HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-09-28 Cristina Holt TestimonyFrom:Tina Holt
To:Planning WPC Testimony
Subject:Written Testimony for Oct 1 Meeting on Bill 170
Date:Monday, September 28, 2026 3:48:57 PM
Commissioners,
My name is Cristina Holt. I am a resident of Hilo, and I have been following the issue of datacenters across the country as well as in other places in the world, such as Singapore (one of the
few relatively comparable situations since they are also an island nation).
We must first work together as a community to define exactly what we are talking about when
we say "data center," which I believe is the intent and the limit of Bill 170. Without a shared,agreed-upon definition, this Commission, the County Council, developers, and the community
are not even having the same conversation. One person's "data center" could mean a Fortune-500-scale AI campus, and another's could mean a small server closet already covered under
the existing "data processing facility" definition. Getting this definition right is not abureaucratic formality, it is the foundation everything else in this process depends on.
That is exactly why I am in support of the intent of Bill 170 (Section 1) and urge thisCommission to take a serious look at the actual definition that has been put forward. It is
concerning how vague some of the language is when describing data centers, so vague that Iam sure a well-paid attorney working for these developers could easily run it through a
shredder, leaving us with even fewer protections than before we started this process. Thoughthere is much research and continued learning to be done, especially for citizens and
volunteers such as the members of this commission and myself, I ask this Commission to putforward a definition of data centers that relies on clear infrastructure parameters and resource
use, not on terms such as "industrial" or "incidental or typical."
I also ask that this Commission reject the Planning Department's apparent proposal to create a
permitting pathway with no guardrails for any facility using 10,000 square feet or less, andonly discretionary review for facilities over that size.
This is one of the few issues in our day and age where the vast majority of people agree,across political and ideological lines, that we do not want data centers anywhere near our
communities: a Gallup poll conducted March 2 to 18, 2026, found that 71% of Americansoppose AI data centers being built in their local area, including 63% of Republicans, 74% of
Independents, and 75% of Democrats. Against that backdrop, the 10,000 square footmeasurement itself would be laughable if it weren't so embarrassing coming from an office
full of people being paid, with our tax dollars, to work on exactly this kind of thing. And tofind out that this number came from a consulting company based on the continent is
unacceptable.
The Planning Department has jumped the gun and proposed the most lax, useless regulatory
limit imaginable, before the foundation I described above is even settled. A quick calculation,using the maximum height allowed in an industrial zone (45 feet) and the Department's own
suggested maximum floor area (10,000 square feet), shows that a data center built to thoselimits could draw anywhere from roughly 3 to 18-plus megawatts of continuous power. I am
genuinely offended that they were allowed to hand this off to our Planning Commissions whenit was designed by an outside consultant with seemingly so little critical thought of their own.
So again, I am asking you all to support the intent of Bill 170, which is to keep data centersfrom becoming a permitted use on County of Hawaii jurisdiction land, by creating a clear and
legally sound definition of what we mean when we say "data center," and to reject thePlanning Department's premature and foolish suggestion that we bypass this process altogether
and allow data centers to be built with little or no review.
Here is a working definition of "data center" that myself and others have put together, based
on research from across the country and the world:
"'Data center' means a facility, or two or more facilities on contiguous or adjacent parcels
under common ownership or control, whose primary purpose is housing, operating, or co-locating computer servers and associated cooling, power, and support infrastructure, and
whose combined electrical demand at full build-out meets or exceeds 5 megawatts."
I would love to see water use and protection explicitly added into this definition, and the
pieces in here explicitly name the functional components of data centers, make it clear that noumbrella or nesting-doll of LLCs or corporations will slip through, and that no campus
workaround will be allowed to get through this definition. Again, it is just a start, and I hopeyou all are able to use it and add water use in a way that will further strengthen this definition.
I also want to make note that when facilities such as these discuss their water usage, they donot include the upstream water usage associated with the power they are drawing. So, even a
"closed loop" system would still use our precious fresh water to stabilize their additional strainon our grid.
Thank you for your careful consideration and your commitment to protecting our limitedresources.
Cristina Holt