- The There’s a big meeting at Quinte West city hall this (Thursday) evening.
The city’s Planning Advisory Committee is expected to vote on a staff recommendation
to have council approve a rezoning of property on Trenton’s Riverside Drive allowing a small
data centre.
The property is currently zoned for light industrial use.
This (Thursday) afternoon the Quinte Economic Development Commission (QEDC) supported the rezoning
although it’s caused a lot of controversy in the community.
QEDC CEO Chris King said there was a lot of misinformation about the proposed facility being spread through
social media.
King said the centre will be very quiet, will not use any water from local water sources, not produce any notable
traffic, and will not produce industrial emissions.
Hydro One has signed off on a contract to provide the power to centre to be paid for at regular commercial rates.
If ultimately approved the $320 million data centre would be located on the former Saputo Dairy property, vacant since
2020.
It would be owned by TrueNorth Sustainable Infrastructure and the data stored would belong to Bell Canada.
Fourteen to 16 well-paid full-time jobs would be created at the centre, not including any support staff and during
the construction phase over 100 people would be employed.
Quinte West councillor David O’Neil told the commission that if the Planning Advisory Committee rejected
the rezoning “it would be a travesty and the company will likely take their proposal elsewhere.
The federal and provincial governments are pushing for data centres to be built as currently most of Canada’s
financial, health and government information is being stored in the U.S.
Data Centres are basically buildings filled with computers to store the information people use online every day.
The can also be used for artificial intelligence purposes.
