custom.

Um these are Barbara's words.

Uh good evening.

I'm Barbara Benson, Chair of the Building and Development Committee of the Naperville Environmental and Sustainability Task Force, better known as NEST.

Though I previously sent a statement via email, I want to use this opportunity to reiterate NES's position.

While it is encouraging that CARIS updated their proposal to include a community stewardship pledge and reduce the overall size of their development request, NEST maintains that it is imperative for the city to pause taking any decision related to data centers.

City staff, this commission, and city council are currently at a disadvantage in evaluating this and any other data center proposal because our ordinances are not up to date, nor are they written to handle the complexity of such developments.

A temporary moratorium is crucial to allow the city to develop essential, robust, regulatory frameworks before approving any new data center projects.

This proactive approach will ensure that future developments align with the community's long-term sustainability and land use goals.

NEST urges the city to prioritize the following three key areas during this pause.

Codify reporting and enforcement.

The city must establish and maintain and mandate transparent regular public reporting of water and energy usage for all data centers.

Crucially, this reporting must be backed by a clear enforcement mechanism to penalize non noncompliance and ensure accountability for these resource-intensive operations.

Second, regulate backup power testing, establish clear mandatory schedules for generator and backup power testing.

This is necessary to mitigate the noise pollution and diesel emissions that often negatively impact adjacent residential areas, ensuring a predictable and minimal disruption schedule.

Third, clarify differentiated zoning.

Data centers are not monolithic, their impacts vary significantly by size and cooling methods.

The city must clarify zoning by establishing distinct categories based on the type of the center.

For instance, small scale server farms versus massive hyperscale facilities.

This differentiated zoning should include defining minimum distance requirements from residential neighborhoods to buffer against noise, traffic, pollution, and other impacts.

To inform this critical regulatory work, the city should consult industry best practices and research.

Resources like the Urban Land Institute's white paper on data centers and other foundational literature can provide a strong basis for developing smart, sustainable local policies.

Because we believe that this pause and implementation of those safeguards is vital, we ask the PCC to recommend not moving forward with the Kerris Critical Data Center at this time.

Thank you all for your service to your community.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Miguel Beltron.

Followed by Sarah Baugh.

Good evening.

Members of the council, thank you for this opportunity to speak for you.

My name is Miguel Beltron.

I am not a resident of Naperville Commons or the surrounding area.

I live in the Maple Brook subdivision by Washington and 75th.

And yet I still feel compelled to speak out against this data center for many of the reasons that the other residents have already said.

Just a temperature for the way the rest of the nation feels about data centers in general.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 44% of Americans at this time would be comfortable with a data center being close to them.

Now, if we were just going off a majority rules, then you would easily say we do not want a data center in the Naperville area based on those numbers.

However, I think those numbers, especially based on what I've heard tonight, what we've all heard, are probably a little bit incorrect if people had more information about noise emissions and resource management related to data centers.

This sector is larger is largely unregulated at this time, and with the recent cuts to the EPA as far as resources and personnel, I do not think that we will be seeing a large crackdown on the way data centers are regulated in the near future.

Many of the companies uh that run data centers do not disclose their resource usage and are not required to, citing trade secrets and oftentimes handcuff the municipalities that approve them with NDAs.

As far as water usage goes, Keras has said that uh there will be a one-time use of water.

I think that's very difficult to determine.

And in general, there's a huge prolifer prolifer proliferation of data centers in general around the Lake Michigan basin.

That is actually a finite resource.

20 to 40 percent of Lake Michigan's uh water actually comes from groundwater, and one percent of it is replaced annually.

So as more and more data centers are built around the region, excluding Naperville, including Naperville, it doesn't matter.

Uh, the Lake Michigan region will start to lose water significantly significantly as time goes on.

Uh as far as energy uses, I mean, Naperville is still in negotiation with IMA IMEA to determine what the long-term energy is going to be for the community to impose a power-hungry data center in this community without even having knowledge of what the long-term energy infrastructure is going to be looking like, I think is foolhardy.

The cost of energy will increase regardless if this data center comes into our community or not, because there are already more data centers being built around the area, and that's going to lead to increased uh infrastructure.

It's also going to lead to increased demand with a limited amount of supply.

So, regardless of this data center goes here in Naperville, our energy costs are going to go up, which means that if we have a data center in Aprilville, it's going to go up even more.

A businessman who I respect once told me that when he considers a business decision and an investment, ROI is actually the third thing that he considers.

He considers does he actually need to make this investment?

And what can you lose?

I think it's very clear that we do not need this investment in our community because Naperville is doing pretty good without it.

Also, what can we lose?

We've heard from many families here about the community that they have, about how Naperville is actually an outstanding community and the numbers show it.

Naperville has five high schools, so they're the top 50 in the nation.

It's rated 2022 as the top library system in the nation and has been repeatedly called one of the best cities to raise a family in the nation.

Naperville is one of the most desirable and best communities in the nation for families.

That's the selling point.

If you want to invest in families, build parks, build homes.

Maybe build a Chick-fil-A.

But in general, I think a data center is at this time not a good decision for the community.

I thank you very much for your time.

And I hope we can all get out of here soon.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Sarah Blobb.

Followed by Robin Schmidt.

Can I give you guys something?

This is a petition from a nearby school signed by the kids, and I was asked to present it to you guys.

May I bring it up there?

Oh, Sarah, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

I think we have brought a lot of people out tonight, and it's clear that from the community's perspective, what matters most is long-term stability, protection of local resources, including noise, environmental quality, property values, and assurance that any commitments made are clearly defined, enforceable, and fully deliverable.

Given the products that have been sufficiently proven, I think, here tonight by community members and experts that are in the community.

This is an opportunity for both KARIS and also for the city to show the way that development can happen and proceed responsibly, balancing economic interest, but prioritizing safety, well-being, and the quality of life.

The bottom line is it doesn't belong on this site as it stands right now.

Transparency and accountability require careful review before any decision is made.

And tonight has made it very clear that the information currently just is not available or it's insufficient.

For these reasons, we respectfully ask that you table or deny this petition in its current form until full regulatory guidance and community protections are in place.

Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker.

Robin Schmid, followed by Ken Schmidt.

Good evening, and thank you for letting us speak and for tabling this discussion to yet another night.

I um live in the Fair Meadow neighborhood.

I've lived there for 43 years this month.

I would just like to say that we are all here representing not just Naper Commons or Fair Meadow, but we are representing four residential areas in addition to the North Woods of Naperville that is currently being built.

We have Fair Meadow, we have Donata Woods, we have Napor Commons, we have Indian Hill, which no one's brought up, which is a um, and then we have the new North Woods.

And I just I can't believe what wonderful testimony we've had here tonight that to me speaks loudly that this center is being proposed needs to be a definite no from this council.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Ken Smith, followed by Christina Harding.

Good evening.

My name is Ken Schmidt.

Thank you for listening to me today.

Uh like my wife said, we've been in the area for a long time.

I don't want to talk about all the negatives associated with this data center, but I do want to personalize this with the committee.

Think of us right now.

Uh we work, we come home from work, think of you coming home from work, going up to your mailbox, and finding out that there's a petition to put a data center within three to five hundred feet of your home.

We don't want this.

This is not the right thing to do for Naperville at this time.

Data centers have to become more economically efficient.

This is not the right thing to do now.

It's not the right thing to do for Naperville.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

And the last speaker is Christina Harding.

Thank you.

My name's Christina Harding.

I am a lifelong Naperville resident.

I'm nearing the end of my doctorate in strategy and innovation.

So please believe me when I say I get the buzz.

That's around AI and data centers.

I intensely hear the industry excitement for leveraging and expanding data centers everywhere.

But this push is exactly that at this point in time.

Buzz and excitement.

Is there a strategic reason for us to bring a data center here?

No.

I asked the council to negotiate for more for more from the company in this proposal because we have the time to find the right space and monitoring process.

A recent MIT study has found that 95% of the most recent data center partnerships have failed to deliver a measurable financial turn to the promised magnitude.

My expert opinion in this topic is moving quickly to build infrastructure to support more data centers in this area actually threatens long-term sustainability and community competitiveness.

Data center capabilities are currently being used by companies and everyday people without disruptions and with full functionality for where the technology exists today.

Moving forward for what we have today feels like a disservice to the community and to the brand image of Naperville, which, as I've said, I've lived in for my entire life.

There is no language here that positions us for long-term success.

We know there are negative environmental impacts associated with data centers, particularly in the communities that surround them.

And frankly, I'm surprised that Naperville would risk its positive brand image and national reputation to build something here without wanting more measurable data comments.

If data centers are indeed in our future, I ask representatives to negotiate provisions that the company pay for independent monitoring and independent public reporting to provide us with data about the ongoing social, economic, and environmental impact this data center will have in our community here or elsewhere.

Without this data, we are unable to strategically plan public policy that works in tandem with the results that we see.

Thank you.

Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak on this case tonight?

All right.

So before we move to the commissioners and the questions that we may have, I think we have a few.

November just before we get there, I know we did this before.

Is it the 18th or the 19th?

19th.

Yes, that's correct.

It's the 19th.

I appreciate that.

It is 10 45.

Okay.

Um that was a lot.

Um, and I I think I'd start by saying, you know, I I sympathize with a lot of what I heard tonight.

Um, you know, I'm not going to be able to get through everything that I'd like to say in response to comments tonight, comments from frankly the last two meetings in 15 minutes or frankly 30 or 45 minutes.

I think we've got um a bit of notes that we would like to respond to.

So it may be that um we need to uh we need to go ahead and continue at at uh at whatever time you'd like to stop.

So just kind of give me a heads up as I get going and I'll I'll stop.

I I I think the I think the starting point though is that not all data centers are created equal.

I mean, that sounds kind of stupid, but it's but I I think it's gotta be the starting point for understanding.

We heard so much from residents today, and so much of it I I think was uninf was probably unintentional, but was misinformed.

Um, you know, whether it was about um electrical usage or whether it was about generator runs or whether it was about water usage or whether it was about the zoning, there's just there's a massive amount of misinformation that has been disseminated and it's creating a lot of inks, it's creating a lot of emotion.

And so I hope that as we kind of work through some of this stuff that we can begin to dissect, make sure we get some of the facts out, and I'm sure more of that's gonna come out uh in the QA process with uh with the commission.

So I I guess um I'll I'll reset and say I again Russ Whitaker, I'm with Rosenov and Whitaker.

Um, I'm land use counsel for CARES critical.

I would note that I'm a Naperville resident.

Um, that the Greg Strom who's with me from Keris Critical is a Naperville resident.

Um so I think there was a lot of allegation that this is some nameless faceless corporation, and there's all of this effort to um to confuse us and to hide things from us and to be dishonest with us.

And that couldn't be further from the truth, right?

I mean, we've come here, we we made an application in good faith to Naperville.

Um, we've been going through process, working with folks, um making changes to applications, revising plans, um, providing additional studies in response to comments, um, and trying to work through process um each time we hear information.

I would say even before we started the the plan commission process, we reached out to neighbors.

Um we invited neighbors into a resident meeting um that was conducted on the NIU campus before we even started the zoning process.

So, you know, we we began trying to disseminate information about this case at a very early stage.

Um I I guess you know, having heard a lot of information um today, it seems like there's some suggestion that this was all like canned and people were being fooled to buy Pulti homes, and that we were only moving forward to the data center after people bought Pulti homes.

I I just want to state that that couldn't be further from the truth, right?

I mean, there was some there were some timelines that were put out there with respect to kind of how things unfolded, right?

I mean, we could go back to the early 1960s and talk about the Bell Labs development um and what's happened at Bell Labs.

I don't want to go all the way back there, but I do want to state that you know it was 2020.

Nokia came before the commission, um, before the city and said, hey, we've got sort of some excess land associated with the campus.

Um, we'd like to subdivide off and rezone a portion of that property.

Um that property became known as a lot for it's what's Naper Commons today.

Um, as most of the people on this commission know, I represented Poulty uh in the development of Naper Commons.

That also was not an easy process.

I don't know if there were as many people as there were tonight, um, but there was very strenuous objection to uh to Naper Commons when Naper Commons came through.

We had residents from Fair Meadow who hired attorneys.

Um we had folks from Donata townhomes that lined up.

Um we heard statements like it was a mega development, it was high-intensity housing, um, the traffic impact was going to destroy the neighborhood, the the all of the the people and the cars were going to destroy the forest preserve, and once this happened, nothing would ever be the same.

Interestingly enough, here we are four years later, and we have the neighbor commons residents aligned with the Fair Meadow residents and the Donata townhome residents, and they formed um what is obviously a very nice community.

I'm glad to hear that they formed a nice community.

I'm glad to hear that the objections that we heard from Fair Meadow and Donata townhomes back in 2021 didn't carry through.

I'm glad to hear that the objections that we heard from Fair Meadow and Donata townhomes back in 2021 didn't carry through, and everybody's gotten along and everybody feels like it's developed into a good community.

And over 20 years of doing zoning cases before Naperville, I can say that that's the case like pretty much every time.

Of course, that never happened.

Just like the the Fair Meadow objections, just like the Donata Town Home objections did not become realized when Naper uh Commons was developed because uh in fact most of those objections were based on emotion.

They weren't based on fact.

Um, and I don't think that's ill will.

I think it's in some respects unknowing, unknowing of the process, unknowing of how development unfolds, unknowing how we layer development through the community.

Um but I I think the you know, one of the things that I would posit to the residents is just like just like it played out in a positive manner with Naper Commons.

I believe that the development of the CARES critical data center in this location will also play out uh in a positive fashion.

I believe the CARES critical data center will be uh a good neighbor in this area of town.

Um can I get a screen up sorry that I know it's not the four hours, very respectfully now.

So I I guess with some of those kind of opening remarks in response to uh in response to what we heard tonight.

Um I I do have some sort of prepared remarks coming into this evening that I'll I'll start here and then you know we can circle back to some of the specific things that were talked about.

And you know, I guess just uh off the top of my head, the the one other thing I want to throw out there because I want to make sure that the commission is thinking about it if we don't get through all of this tonight.

Um there was a lot of discussion tonight about health effects.

Um, but I I you know I what I want to emphasize is that risk does not equal hazard.

And so go back and look into it.

Um risk does not equal hazard.

Um hazard depends on um exposure pathways and mitigation design.

And what we're gonna talk about tonight or in a at a continued meeting is the manner in which we've mitigated the design.

Um we've consistently worked um in order to in order to improve the design so that there were appropriate mitigation factors in place so that there were in fact not health risks associated with the data center campus.

Um so a common question throughout all three hearings has been why a data center.

And I think there's really three primary reasons we could go further than this, but we've got some time constraints, right?

Um so uh the first reason I touch on is integrity of the I EDA corridor as a primary business district, second would be data centers or essential infrastructure, and three um is new tax revenues.

Um start with the comment that this is the I-88 corridor business district, right?

When we look at this map, the residents are absolutely right.

Napor Commons is adjacent.

Um the Donna Town homes are adjacent to uh Naper Commons, and then Fair Meadow uh is a little further in the distance.

There's comment uh about Northwoods of Naperville, Northwoods of Naperville is not adjacent but uh is proximate, as is the um uh the unincorporated subdivision, um, Indian Hill.

Um, but when we look at this map, um I I think what you see in this map is that this is a very dense area, right?

Um this is one of the city's primary business districts.

Um and it's not just a primary business district in Naperville, but it's a primary business district from Aurora, um, Warrenville, Naperville, Lyle, all the way till we get to Chicago.

And I think you need to begin to ask yourself why is that the case?

Um it's the case because I-88 is located in the business district is generally named after the roadway I88, right?

It's the I-88 road corridor.

Um, and I I think what's what's super important to consider is that this has been a primary business designation for the city of Naperville for decades, dating back to the early 1960s when I ED8 was developed, and then the the Bell Labs campus was developed on the heels of the IEDA corridor.

So the business, the business district that was developed, um leverages the the high traffic corridor, it leverages the access, it provides jobs in the region and allows residents or allows folks access to to get to the jobs that are located in the corridor.

The ID8 corridor has been a critical component of Naperville for decades.

Whether it's here at the Bell Labs campus, down the street at BP, at Nalco, at the Proton Therapy Center, at Ecolab, uses throughout the corridor have historically and continue to be much more than your run of the mill office building.

If we got into uh none of us have a deeper under a full understanding of exactly what happens um at this campus or ultimately happened at the BP campus, um, but certainly the the concerns about chemical storage, underground storage tanks, all of those things, these are things that have historically been happening on these properties for decades and decades.

Um so as we begin to think about what is the transition, how are we remaking the corridor, what is going to become of it in the future?

Um I think we've got to look back into the history and consider that um these uses have been predominant.

Um they've been predominant in this area for very strategic purpose.

Um, and Naperville is very much dependent on maintaining the integrity of this corridor moving forward.

Um while there's been some residential intrusion into the corridor, and I think there's certainly been more registr residential in the corridor in the the last couple of years.

I've been responsible for some of that.

Feel bad about that suddenly tonight.

Um, but um I I think the corridor has to evolve.

It's not going to be um exactly what it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s.

It's going to take some reimagining, it's going to take uses that are consistent with the the future of the economy.

I have to pause you, Russ.

Um, so I think based on what you were saying before you got started, you have quite a bit more to cover.

I can extend the meeting another 10 minutes and see, or we can continue the meeting for November 19th.

I I would just recommend we continue it to the 19th.

All right, so I'm gonna ask for that motion, and then I still have to close out, so please be respectful as we're doing that.

Thank you.

I would like to make a motion to continue the public hearing for the petitioner and the commissioner's discussion only for November 19th, 2025 planning and zoning commission meeting.

So all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All right, motion carries.

All right, Chairman.

We can skip the approval of the minutes and just go to adjournment.

Oh, don't do it.

Or yeah, we can uh approve the minutes at the next regular scheduled meeting.

Okay, so then meetings adjourned, right?

Um there needs to be a vote for the adjournment, so you can just skip to that part.

All right, so I would like to entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting.

So move, second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Meeting adjourned.

Thank you very much.