A 300,000-square-foot data center is rising in Hayward that will consume as much electricity as one-fifth of all the city's homes — and by the time any elected official weighed in, key approvals had already been granted without them.

The Stack Infrastructure data center on Eden Landing Road moved through Hayward's planning process almost entirely outside public view, exploiting a provision in the city's zoning code that classified data centers as "office uses" — routing the project to the Planning Commission rather than the City Council. It's a mechanism that left elected officials confronting a fait accompli in January 2026, months after construction had begun, and has renewed questions about who actually controls development decisions in East Bay cities scrambling to attract tech infrastructure investment.

A 300,000-square-foot data center is rising in Hayward that will consume as much electricity as one-fifth of all the city's homes — and by the time any elected official weighed in, key approvals had already been granted without them.

The Stack Infrastructure facility on Eden Landing Road stands 100 feet tall and includes 28 backup diesel generators and an on-site power substation. Construction is underway. The City Council first substantively discussed it in January 2026, by which point the Planning Commission had already negotiated and approved the project's Public Benefits Package, set its height limits, and conditionally cleared the way forward.

The Classification Loophole

How did a project of this scale avoid City Council oversight? According to two years of reporting by the Hayward Herald — the only news outlet that tracked the project throughout its approval process — the answer lies in a single line of Hayward's zoning code.

Data centers were permitted only in General Industrial districts, but they were categorized as office uses, which allowed them to proceed through the standard staff-level planning process. The project would never have reached the Planning Commission at all, the Herald's investigation found, if the developer had not requested an unusually tall building — 100 feet, rather than the standard 75-foot maximum. That height-variance request was the only tripwire that forced any public deliberation.

The Planning Commission, a body with limited decision-making authority on zoning matters, became the sole elected-adjacent forum for a project with citywide infrastructure implications.

A Benefits Package No One Could Define

When the project first appeared before city staff in June 2024, the developer offered a $1.1 million public benefits package in exchange for the height exception. By November 2024, that figure had grown to $1.3 million. By May 2025, when the commission voted, it reached $2 million.

The negotiations revealed no established formula for what public benefits a project like this should provide. Commissioner Karla Goodbody questioned whether the commission was even the right body to be making these decisions. "This body or the City Council or perhaps maybe an ad hoc committee could really benefit from carving out the Public Benefits Package and unpacking it to realize efficiencies," she said, according to the Herald's reporting.

Commissioner Robert Stevens was blunter. He questioned whether a benefits package was warranted at all, called the renewable energy claims "laughable," and challenged the environmental basis of the project's approvals. Then, in May 2025, he made the motion to approve.

The commission voted unanimously in favor.

The Council's Wake-Up

The City Council publicly confronted the project's implications in January 2026 — after the Planning Commission had already acted. Councilmember George Syrop flagged the energy math: "One-fifth of all homes in Hayward. That amount of electricity is going to be used by this singular data center," he said, questioning whether the city had adequately evaluated what it was getting in exchange.

Mayor Mark Salinas pointed to the disparity in scrutiny between this project and smaller ones. "We put this 15,000-square-foot [cannabis] retailer through the wringer up here," he said, according to the Herald, contrasting how a cannabis shop had faced elected-official review while a data center requiring a new electrical substation had not.

The Council discussion also surfaced concerns about the facility's water use, its impact on the city's power grid, and whether the public benefits package was comparable to what cities like San Jose had negotiated.

A Regional Pattern

Hayward is not alone. Pittsburg, 25 miles east, is dealing with its own version of this problem: AVAIO Digital's Project Perseus, a 300,000-square-foot, 99-megawatt data center approved on a former golf course that drew more than 300 residents to City Hall in June 2026. In Pittsburg's case, the project survived rezoning, environmental review, and a lawsuit before residents organized in large numbers — by which point the permits were in place.

In both cities, the pattern is similar: large-scale AI infrastructure projects have moved through planning processes designed for smaller, lower-impact developments, exploiting classification rules and commission-level approvals to avoid the political friction of a City Council vote. By the time residents mobilize and council members ask questions, the concrete is already poured.

Hayward's Planning Commission voted in January 2026 to revisit the city's zoning code for data centers. Commissioner Stevens argued that limiting them to General Industrial districts was too restrictive. What the commission did not address was whether data centers should still be classified as offices at all — the specific loophole that let this one skip democratic oversight in the first place.