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'No, in fact, you do have to give us the tax break we demanded first, or else we will sue you into the ground'.
Good luck with that one Nybbler, so long as deep pockets can hire shark lawyers to tie things up in court for years.
Now, they do have the soothing messaging out about how they won't use water, drive up energy costs, will provide tons of jobs, etc. and I'd be more inclined to believe them if they hadn't first gone for "we'll sue you into the ground and destroy you and leave you penniless if you don't zone this land for a data centre".
A guy who assures me he was only joking about cutting my throat when he had the knife to my neck may be telling the truth, but he's not going to convince me he loved me and had my best interests at heart when he threatened to cut my throat.
The lawsuit documents indicate that the situation is more complicated than that. As alleged by the company:
(1) The company buys a bunch of farmland in an agricultural zone, and applies for "conditional rezoning" to a light industrial zone with special restrictions to prevent any industry other than a data center. Apparently, conditional rezoning is, not some unusual and onerous demand, but merely Michigan's equivalent to the "conditional use" or "special exception" that one might see in Pennsylvania or New Jersey.
(2) The municipal planning commission fails to make a legitimate consideration of the application, but merely recommends in an arbitrary and capricious manner that the municipal council reject it.
(3) The municipal council rejects the application by a vote of four to one. All five members participate in the vote, even though the chair previously recused himself from discussions on this topic due to a conflict of interest.
(4) The company sues the municipal govt., under state precedent that forbids "exclusionary zoning" of a use from land that is suitable for that use. The municipal govt. settles, agreeing to approve both the conditional rezoning and a 12-year "industrial development district" tax exemption.
(5) The municipal govt. approves the tax exemption, but then removes it, in what certainly seems like an obvious contravention of the lawsuit settlement.
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That has nothing to do with this. Nybbler is saying ‘there is no need for data centres to use public electricity as long as the public authority lets them build generators’.
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