Data centers are key to pushing Alabama’s economy forward, a state lawmaker told the city council in Bessemer on Tuesday.

Just not in this part of the state.

“While I understand the importance of economic growth and technology infrastructure, this facility would be located directly behind 14 residential properties,” said state Rep. Leigh Hulsey whose district includes parts of Bessemer and McCalla. “Families that do not live in the city limits and obviously therefore do not have a vote nor feel like they have a voice. But they are absolutely going to bear the brunt of the impact of this project.”

The plan to develop a $14 billion data center campus in the rural community southwest of Birmingham hit a snag Tuesday morning.

The Bessemer City Council postponed their vote on rezoning nearly 700 acres of mostly timber to make way for 18 data center buildings that would be developed by Logistics Land Investment, LLC.

“This will be considered at the next meeting,” said Donna Thigpen, the city council president. “It will not be voted on today.”

The decision was met with applause. Roughly 60 people attended the crowded meeting inside Bessemer City Hall, as many opponents wore red shirts and held signs that read “Vote No.” More attendees spilled out into the lobby, waiting for the fire department to allow them to enter and speak during the hearing. The meeting was not livestreamed or broadcast outside the hearing room.

The council voted 6-1 to postpone their decision after a hearing that lasted roughly an hour and a half, including comments from a slew of residents urging the council to vote against the rezoning or at least wait for more information on the development.

Jimmie Stephens, the president of the Jefferson County Commission who lives in Bessemer, was among them. He said he would vote against any tax breaks that may come before the county commission if the project is approved. He urged the city council to do the same.

“This isn’t about the environmental, you’re not going to pay any attention to that,” he told the council. “This is about the money. This is about the tax revenue that’s been laid before the city of Bessemer that you’re depending on, that you’re looking forward to.”

Representatives for the developer and residents opposing the project sparred over the facts of the project during the hearing. Posters inside the council chambers and outside in the lobby listed: “Let’s Talk Facts: Data Centers Don’t Cause Cancer” with bullet points about data center development.

“You’re going to hear a lot of things that simply are not facts,” said Brad Kaaber, a representative from Logistics Land Investment, LLC, at the start of Tuesday’s hearing.

Kaaber and Martin Evans, a Birmingham attorney representing the developer, declined to comment after the hearing.

In June, the data center project came before the city’s planning and zoning commission for a second time after their initial approval provoked a lawsuit by a few residents. That vote of approval was only a recommendation to the council, but a vote of approval from the city council would formally allow the project to move forward.

Eric Pippens, a Bessemer resident, told the city council that he’s concerned about his utility bills going up and whether rezoning the community now will attract more development in the future.

“This project may benefit an outside corporation, but it will come at the direct expense of the families who live here,” he said. “We have decades of people here that have lived in this community with no bother.”

Evans told the council that all they needed to weigh in on was whether the project would benefit Bessemer.

“This project is going to take a large piece of vacant land close to the interstate and put it to an extremely productive use, which will create jobs, be a catalyst for the local economy, and provide tremendous tax benefits to the city,” Evans said.

The proposed data center would include 18 buildings, each about 250,000 square feet, on rural land owned by a timber land property owner on Rock Mountain Lake Road, the Birmingham Business Journal reported. The developer is proposing the $14 billion project as a 4.5 million-square-foot campus, BBJ reported.

It would take roughly eight years to build in several phases, Kaaber said. He denied that the project will impact streams, wetlands or fish, citing environmental studies that the company has done.

In April, three locals sued the city, alleging officials didn’t provide the proper public notice about the rezoning. They also raised concerns about Bessemer Mayor Kenneth Gulley saying he signed a non-disclosure agreement and couldn’t discuss the project with the public. Shan Paden, an attorney for Bessemer, told AL.com at the time that the city never violated the law and provided adequate public notice.

But then the city restarted the public hearing process. There haven’t been any updates in the lawsuit since April, according to the court docket.

Data centers are a growing industry, seeking to keep up with an increase in cloud computing demands. But they’re newer to Alabama, as the industry is picking up speed here in more rural parts of the state as well as Huntsville, Montgomery and Birmingham.