Tasmania's 288 MW Data Centre Appeal Needs $50,000 in 14 Days

Two residents of Rowella, in northern Tasmania, are preparing to challenge the approval of an AI data centre they say would sit less than two kilometres from their homes. The ABC published their account on 29 August at 22:24:50 UTC.

The approval

George Town Council approved Firmus Technologies' 288-megawatt data centre at Bell Bay, with conditions, at its meeting on Tuesday 25 August. It is the largest of three Tasmanian sites: a 104 MW facility is already under construction outside Launceston, and a development application has been lodged for 52 MW at Wesley Vale, east of Devonport.

The council did not endorse it

This is the distinction the coverage tends to lose. Mayor Greg Keiser put it plainly: "We can't see any other grounds to do anything more than to approve it in terms of the local planning scheme." That is not a council persuaded by the project; it is a council saying the instrument it must apply gave it no basis to refuse. The residents' complaint is aimed at the same thing from the other side — that the planning laws are outdated and not fit for purpose.

The clock is the real obstacle

Anne-Marie Bastian and Nicholla Thompson, president and secretary of the newly formed Environmental Awareness Association, intend to take the decision to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. From formal notification they have 14 days to secure legal representation, crowdfund an estimated A$20,000 to A$50,000 and lodge. "It's a ludicrous time frame given how long they had to put the application together," Bastian said. No appeal has been lodged yet — reporting this as a legal challenge under way runs ahead of the facts.

What 288 MW is and is not

A land-use approval is not a grid connection. The council decided what may be built on the site; it did not allocate power, and the megawatt figure describes proposed capacity rather than anything contracted or energised. Meanwhile Latrobe Council will this week discuss pushing for a different Tasmanian data centre to be declared a "major project" — which would move the assessment from the council to the state planning commission, the opposite direction of travel from the George Town case. Some residents have said they may sell their homes or withhold rates.