Hollands Kroon is conducting an independent investigation into the decision-making process regarding the arrival of two large data centers. Microsoft has been building a new data center and its own high-voltage substation in the Wieringermeerpolder for almost a year now, without having the necessary permits.
The research is intended to learn from past mistakes, the Board reports. “The study contains a reconstruction of decision-making about data centers in the municipality. It is emphatically intended to learn from.” The research will start at the beginning of April at the earliest and should be completed in the autumn of 2023.
D66 also wants to know from Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Housing and Spatial Planning) how it is possible that Microsoft is building a data center in Wieringermeer, without having the required permits. D66 Member of Parliament Faissal Boulakjar asks parliamentary questions to De Jonge. He asks why the data center is being built without a nitrogen permit, ‘while the construction of 100,000 homes is being delayed’.
Nitrogen permit
Hollands Kroon contains large (‘hyperscale’) data centers of Microsoft and Google. The two multinationals want to build new data centers there. There has been a lot to do there for a long time. First of all, the municipality granted Microsoft an environmental permit, with which the tech company could start construction. But the municipality was not authorized to issue this permit, that decision rests with the province.
The province then gave the green light at the end of 2021, but without Microsoft having the necessary permits for construction. Moreover, local politicians, farmers and other residents are critical of the arrival of the data centers. About 80 percent of the residents of Hollands Kroon are against further expansion of the data centers, according to research by NH Nieuws in collaboration with Kieskompas.
‘Residential projects’
Local politicians are critical of the decision because there is no nitrogen permit for construction. Council member Lars Ruiter of Independent Hollands Kroon, let NRC know that his party is “very critical” of the state of affairs. “I find it incomprehensible that the province tolerates that the data center can be built without a permit, especially now that many housing projects cannot proceed because the nitrogen cannot be compensated.”
Farmers are also critical of the decision-making right from the start. “It goes against the interests of our members,” chairman Wim Mostert of LTO Noord Hollands Kroon previously told NH News. “Permits are easily granted, without clear frameworks being set in advance and the consequences carefully weighed up. Matters such as cooling water consumption, nitrogen emissions and the size of the developments are worrying the agricultural sector in the area.”
Target research
The research will not affect the construction of the new data centers. The aim is to reconstruct how decision-making originated. In addition, the study must make recommendations on how decision-making should be done differently in the future.
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