A tie vote in DeSoto County this week stopped a rezoning request for nearly 554 acres of agricultural land that could have become home to one of the largest AI data centers in the world. After nearly seven hours of presentations and public comment, commissioners split 2-2, with Langford and Deriso in favor and Gross and Schaefer against. Commissioner Steven Hickox recused himself under a Florida Commission on Ethics order tied to a step-family member’s possible land deal with the developer, DCIP. It was the second 2-2 tie on a DCIP request in two days.
The proposal, which could have expanded beyond 1,000 acres around a decommissioned natural gas plant east of Arcadia, drew concerns from Arcadia Village residents and other neighbors about property values, the environment and the county’s rural character. Developers offered a 1,000-foot residential buffer and dropped plans for an on-site power plant, but county staff said DCIP never provided an operational analysis covering equipment, emissions and noise. The first 34-acre phase of the project was approved in March.
The bigger picture is familiar to communities across the country: roughly 150 jobs and meaningful tax revenue for one of Florida’s poorest counties, weighed against the character of open farmland and the fears of people who already live there. “I think there’s a lot of the unknowns that are still there,” one commissioner said before the vote. For now, those acres east of Arcadia stay as they are. What would you want to know before a project like this came to your neighborhood?
