Stockland Drops AI Data Center From A$3.5 Billion Sydney Redevelopment

Stockland and its partner John Boyd Properties have removed an AI data center from the A$3.5 billion logistics precinct planned on the former Kogarah Golf Club site in Arncliffe, near Sydney Airport, ABC News reported on Sunday, November 8. The decision follows months of organized local opposition and cuts the 25,400-square-meter facility from the 18.3-hectare rezoned site beside the Cooks River.

A Stockland spokesperson said the partners are now focused on a "world class logistics precinct which does not include a data centre as part of the amended Concept Masterplan." The company confirmed the next planning stage will proceed without the facility. The wider logistics development continues unchanged.

How did the opposition unfold?

The data center first appeared in concept plans in June. Bayside Council then told the New South Wales government the facility should be excluded from the proposal, which is being assessed as a State Significant Development. That formal council objection gave the campaign a procedural foothold, not merely a rhetorical one.

Residents organized quickly. A group called Stop the Cooks River AI Project, or SCRAP, formed in August. Its members protested over risks to the river's ecosystem and the facility's projected power and water use. Organiser Paddy Gibson called the outcome a "very good win for people power." The group has not stopped there. It said it will keep campaigning against the logistics hub itself and for a ban on all new AI data centers.

One number is conspicuously absent. Neither Stockland nor John Boyd Properties disclosed the data center's planned power capacity at any point. That gap made independent assessment of the water and electricity claims difficult for both residents and councilors, and the companies have not filled it even while abandoning the project.

Is this an isolated retreat?

No. ABC reported that other Sydney data center projects have also been dropped. AirTrunk shelved a data center in Lane Cove and another in Guildford in September. Not every proposal has retreated, though. Goodman Group's A$1.1 billion Project Pluto data center at Merrylands remains on the table as a live proposal.

Stockland itself has not exited the sector. The developer is still building data centers on other sites, including a 49 MW facility in Macquarie Park. The state planning department approved that facility on October 1 — roughly five weeks before the Arncliffe withdrawal. The company is therefore trimming one contested project while advancing another through the same state approval system.

What does the pattern mean for siting?

The Arncliffe fight mirrors resistance elsewhere. Protests have targeted Microsoft's planned Amsterdam site, and data center power use has surfaced as a political issue in the U.S. midterms. In each case the friction point is the same: large electrical and water demand placed near dense residential areas or sensitive ecosystems. The Cooks River site combined both triggers.

The Sydney record now shows a split outcome rather than a sector-wide freeze. Projects on industrial or better-buffered land, such as Macquarie Park, advance through approval. Projects adjacent to waterways and organized suburbs face campaigns that can force withdrawal. Goodman's A$1.1 billion Merrylands proposal, still live and still contested, will test which pattern prevails as community groups push for a broader ban.