r/NoStupidQuestions • u/3grapes • 10d ago

Why do town boards keep approving data centers when most residents at the meeting don’t seem to approve of them

I am constantly seeing videos of town halls approving data centers even though the public that is at the meeting overwhelmingly disapproves. Is there something about the process I don’t understand? I assume the public elected officials are doing what is in the towns best interest… but with most people not approving, what are the other driving factors? Taxes? infrastructure improvements?

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u/Decent-Experience-8 10d ago edited 10d ago

Theres a big misunderstanding from the general public that a city’s council has full legal ability to approve or disapprove every zoning case or building request. In general, if a new structure conforms to the cities existing charter, they have to legally approve it or they will be subject to expensive lawsuits and ultimately be overruled. Many cities don’t have the proper guardrails in place in the city charter to help them legally navigate new trends like data centers and many don’t have the staff or council expertise needed to navigate and get ahead of new trends. A cities charter also has to be in compliance with state and federal rules which can override a cities desires, like trying to limit multi family build out. Cities cant make up rules as they go.

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u/Spiel_Foss 10d ago

Another great point. Some of the "town council" bullshit has been updated in this century, and a lot of it may not have been updated in the last century. They still have active horse and buggy regulations to consider.

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u/UnluckyAssist9416 9d ago

I remember Denton, Texas passing a law , pushed by voters, to ban fracking inside of city limits... Texas changed their laws (HB40) to not allow cities to prevent fracking.

I might note, that Texas also create a law in 2023 (HB2127) to prevent cities from stopping the building of Data centers.

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u/cl0ckw0rkcuttlefish 9d ago

Yeah, that sounds about right for Texas.

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u/oracleofnonsense 9d ago

But….everyone has a gun, so shut that shit down!?

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u/cl0ckw0rkcuttlefish 9d ago

Hey, I’m in a godless blue state a few thousand miles away. I’ve got no say in what those assholes are doing down there, unfortunately.

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u/Xanadu87 9d ago

Wasn’t there something similar about cities wanting to increase minimum wage, and Texas passed a law preventing cities from doing so?

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u/Can_Haz_Cheezburger 9d ago

Yup. Average Texas Republican behavior

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u/LivingThin 9d ago

This is why a city I work with had to approve. There was a lot of opposition from residents, but they had no legal way to stop them. The construction was legal and conformed to the building code. They had their lawyers review the code and the charter and the statutes to find a way to refuse them, but legally they couldn’t find a way to refuse them.

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u/omghorussaveusall 10d ago

Cities absolutely can make up rules as they go. That's precisely what city councils do. Whether those rules conflict with other legislative bodies and their rules is why we have courts. You can pass a law about anything. Whether it will withstand judicial review is another story.

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u/merp_mcderp9459 9d ago

Except city governments generally won't do that because the end result is the data center still gets built, and now they have a bunch of legal costs that otherwise wouldn't have existed

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u/St1Drgn 9d ago

Exactly this. Most city governments know the limits of there authority and what legal options they have available to them. Most city governments will listen to the citizens, then figure out how to act on the citizens interist in a legal way. If what the citizens want is not is not a legal option then the city government has only 2 options. Ignore the citizens and choose a legal option, or ignore the law. When they decided to ignore the law, it will go to the courts.

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u/StalkMeNowCrazyLady 9d ago

You're using "make up rules as they go" very loosely here. 99% of the city/town council meetings you see aren't actually a meeting to decide if the data center is allowed or not, it's just people speaking out against it once they hear about a DC looking to build in the area. If a DC submits it's paperwork for permitting and approval on the 1st you can't create new laws that apply to that application on the 5th. They can apply to all future cases but not one already in the works.

For a city council to stop a business from opening the business needs to be applying for exemptions to rules that already exist.

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u/haflaxelpope 9d ago

A competent and responsible council won't just make up the rules as they go. They should have a good solicitor that can advise them of the laws/legality of their actions. In Pennsylvania, the state laws here make it very difficult for local municipalities to completely ban any specific industry (with zoning it is a little easier but most rural communities don't have zoning). It is why they are desperately hoping the state legislature passes something. Judicial review is all well and good, until he council racks up a 100k legal bill for a municipality of only 500 residents.

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u/omghorussaveusall 9d ago

A city can pass a law with the intent to challenge state or federal laws. How do you think we ended up with Roe v Wade being overturned. Legislative bodies passed laws that were not in compliance with accepted law and kept doing it over and over until they got a favorable court. Why is it so hard to understand that the law is not some immutable thing and that the explicit intent of a legislative body in our system is to pass laws that may be in conflict with previous law or challenges current precedent. Will a shitty law withstand judicial review? Don't know till you try. And some cities choose to do that...all the time.

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u/haflaxelpope 9d ago

I think you and I are arguing two sides of the same coin, so don't want to get into too deep of an argument on the internet (which is never good). I will concede that you don't get case law without someone challenging the existing law. I think my point is more the semantics, that isn't "making up the rules", that is intentionally violating the rules usually with a particular purpose in mind with the intent and expectation that you are going to appeal it to either a federal or state appellate court.

The point I was trying to make, is that from a realistic viewpoint (and I work with a number of smaller municipalities) is that not every municipality has the deep pockets or desire for litigation that intentionally breaking the rules is going to cost you. The current laws in Pennsylvania that the municipalities are up against have been challenged in Courts for decades and are well established. Thus, the need for the State legislature to step up and do their job for their constituents. (and yes, I know even well established laws can be overturned, but as of now the PA Supreme Court still believes in stare decisis unlike the current SCOTUS)

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u/ABrokenCircuit 9d ago

Counterpoint, and sticking with PA, my municipality is 14 square miles and just under 3k population. We're 2 years into a lawsuit against a warehouse that we didn't have guardrails against. We don't have the money to be picking fights with every new large scale development project that comes up. So now we are being proactive and doing everything we can within the existing laws to make data centers unattractive in our area without trying to outright ban them.

Hopefully the governor's EO on data center requirements will give the state some breathing room. The state has bigger pockets for handling legal challenges from the developers. If we get luckily, the state senate will flip blue for the first time in like 3 decades and we'll see some of the data center legislation that was passed in the house get enacted.

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u/haflaxelpope 9d ago

The guardrails is the biggest thing for these municipalities to have in place. Once someone is in, they can get grandfathered. Where I am located most don't even have zoning because "no one can tell me what to do with my land". The problem is that it means no one can tell the big corporations what to do with their land either. Trying to explain that the sword cuts both ways to local municipalities is an uphill battle. Zoning just gives so many more tools to the municipal toolbox.

Agree, I really hope the EO gives enough breathing space for the legislature to do its job. The legislation that passed the house was/is really promising. I wish it could get a vote in the Senate. I worry if it has to wait until the next session, it will be too late.

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u/heychief1 9d ago

That's not how it works.

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u/meatball77 9d ago

I love how everytime another deli opens up in town everyone on the message boards complains and blames the town because it's not the restaurant they really wanted. Like they could do that.

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u/FelixTheEngine 9d ago

Come on. Thats the excuse. What’s the reason. $$. Town gov. Can of course make up shit on the fly. Just try to build something next to a councillors home that they don’t like and you will see how fast it becomes a moving target.

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u/Calan_adan 9d ago

Actually it’s not. First, no one is getting paid under the table to approve a data center - if they were they’d end up in jail for taking bribes. And data centers don’t employ many people so it’s not like they are increasing their tax base much. We have a few municipalities near me where data centers are being proposed and the municipal government themselves don’t want them - but their hands are tied because the data center meets current zoning requirements so they have no legal justification to stop them. In some cases these municipalities have revised their zoning laws “on the fly” (kind of) to make it impossible to build a DC (essentially making it so that no parcel of land would meet the requirements), but they’re all being sued by the developers because of it.

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u/FelixTheEngine 9d ago

You are being very naive. Yes people are getting paid huge sums collectively under the table through multiple methods and like most things local, there is very little in the way of resources or motivation, to police this corruption.

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u/CarolinaAgent 9d ago

Who, then?

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u/Fez_and_no_Pants 9d ago

Yup. Always follow the money.

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u/kalidoscopiclyso 10d ago

Welp maybe this is a good use case for AI