Reedy Creek Nature Preserve offers east Charlotte residents fishing ponds and ten miles of hiking trails. The neighborhood surrounding it is largely residential. And now, about a mile from that preserve, a Boston-based telecommunications company wants to build a data center on Hood Road, after quietly acquiring a 58-acre parcel and filing a rezoning request that would change the land from office and neighborhood use to commercial.

More than 3,100 residents have already signed a petition saying no. The City Council vote could come as soon as May 18.

Data centers may look like warehouses, but they are not. They consume enormous amounts of water and electricity. They generate persistent noise from cooling and HVAC systems that runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They drive up utility costs for surrounding residents and businesses. And once approved and built, they do not go away.

American Tower Corporation says this facility will be small by industry standards, using just 2% of the power of a large hyperscaler. But the company has not provided an estimate for how many megawatts of electricity the facility would consume, and east Charlotte residents deserve that number before their City Council casts a vote on their behalf. They also deserve a clear answer on water usage, noise levels at the property line, and what happens to their utility bills if this facility draws from the same grid and water infrastructure that serves their homes.

A facility of this kind does not belong in the middle of a residential community. It belongs in an industrial or commercial corridor, where its impacts on noise, water, and energy are absorbed by infrastructure designed to handle them, not by families living next door.

At-large councilwoman Dimple Ajmera, who lives near the proposed site, is already calling for a moratorium on data centers in residential communities and requiring facilities within city limits to use recycled water and closed-loop cooling systems. That is exactly the right response. Charlotte needs a clear, permanent policy that prevents commercial data infrastructure from being rezoned into neighborhoods without meaningful community input, full environmental disclosure, and a genuine assessment of residential impact.

Sign this petition to call on the Charlotte City Council to reject American Tower Corporation's rezoning request, support Councilwoman Ajmera's proposed moratorium on data centers in residential zones, and require full water and energy transparency from any data center seeking to operate within Charlotte city limits.