Nearly three out of four New Jersey residents oppose data centers in their hometowns, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released Oct. 16.
The finding lands three months after Cherry Hill's Township Council unanimously banned large-scale data centers, a move that put the township among dozens of New Jersey municipalities to restrict the facilities. The poll surveyed 1,004 adults from Sept. 24 to Sept. 27 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
Statewide, 72% of residents said they oppose a data center in their town or city, with 54% "strongly" opposed, according to the poll. Opposition eased slightly at greater distances: 64% opposed a data center in a neighboring county, and 62% opposed one anywhere in the state.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. Only 11% said benefits outweigh costs. The poll framed costs as electricity and water consumption and the prospect of higher utility bills, and benefits as job creation and tax revenue.
"What stands out about data centers is that no group reaches majority support anywhere … not in their own town, not in a neighboring county, not in the state at large," said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Cherry Hill's council passed its ban on July 27, listing data centers as a non-permitted land use across the township, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The ordinance targets hyperscale facilities of more than 100,000 square feet used for artificial intelligence (AI), cloud storage and similar operations. Small server rooms used by individual businesses remain permitted.
Mayor David Fleisher told the Inquirer after the vote that no data center developers had approached the township, and he wanted to act before any did. He said the township did not want to be "a guinea pig" while the technology evolves.
A planning consultant's report cited by the township found that a single hyperscale data center can use about 100 megawatts of power, the equivalent of 100,000 households, South Jersey Media reported. Cherry Hill's population was about 79,965 as of last year.
New Jersey leads the nation with 93 municipal data center bans as of September, according to a tracker maintained by ElectricChoice.com citing a Gothamist/SAVRN count. The state also signed a Fair Share Act on July 7 and an energy and water reporting law on Aug. 28.
The poll found broader skepticism about AI. Forty-three percent of residents said AI has a negative effect on jobs, compared with 14% who called it positive. Forty-eight percent said AI hurts the environment. Yet 36% of residents reported using AI tools at least once a day.
Younger residents were the most frequent AI users and the most opposed to data centers. Among those ages 18 to 34, 53% used AI daily, 58% said it hurts jobs and 73% opposed data centers anywhere in the state.
Any developer seeking to build a data center in Cherry Hill would now need a land-use variance from the zoning board, which the Inquirer described as the most difficult type of land-use approval to obtain.
