A crucial first step

On June 4th, Hamilton's Committee of Adjustment voted to deny a land severance application (pdf) by Slate Asset Management which, if approved, would have accelerated Slate's plans to build a hyperscale data centre by the waterfront.

The denial was in no small part due to the overwhelming response from Hamiltonians; the Committee member who moved to deny the application even cited the collective effort as the reason for the denial. Residents showed up in large numbers - thousands signed petitions, nearly 1800 sent written submissions to the Committee, and dozens spoke at the meeting itself, for nearly 8 hours in total.1

Perhaps most importantly, around 1000 people showed up physically outside City Hall at 8:30am on a Thursday - on just a few days' notice - making it absolutely clear that we will not allow those with money and power to unilaterally impose these data centres on our city.

But despite this win, the fight is far from over.