An artist’s rendering of the ‘Project Mars’ data centre from developer Goodman Group.
A planned three-storey, $1.2 billion data centre slated to be built just metres from houses and a public school in Sydney suburb Lane Cove has been scrapped in what one planning group has celebrated as a win for the area.
Goodman Group had plans to build Lane Cove’s fifth data centre, given the name ‘Project Mars’ but suddenly pulled their application for the project on Monday, citing changing government policies as a reason.
Data centre projects in the area were last week in the spotlight when Greens politician Sarah Hanson-Young posted a video of noise at another Lane Cove data centre site.
Ms Hanson-Young, the chair of the Senate Inquiry into AI Data Centres, captioned the Instagram post with: “While the government drags their feet, these AI factories are already here, and already impacting water, energy, noise, and heat in communities across Australia.”
Goodman’s head of planning, Guy Smith said the reason they withdrew the development application for Project Mars was because of policy changes since they started making plans in March 2025.
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Project Mars was planned for 12 Mars Rd approximately 20 metres from the nearest house and 160 metres from Lane Cove West Public School (top right). Picture: Goodman Group
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“During this time, the policy and regulatory environment for large-scale data centre development has evolved significantly,” Mr Smith said in a formal letter to the NSW Planning Department.
“Goodman has carefully considered these changes together with feedback received through the planning process, including the views of the local community.
“Having considered emerging federal and state policy, Goodman has concluded that it will not
progress with the development application,” he said.
Lane Cove Responsible planning spokesperson Sasha Titchkosky told media she was “absolutely ecstatic” at the decision to withdraw the plans. She thanked Goodman Group for listening to community concern and withdrawing the proposal.
Data centres existed before AI took off and are also used for a range of services including cloud storage, banking, online streaming and healthcare.
Australia already has 162 data centres and a further 90 in the national pipeline as of March 2026, according to The Australian Data Centre Forecast Report.
The majority of these are in NSW and near cities so they can be close to the companies they service and essential infrastructure like power stations.
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An artists rendition of Project Mars from the street.
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‘Project Mars’ would have been three-storeys high in an otherwise low-rise area approximately 20 metres from the nearest house and 160 metres from Lane Cove West Public School.
It was also being fast-tracked through the new NSW State Significant Development pathway that bypasses approval process of local council for qualifying large scale projects.
The NSW planning portal for the now scrapped project includes 374 public submissions with only nine in support of the development.
One anonymous submission from an Eastwood resident said, “Please do not listen to the uninformed NIMBYS (Not In My Backyard’s).”
“If you can’t build a data centre in an industrial park, where (the) hell can you build one. Build baby build,” they said.
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Senator Sarah Hanson-Young criticised another Lane Cove data centre for noise pollution. Picture: Instagram.
The 358 objections mostly cited concerns regarding environmental impacts, water and electricity usage, proximity to the school and residences, and around-the-clock noise pollution.
Lane Cove resident, Melanie White said, “It is oversized, noisy, poorly located, again uses obscene amounts of water, & will remove bushland. I strongly object to this project, & others like it.”
The Lane Cove Council has also made submissions to the NSW AI inquiry and asked for a temporary suspension of the development fast-tracking process until the inquiry findings are made public.