City of Port Washington planning commission votes to limit hours on construction at data center

PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Construction at the Port Washington's data center has been continuous day and night for the last several months but in a few weeks, that construction will have to stop every day at 8 p.m. 

The City of Port Washington Planning Commission unanimously voted to limit hours for outdoor construction work for the data center Thursday night, March 19. 

But neighbors are still frustrated with what they're dealing with.  

Currently, the construction of the site is permitted to be 24 hours a day during the week, with limited hours on the weekend. 

"I can't look that way out the door because it's there are lights and it's loud and it's always going," said data center neighbor, Marj Sontag. "It's depressing." 

Sontag isn't convinced it will get much better, despite new regulations that will go into effect in a couple weeks. 

The planning commission voted Thursday to limit the hours of outdoor construction at the data center site to 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. bringing an end to the continuous construction noise and traffic neighbors have been forced to deal with. 

But it won't fix every issue.

Sontag works second shift, her time to relax is during the day and it hasn't been very relaxing since construction started earlier this year. 

"It's really loud. It's 72 dB. I measured it for how loud it is out here," said Sontag. 

She said the decision is better than nothing but it's still not enough to make her want to stay in Port Washington. 

"I would like to move. My husband doesn't want to. We can't sell the house now because in front of the house the trucks go by so frequently. It's hard to get out of the driveway," said Sontag. 

The new limits will be taking effect April 18, something that neighbors are frustrated with as they wonder why they have to wait until April for the new limits to kick in. 

But the company says it's to give their contractors a transition period so they can adjust their work schedule. 

The newly imposed parameters also include: 

• Limiting deliveries to site between hours of 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Reducing lighting on the site after 8:30 p.m. 
• Only allowing work on a Sunday with prior approval from the city engineer and to no more than one Sunday a month. 
• Allowing 24-hour indoor work Monday through Friday and then until Saturday night at 11:59 p.m. only after the building is built and fully enclosed.