Texas town looks to strike data center bargain
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The City Council in Taylor, a bourgeoning tech hub northeast of Austin, could vote Thursday to annex a 664-acre planned data center campus east of town and bind it to city rules on water, noise, setbacks and lighting.
Why it matters: City officials say the project could otherwise proceed in unincorporated Williamson County — and Texas counties have little regulatory authority.
- The Taylor Technology Campus will include data center facilities and a power plant.
The big picture: Gov. Greg Abbott, as part of an about-face on data centers, has temporarily halted grid connections and state environmental approvals for new data centers.
- It's not clear if or how those actions would affect the Taylor project.
Zoom in: Taylor is home to the nearly completed Samsung chip fabrication plant — and tech-related operations have sprung up around town the last few years.
- But some residents are urging the City Council to reject a data center deal.
Between the lines: Under the proposed agreement, Big Watt Digital and PowerHouse Data Centers would use a closed-loop cooling system with reclaimed water and agree to noise restrictions and property line setbacks.
- Developers would also commit $28.2 million for city, school and nonprofit programs. The city says the project could generate $1.38 billion in gross tax revenue over 20 years, with no tax abatements requested.
What they're saying: "I believe the terms before council represent the best path forward for Taylor and the surrounding area," Mayor Jim Buzan said in a press release last week.
- "PowerHouse Data Centers works closely with state and local authorities and complies with all applicable regulatory and permitting requirements throughout the development process," Litalia Yoakum, a spokesperson for the company, wrote to Axios in response to a question about whether the governor's moratorium would affect the project.
- "Our decision to keep working directly with the city reflects our commitment to being a responsible community partner," officials from Big Watt wrote Axios.
The other side: "We do not want Taylor to become an industrial boom town," the group Halt Taylor Data Centers posted this week, urging its followers to oppose the plan.
- The group's organizer, Carrie D'Anna, tells Axios the city should hold off on an agreement and set up a "digital infrastructure zone" with umbrella rules for data centers — instead of what she calls a patchwork approach.
- "We're going to be responsible for whatever happens on this property and we don't have the capacity to understand what that's going to look like 10 to 20 years from now," she says.