Developers pitched a Calif. data center to fix this city’s woes, residents want anything else

Last week, Monterey Park won a significant battle in a growing nationwide backlash when it became the first city in the country to effectively ban data centers by popular vote. 

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The message from voters was clear: The power- and water-hungry facilities that power the internet and the booming AI industry were not welcome in their city. But now, the San Gabriel Valley suburb is facing a more difficult question: What do its residents want at the proposed data center site instead?

“If we’re going to tell them what we don’t want, and they’re going to listen, then we should leverage that to work with them to develop what we do want,” local organizer Jesse Damon told SGATE by phone Thursday.

On Wednesday, the city hosted the first of three community meetings, advertised as an opportunity to hear directly from residents about their vision for Monterey Park’s future after the vote. City officials told participants from the start that the discussion was independent of any developer or business interest, although the meeting was facilitated by Tripepi Smith, a public affairs consulting firm.

To the ire of some in attendance, the conversation instead was largely a crash course on land use. The presentation touched on how development works in Monterey Park and California, and gave an overview of the issues the city is facing beyond just the vacant office building where the data center would have been built. But a final decision on what to put on the site is still far off.

Damon said he was “grateful” for the insight the presentation provided, but thought the meeting’s messaging could have been clearer.

“You’re going to have folks who really understand some of these concepts and folks who are brand-new,” Damon said. “I saw it as an attempt for the city to manage people’s expectations about what the city is actually able to do. That message may have gotten muddied.”

It was a change from the unity that connected the city over the past six months, when residents, many with no background in organizing, found themselves at the forefront of an influential grassroots movement. Organizers turned out hundreds of Monterey Park residents to interact with their local government, many for the first time. 

They got their neighbors to knock on doors and post lawn signs. They successfully lobbied for and secured two moratoriums on data center development. And last week, preliminary election results delivered a nearly 90% vote in favor of rejecting the controversial tech infrastructure known to drive up utility costs, drain water resources, and pollute nearby communities.

For residents tuning in to see a new vision for Saturn Park, the site where the data center was meant to go, it wasn’t there. City staff present at the meeting answered questions about specific options by reminding attendees that staff are responsible for executing the agenda the city council sets. Nothing is off the table, they noted, but residents must direct the city council, so the council can then direct the staff. 

That was clear for Monterey Park resident Bosco Woo, who asked staff directly what the city’s recommendation was for Saturn Park.

“They kind of just said, ‘That’s why we’re asking you,’” Woo told SFGATE by phone Thursday. “We need some inspiration.”

Woo and his wife, Joy Saavedra, live less than a third of a mile away from Saturn Park. Aside from one that featured a high school award ceremony, Woo, who grew up in Monterey Park, had never attended a city council meeting before this year. Saavedra said they only found out about the proposed data center when a family friend in Pasadena warned her family.

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Since February, they’ve been ever-present, including at Wednesday’s meeting. However, the couple came away disappointed the city was “deferring a lot” to the residents.

“I don’t know what’s feasible, I don’t know what’s an option,” Saavedra said by phone Thursday. “I would think a lot of residents are in that same boat. I would have wanted the city to take more of a leadership role to just give us some ideas of what would even be a possibility.”

The Saturn Park lot is currently zoned for innovation and technology use. However, city staff reminded residents that the land-use plan they passed in 2020 allows for some flexibility: If residents feel zoning needs to change to adapt to changing circumstances, like economic downturn following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s possible. City staff at the meeting noted that some type of mixed-use housing development could be possible in that area, an idea Woo and Saavedra said was popular. 

The most specific pitch was quickly rendered near-impossible: Residents want a Trader Joe’s, but city staff said that wasn’t likely to happen. Tim Hou, Monterey Park’s director of community development, told residents at the meeting that because the store is a private company, it gets the sole discretion of where it wants to open a store — and the company, based in nearby Monrovia, is particularly picky.

But for Woo and Saavedra, the Trader Joe’s pitch is an example of what happens when residents aren’t given a vision. For Woo, this is the direction residents head when it’s “all they know.” 

“I think a lot of people have trouble imagining what could be there when they don’t have any experience,” Woo said.

While the anti-data center push was a catalyst for these discussions, the city is dealing with far more vacancies than just at Saturn Park. Since the early pandemic, the Los Angeles suburb’s small business economy has struggled, and the city is balancing the need to please its residents with making sure it can house them and fund essential services. 

The city plans to host two more community sessions on June 23 and 24, these two in person, where Wednesday attendees are hoping for a more detailed discussion of what the city can do with its vacant spaces.

“Give us some ideas,” Saavedra said. “If the Trader Joe’s isn’t feasible, then what is feasible in your best opinion?”