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It didn’t take long for word to reach HALT, a Taylor-based anti-data center group, that the Texas Attorney General was looking into how a deed that originally said a family had donated 85 acres to Williamson County for a park lost the parkland language by the time the property was sold to a data center developer.
“We were coming back from attending the Neighborhood Economic Conference in Galveston when we got a text,” said Carrie D’Anna, one of HALT’s founders.
The four people who started HALT were in the car, D’Anna said — her, Terry Williams, Nakevia Miller, and Pamela Griffin, whose memory of something she had heard as a young girl sparked the fight against this particular data center.
“These are the people who sat at a table over a year ago and looked up that deed for the first time while Pamela was crying and telling us a childhood story,” D’Anna said. “So we started cheering, you know, overjoyed.”
What they cheered was a September 17 press release stating that the attorney general’s office would be investigating whether the parkland restriction mentioned in the deed had been legally ended or changed. If the investigation found that the property was still subject to the restriction, then the attorney general would “seek court intervention to ensure the restriction is not disregarded.”
“I will not allow any person or entity to disregard the rule of law or obligations owed to the public,” the press release quoted Attorney General Ken Paxton saying. “If the Taylor data center development is unlawful, I will do everything in my power to stop it and hold those who have violated the law accountable.”
The attorney general’s inquiry injects new uncertainty into one of several data center projects reshaping Taylor, where residents say rapid industrial development has outpaced public oversight. HALT members see the investigation as a potential test of whether land donated for public parkland can be converted to private development. They say it will matter little, however, unless Paxton obtains an injunction to quickly pause work on the Blueprint Projects Data Center while his office investigates. Otherwise, construction will move forward, they said.
Parkland memory
As first reported in the Austin Free Press, in 1999 members of the Bland and Cromwell families, whose histories go back to Taylor’s founding, donated land to the Texas Parks Foundation. The preamble to the deed clearly stated that the property was to be “held in trust for future use as parkland for Williamson County.”
That statement was omitted from later land transfers, so when the Taylor Economic Development Corporation acquired the acreage in 2003, there were no obvious deed restrictions.
After the development corporation announced that it was selling the property to a data center developer, Griffin remembered something that she had heard as a child playing baseball on the site. She was told that her playground would be preserved as a park.
The memory prompted Griffin to research the deed and to discover the mention of parkland. With three of her siblings and a neighbor, Griffin convinced an attorney to argue their case to enforce the original deed restriction.
Last October the 395th State District Court dismissed the case, saying that Griffin and her co-plaintiffs lacked legal standing to intervene. But Griffin didn’t give up. Her attorney immediately filed an appeal, which is still pending nearly a year later.
Data center convergence
The Blueprint Projects Data Center proposed for that property was the first such project proposed for Taylor. A number of others now are working their way through the approval process.
One, Project Comal, proposes a 650 MW campus hosting up to six data centers on 225 acres sandwiched between Samsung’s semi-conductor fabrication plant and a new 150-home subdivision.
Another, Mustang, would sit on 650 acres east of Taylor. Rather than connecting to the grid, that project will come with its own 450 MW gas-fired power plant, exempting it from Gov. Greg Abbot’s data center pause.
Yet another, Project Iron Mountain, is proposed for a tract of land south of the Samsung plant.
And then there’s Project Meridian, which has not been officially announced, but appears on a city map highlighting data centers in the Taylor city limits.
The explosion of data center projects in Taylor and Williamson County prompted the formation of HALT and a petition drive. The petition seeks to force the city to pause new data center development until a more stringent land use code is developed or place the issue of local data center controls on the ballot for popular vote.
The petition got 1,400 signatures but was rejected by Taylor’s city council on the grounds that state law does not allow zoning by popular vote.
Waiting on the investigation
While HALT’s grassroots approach has won some local land-use battles, it has not yet slowed Taylor’s data center explosion. With state help, HALT has some guarded hopes that the deed investigation can block at least one project.
As excited as they were to hear about the Attorney General’s probe, HALT members are aware that the investigation is being launched by a lame duck fighting for his political life. Paxton is vying with former Democratic state Rep. James Talarico for the U.S. Senate seat, being vacated by Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
“I’m glad that Paxton is taking the case, but I’m concerned that he might not do the right thing,” said Griffin. “I’m praying and hoping that he knows this community needs help and be sincere about it, not because of politics, but because he wants to see justice.”
“The statement is very strong about the investigation, but there’s no concrete action attached to it,” D’Anna added. “If he doesn’t attach an injunction to this investigation, what he’s doing is making a clear pathway for (the data center developers) to continue their work.”
“It’s just a concern of whether it’s politicized, and whether that’s used to elongate the process and allow (the data center) to happen anyway,” she said.
D’Anna’s other worry is that the investigation could ultimately decide that there has been no wrongdoing.
“That’s the double-edged sword,” she said. “If they rule that there’s no misdeed, then they’ve set a major precedent either way. That’s just where we’re standing. Overjoyed at the process, and highly concerned about whether this will benefit us or the data center industry.”
“If he would tell the lower court to make a ruling on the appeal, that would put some teeth behind their investigation,” D’Anna said.
The Attorney General’s Office had not responded by press time to an email asking if Paxton is requesting an injunction to pause the project during his investigation, or if he would urge the appellate court to rule on the pending lawsuit.
A city of Taylor spokesperson said that the city is aware of the Texas Attorney General’s investigation of the Blueprint Projects Data Center property.
“While the city is not a party to the lawsuit involving the property, the city will cooperate fully with the Attorney General’s investigation and provide any records or information requested,” the spokesperson said. “The City respects the legal process; however, we are unable to comment on ongoing litigation related to this property.”
Richard Stone is a Central Texas native reporter and editor with 35 years of award-winning experience covering local issues that matter. More at Wilcoblues.com.
