Taylor’s city council will vote Oct. 8 on whether to annex about 664 acres east of town so a data center campus with its own gas-fired power plant can be built under city rules. The city says the vote decides whether it can enforce limits on noise, lighting, water use and setbacks, because land outside city limits is largely beyond its reach.
The developers, Big Watt Digital and PowerHouse Data Centers, call the site the Taylor Technology Campus, formerly Project Mustang. It sits between FM 112 and US 79. The Taylor Press reports the campus would draw 500 megawatts of power, a figure the city page does not state. The planning and zoning commission tabled the first request for 90 days on Aug. 18, and the developers withdrew it Sept. 3, according to the city. The city published a new proposed agreement Oct. 2.
Texas cities can zone only inside their limits. On the unincorporated land just outside a city, where it has limited powers called extraterritorial jurisdiction, state law bars a city from regulating how property is used or how large and numerous its buildings are, unless other state law allows it. Texas counties have no general power to zone either. A city can annex land if every owner asks, and it must first sign a written agreement on city services. State law also lets a city and a landowner agree by contract to land-use rules the city could not otherwise impose.
Annexation therefore depends on the owner. The Taylor Press reports the developers have indicated they would build with or without the city’s involvement. The city’s web page lays out what it says changes either way, and those are the city’s characterizations, not findings by a court or agency.
On noise, the agreement would cap sound at the greater of 65 decibels or the level before construction. Without it, the city says, only the state’s 85-decibel limit applies, with no added county rule. The agreement would require the city’s dark-sky lighting rules, which the city says would otherwise not apply.
For water, the campus would use a closed-loop cooling system filled once with 1.575 million gallons of reclaimed water, with city drinking water limited to restrooms and break rooms. Wastewater would follow city industrial-pretreatment rules, and the developers would withdraw their state wastewater permit application. Without the deal, the city says, the site would treat its own wastewater and discharge to Mustang Creek under a state permit, with no city oversight.
Buildings would sit at least 300 feet from the north, east and west property lines. Data centers, power generation and battery storage would stay 700 feet from the south line, behind a 400-foot buffer with earthen berms at least 6 feet high. Air emissions fall to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality either way.
Mayor Jim Buzan has called the terms the best path forward for Taylor and the surrounding area. The city and the Taylor Press cite a consultant study for the developers projecting $1.38 billion in gross tax revenue to Taylor over 20 years and a $4.8 billion regional impact, plus nearly 20,000 construction jobs over three years. The deal includes roughly $28 million in community benefit payments, including $13 million for the city, and the city says no tax abatement is requested. Those figures are the developers’ consultant’s projections and have not been independently checked.
Residents who oppose the project have argued the city should write tougher rules first. A group called HALT Taylor Data Centers gathered about 1,400 signatures on a petition asking the city to limit new data centers until it adopted specific zoning for them. The council ruled July 9 the petition could not go to voters, because, the city’s communications manager said, zoning can be set only through the process the Legislature prescribed. The group’s spokesperson, Carrie D’Anna, said residents had followed the rules the city gave them. The Taylor Press reports the group has since taken legal action to seek a Nov. 3 ballot measure.
Separately, Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an inquiry in September into a different Taylor data center on land deeded for a park.
If the council approves the agreement Oct. 8, the campus enters the city and its terms become enforceable by Taylor. If it declines, the city says the site stays outside its authority, and the developers have indicated they may proceed regardless.