Marana residents want to take a proposed data center to the polls, after turning in a referendum petition with more than 2,800 signatures.
The Town of Marana confirmed that on Wednesday, Feb. 4, the Town Clerk issued two receipts for two referendum petitions. Arizonans for Responsible Development, a group sponsored by the advocacy organization Worker Power, submitted both petitions.
The two petitions contained about 2,800 signatures each – the requirement is 1,360 signatures in order to be submitted for processing and validation. Marana officials said that there are two referendum petitions because the data center project spans two separate properties.
If approved, the referendum would overturn a recent rezoning decision to allow a data center campus to be built in Marana by Beale Infrastructure, which is also the developer of Project Blue, a data center proposed in Pima County.
In January the Marana Town Council unanimously voted to rezone 600 acres of land for the proposed data center.
Marana officials said the rezoning is on hold until they know the outcome of the referendum, and possibly until the election is finalized if the petitions are validated.
The No Desert Data Center Coalition and other groups submitted the referendum petitions last week.
Vivek Bharathan with the coalition says despite community opposition, Marana elected officials decided to move forward with the rezoning.
“Without any kind of public hearing, any kind of town halls to gauge resident support or opposition to it, like we had had in Tucson and they voted on it essentially at their very next meeting and pushed it through,” he said.
In December, during Beale Infrastructure’s first presentation before the Marana Planning and Zoning Commission, Beale representatives said that they completed required outreach to ten residents who lived in close proximity to the proposed data center.
If the petition is validated and approved by the Town Clerk, the referendum measure would appear on an upcoming election ballot.
Marana officials say that if the petitions ultimately qualify, the referendum will be scheduled for an election later this year. It is unclear which ballot it will appear on.
The No Desert Data Center Coalition was formed last summer, after widespread opposition to Project Blue.
Bharathan said that concerned community members who were opposed to that project had more time to mobilize compared to Marana residents.
“And get over 2,800 signatures and I think it was like four days…goes to show just how opposed voters in Marana were…,” he said.
The Marana Town Clerk has 20 business days to verify that a minimum requirement of eligible signatures have been met before forwarding the petition to the Pima County Recorder’s Office for review.
Marana officials said that because the process involves multiple stages, it’s difficult to provide a precise estimate for completion. If the petitions ultimately qualify, the referendum will likely be scheduled for an election later this year.
AZPM reached out to reps for Beale Infrastructure and asked about the current status of the Marana data center project.
In a statement they said, “On January 6th, the Town of Marana Council voted 6-0 to approve the rezoning for both parcels.”
They also told AZPM that the next phase of the project will go into design and permitting with no word on groundbreaking, which differs from the rezoning process.
