AIBRIEF
Gilroy's public comment window closed in 2024, before AI siting became a national fight, and Mayor Bozzo says the city 'has an opportunity to change the way that we do business.'
Amazon's 56-acre data center in Gilroy, a farm town about 30 miles south of San Jose, was approved under municipal zoning rules set roughly 45 years ago. The formal public-comment window closed in 2024, before AI and hyperscale siting became a kitchen-table issue across Northern California, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation surfaced by Tom's Hardware.
Resident Rosa Rodriguez tried to raise water-and-scale concerns after the window had closed. Mayor Greg Bozzo said other industrial projects of similar size had cleared the same process without resistance, and that the city "has an opportunity to change the way that we do business in Gilroy. We're adapting to the times." AWS VP of Economic Development Roger Wehner told the WSJ the site went through a long approval with public notices and comment periods.
The application has been public since 2020. The City of Gilroy has published a Data Center Fact Sheet and a signed Architectural Site Approval (AS-20-23). Mercury News and Broadband Breakfast are now tracking the pushback.
What remains unclear: whether the same legacy pathway can survive a larger round of AI siting across the South Bay. GadgetReview puts the project's cost at roughly $2 billion, a figure not yet corroborated in the city records reviewed here.