The Real Story – A Column
Once again, breaking news on Data Centers in Hillsboro, Oregon. And once again, the Herald is the source bringing the news not only to you, our readers, but to our City Councilors, who I am quite certain have not understood or found out what I am about to report to you all, or at least I hope they haven’t. Because if the 4 who refused to take emergency actions these past couple of months knew about this and refused to act, then we are in much worse hands than we thought. Before I lay this on you, I must tell you that, sadly, we are out of time, we waited too long, and as a community, we are entering an absolutely horrible stage of this crisis.
For months, the Hillsboro Herald has tracked the compounding data center build-up in our city. For months, we have documented the public outcry, the tax giveaways, and the growing divide inside our own City Council. Now, the bill for not taking action sooner and for not developing sound policies on where data centers are located has come due.
So What Is Happening?
On June 2nd, Economic Development Director Dan Dias and city staff presented a 58-page packet to the City Council. This was the single biggest data center packet to be delivered into public view so far. It was nicely done, but it was uploaded without much time for Councilors to review it. Within that packet was a map on page 7 and another version on page 51. It took me a while to really look at that map. Director Dias did tell Councilors that the map had permitted Data Centers, those in permitting, and he did mention there were some potential sites shown in purple that could become data centers. I felt my eyebrows rise at the “potential sites,” but the presentation moved along, and the volume of information was overwhelming. Having said that, there were three locations that should have triggered a five-alarm fire inside City Hall. As of the publishing of this letter, they have not. Well, here we go.
Here are the facts that were not shouted from the rooftops that night, but absolutely should have been:
Site 1: 10500 NE Walker Road – Update (6-16-26 12 pm) A “placeholder application” has been put in with no site plan yet.
The Washington County Tax Department indicates that the property is owned by Hines Global Income Trust – Houston, Texas.
Colliers has the Listing for lease or redevelopment – Mike Thomas, Broker – https://www.colliers.com/en/properties/opportunity-reimagined-for-lease-or-redevelopment-10500-ne-walker-road-hillsboro-or-97006/usa-10500-ne-walker-rd-hillsboro-or-97006-usa/usa1149701#RelatedDocs
The Reality: This site is already in the permitting phase with a “placeholder permit” in place- no specifics are available yet. And we believe it is a Data Center, but we do not know its type, size, or impact. Because of how Oregon land-use applications vest, there is likely no going back. The Herald has emailed the City Staff and asked whether we can be provided with copies of the permits and plans, as well as the land use case file. This is all public information, but that does not mean we can easily get it. This site is perhaps the most impactful location for a Data Center to be built. When the application came in, the City Council should have received notice. Why City Hall has not created a press release or informed stakeholders is hard to understand. This should be, and probably will be, all over the news cycles and stations. I think we will see this story cause that to happen. But who knows?
Site 2: Liberty High School Adjacent – YES – Right across from Liberty High School
The Reality: Permits are not being processed on this site yet. But the city’s own maps acknowledge it as a potential, and I do not believe Dan Dias or the staff would have mentioned it unless some phone calls or emails were happening, but that is just speculation on my part. The developer knows exactly what they hold.
Let me just say it- these two sites, should they become Data Centers of any size and Megawattage, will put our kids, property values, and community at risk and in potential peril. This is not an overstatement but one of absolute fact.
The Cost of “Nuance” and Delay – Can We Stop This?
To understand how we ended up with heavy-industry parking right next to our schools, we have to look at the timeline of inaction at City Hall.
- April 2026: Sensing the incoming wave, Councilor Kipperlyn Sinclair, alongside Myrna Munoz and others, became the first local leaders to bravely call for a county-wide data center moratorium.
- Early May 2026: Sinclair and Councilor Dr. Olivia Alcaire fought to call an emergency meeting to address the compounding crisis and the 18 “fire-sale” Enterprise Zone tax giveaways.
- The Pushback: Instead of acting on the emergency, Mayor Beach Pace and her voting bloc of four, who came into power on her slate (Councilors Anvery, Case, Salgado, and Harris), kicked the can down the road. They favored “nuance,” regional studies, and having the staff begin studying potential changes rather than immediate intervention. They refused to support Sinclair, who was screaming that the house was on fire and that change was immediately needed.
- June 2nd was a work session where this information and more was dropped, but not that much was accomplished.
- June 9th was the special meeting that lasted 5 hours and led to the denial of Sinclair’s request again by the 4 who refused to support taking quick actions. Sinclair and Alcaire stood alone in their urgent request for action.
If these two Data Center sites are approved and the City Council does not have enough time to make the changes, we may all understand that the delays have prevented our community from protecting our kids.
City staff have noted that changing our zoning laws takes a grueling 80 to 90 days. Furthermore, under Oregon’s Measure 56, the city must notify landowners of any changes to the zoning. It must also notify the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) in Salem before adopting new zoning ordinances.
Do we honestly believe that a multi-billion-dollar entity like Digital Realty will sit on its hands for 90 days while Hillsboro slowly changes its code? Of course not. Standard development practices suggest they could rush to turn in their permits for the Liberty site, effectively vesting their rights before the city’s slow-moving bureaucracy can stop them.
The Real-World Impact on Our Neighborhoods: What Are the Dangers?
This isn’t just about zoning codes and bureaucratic timelines; it is about the immediate health, safety, and financial security of our community. By delaying action, Hillsboro is allowing a blueprint that sites severe industrial hazards right next to vulnerable populations. If these sites are built in a manner like the data centers we have now, here is exactly what we are introducing to our neighborhoods:
1. The Unseen Threat of ELF Magnetic Fields
If these projects are built at any typical scale, they could place high-voltage power corridors and electrical substations directly adjacent to schools. With Liberty High School housing 1,500 students, BASE holding 900 students, and McKinley down the road, we could be subjecting thousands of kids to prolonged, 8-hour-a-day exposure to elevated Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) magnetic fields. The World Health Organization classifies ELF magnetic fields as a “possible human carcinogen.” Furthermore, a 2022 peer-reviewed systematic review published in Reviews on Environmental Health confirmed that prolonged exposure to ELF magnetic fields over 0.4 microteslas (μT) is associated with a greater risk of childhood leukemia. So we can NOT all this infrastructure to be built right to our school’s doorstep.
2. The Property Value “Adjacency Discount”
Data center developers often try to convince communities that building these facilities will make local property values “explode” because tech workers will want short commutes. The data say otherwise. Recent real estate impact studies tracking the nation’s largest data center hubs reveal a harsh reality: residential properties within 500 feet of a major data center often experience an immediate 8% to 18% loss in value. Real estate analysts attribute this ‘adjacency discount’ to the realities of living next to an industrial neighbor.
3. Toxic Diesel Exhaust and Downwind Danger
Both the Walker Road and Liberty High School sites, if built to any scale, would likely require massive farms of industrial diesel backup generators, which must be routinely fired up and tested to ensure “uptime.” When they run, they spew particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen oxides directly into the air. Generators near these schools will sit hundreds of feet from the developing lungs of students at BASE and McKinley. Even worse, the prevailing winds will carry the diesel exhaust from the Digital Realty site directly east, blanketing the densely populated, residential neighborhoods of Bethany and Rock Creek.
4. The 24/7 Industrial Hum
To keep servers from melting down, both sites will potentially run massive, industrial-grade HVAC chillers and rooftop fans 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This equipment creates a constant, low-frequency hum that easily penetrates walls and windows. This mechanical drone will not only disrupt the learning environment at Liberty High, BASE, and McKinley, but it could also destroy the quiet of the adjacent luxury hotel and the thousands of surrounding homes.
5. Chemical Hazards and Watershed Contamination
Data centers are fortresses of electricity and chemicals. They store tens of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel on-site and rely on massive rooms filled with lead-acid or lithium-ion batteries. A lithium-ion battery fire is notoriously difficult to extinguish and produces highly toxic smoke. In 2025, a fire at one of Digital Realty’s Hillsboro data centers made the news. For the Walker Road site, should a Data Center of scale be built, any spill, leak, or fire would pose an immediate, catastrophic threat to the adjacent wetland watershed and the animals at the Oregon National Primate Research Center.
Hillsboro Data Center Fire Puts Community On Edge As Elon Musk’s Presence In Community Is Revealed
Councilors Sinclair and Alcaire saw this coming. They asked for the emergency brakes to be pulled, but a council majority denied it, believing there wasn’t sufficient urgency.
Now, the Walker Road site has slipped through the net, and the Liberty High School site is next. We can no longer afford to “study” the issue while the concrete is being poured next to our classrooms. I am not sure what it would take to prevent these things from happening, but I do know that complacency and inaction are not options.
The Herald will update this story the moment the city releases the site plans and permits for Walker Road. While applications have not yet been filed for the Liberty High School or Cornelius Pass sites, the clock is ticking loudly.
Whatever Mayor Pace, our City Council, and the planning staff can do to protect our kids and our neighborhoods must be done immediately. The only permanent fix is revising Hillsboro’s land-use codes, but even if the Council directed staff to draft new language tonight, that bureaucratic process takes at least three months. In the development world, three months is an eternity.
This is why a stopgap measure is critical. Councilor Harris has asked staff to look into a moratorium, while Councilor Sinclair has demanded an immediate Emergency Declaration. Yet, Sinclair’s push has stalled. Because she is currently running for County Commissioner, it appears election-year politics are getting in the way of urgent policy. Let me be clear: there is absolutely no room for political maneuvering or denying a colleague a “win” when the health and safety of our children are on the line.
It is a bitter pill to swallow that after nearly a decade of rampant data center expansion, Hillsboro has been caught so utterly unprepared, operating without basic guardrails to protect its residents.
The mistakes of the past decade are behind us. But what this City Council chooses to do in the next 30 days will dictate the future of our community forever.
I’ll say it again, because I can’t make it much clearer: The Van Rose site places industrial and data centers right across the street from large residential developments. Both SB4 and SB1583 would’ve resulted in industrial sites and data centers directly across from not only large residential developments, but Evergreen Middle School.
Very glad people took SB1583 seriously, but tangling with Liberty and BASE is going to bring a whole different breed of angry constituent into the equation. Glad we’re finally prodding those folks into action too,, but it makes me realize just how little thought Hillsboro puts into zoning and planning.
Those BASE parents are going to come unglued! You are so right- this is the result of no analysis or thought from the Community perspective- only from the business perspective.
This is terrible in every way. Thanks for yor constant helpful and astute comments!
Dirk
Betrayal is the only word coming to mind at this moment. Those who entered office via our votes and then put on blinders for the sake of prestige, power, and perhaps some ladder climbing, certainly pulled wool over many of our eyes.
I did not vote for my most recent Councilor, he was appointed. Some others in the past I remember holding my nose and marking the “least harmful sounding” of the field. In retrospect, I’m thinking that politics leads to being all about trips to Hawaii or getting one’s name on a park, recreation facility, plaza, rubbing elbows with high tech big wigs, and so on while the community members are being assaulted with the end results now of an industry that takes all, gives virtually nothing back, and sours our childrens’ futures. What a life.