The fight that defined data centers in Western Australia this year was at Hazelmere, in the City of Swan about 15 kilometers north-east of Perth's CBD. GreenSquareDC, a Sydney-based developer acquired by the Swiss private equity firm Partners Group in March 2025, applied to build a three-storey, AI-ready data center on a 4.5-hectare industrial site on Stirling Crescent, which DCD reported as a 120MW, roughly 15,000 square meter building. The Urban Developer put the project at $600 million. The site sat beside the Helena River Steiner (Waldorf) School and close to the Helena River.
The public comment period drew 1,897 submissions, 1,836 of them objections, citing noise, heat, electromagnetic energy and exhaust. The City of Swan's statutory planning manager, Phillip Russell, conceded the proposal was consistent with the site's zoning but recommended the state's outer metropolitan development assessment panel refuse it for one reason: its 18 diesel back-up generators. "City staff cannot accept that the potential for noise exceedance by the operation of the data centre in an emergency back-up power scenario and its potential nuisance and adverse impact to the amenity of so broad a residential area should be tolerable," he wrote. At a council meeting on May 13, 2026, councillors voted 11-2 for mayor Tania Richardson to speak against the proposal at the panel's May 19, 2026 hearing.
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GreenSquareDC withdrew on May 14, 2026, before the hearing. Chief executive Charles Penny said the company still believed the site was appropriate and blamed the requirement to assess its generators at 100 percent load in a full emergency, which he called "an unrealistic and impractical benchmark for the operation of modern-day data centres." Francesca Flynn, executive director of Bibbul Ngarma, which runs a restoration program on the Mandoon Bilya (Helena River), said the site was about 40 meters from the river channel, next to a conservation wetland, on two Aboriginal heritage sites and near a primary school and homes: "This proposal was so inappropriate that it's difficult to identify a less suitable location." The federal member for Hasluck called the withdrawal "a major win off the back of community coming together."
The episode left a planning question open. Swan councillor Sarah Howlett said Western Australia still classifies data centers as "warehouses" for land use, which she said misrepresents their function and the power they need. Elsewhere in the metropolitan area, CDC (Canberra Data Centres) announced in August 2025 a campus at Maddington, 20 kilometers south-east of central Perth, of up to 200MW on completion, with the Australian Financial Review reporting AU$415 million for the first stage, targeted to open in 2026; no opening has been reported yet. CDC says its closed-loop cooling uses no water for primary cooling.
Projects not tied to an area
Sites whose records name no county. Everything else is on the pages listed above.
Western Australia6
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GreenSquareDC · Hazelmere, City of SwanCity of SwanExact site not confirmed | GreenSquareDC | Withdrawn | 120 MW | |
| NEXTDC P2 Perth | NEXTDC | 20 MW | ||
| NEXTDC P1 Perth | NEXTDC | 10 MW | ||
| NEXTDC NE1 Newman | NEXTDC | 1 MW | Source off site ↗ | |
| NEXTDC PH1 Port Hedland | NEXTDC | 1 MW | Source off site ↗ | |
| STACK Perth (PER01)Wangara | STACK Infrastructure | Not reported | Not reported | Source off site ↗ |
Where this comes from
The reporting above was written from these. Open one and check it yourself.
Where people here have won
Projects stopped by a vote, pulled by their developer, or blocked in court.
| Place | What happened | Date | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hazelmere, City of SwanGreenSquareDC | Withdrawn by the developer Developer withdrew its application after local opposition. | May 2026 | 120 MW |
Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.