In January of 2024, a private Australian developer, HMC StratCorp (the Applicant), with their subsidiary DigiCo REIT, proposed building a hyperscale data center. This is a facility housing computer servers to be used to train AI, among other uses, at 1977 Saturn Avenue in Monterey Park. The project would operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

On October 31, 2024, HMC submitted an Initial Study (IS) and Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) for this data center. In response to some feedback received on December 2, 2024 from organizations like Advocates for the Environment and others, HMC submitted revised technical details with design enhancements on October 27, 2025. The IS/MND is a streamlined environmental review process that allows projects to move forward quickly, but only if all impacts are deemed "less than significant."  For a facility of this scale, that conclusion deserves scrutiny.

The applicant's consultants prepared the IS/MND. They chose the assumptions, set the study boundaries, and selected the comparisons. Not surprisingly, they concluded their client's project poses no significant impacts. But "less than significant" is a legal threshold, not a measure of whether there are actual impacts or whether real people will be affected. 

Thresholds are imperfect measures of experienced reality.  

• They are often arbitrary: Noise limits (54–56 dB) are set for regulatory convenience, not based on health research about sleep disruption or stress.

• They may be outdated: Air quality thresholds don't always reflect current science on cumulative health effects.

• Impacts below thresholds still cause harm: A continuous 50 dB hum 24/7 may comply with the law but still degrade quality of life.

• "Mitigated" ≠ "Eliminated": Sound barriers reduce noise; they don't make it disappear. Biofiltration treats stormwater; it doesn't purify it.