A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Massive Data Center Instead

Huh, I’m not an attorney but that sure seems actionable if the intended use was documented in a contract.

While in many ways it is a tragedy, the cure is often worse. I on balance oppose deed restrictions, either you own the land and pay taxes, or you give up all control. Deed restrictions just force future generations to live by your values and that is a bad thing.

Nice try, Big Dungbeatle Inc. 😑

But AI is Public Infrastructure.

/s^just in case

A road in of itself is definitely a public interest...

Where they should and should not be built is another discussion.

OP claims to be from southwestern europe here: On a post about his cat

Don’t forget the surveillance state! The global buildout for the NWO one government surveillance state will be paid with your pension and retirement savings.

I think the real goal is the billionaires uploading their minds to achieve immortality. Definitely impossible, but that's what I think.

full circle, back when I started, main frames with thin clients.

Good thing my rural internet isn't strong enough for that

Jensen Huang has been pretty open about that being the plan lately. Although he still insists that even the cloud computers will be run by AI agents.

That might have worked over a few generations but they want people that are used to owning their stuff to just give it up over night and it's not going very well for them.

There are multiple goals in mind such as surveillance, pumping the stock market, taking control out of people's hands, excuses to do things like lay people off, etc. In this case or in general for local governments, it's a matter of a select number of people getting a lot of money in their pockets and thus pushing for these data centers to happen.

Profit Cults gotta commit to the behaviour

"Don't mess with Texas, it might be contagious"

Just like "Everything Is Bigger In Texas" is considered a self-own to the rest of the world, they're the brunt of the joke. (Sorry Austin, you too. Yes, even SXSW)

"Texas hurt itself in its confusion."

Pretty sure "Don't mess with Texas" began its life as an anti-littering campaign in the late 80s or early 90s. It has been appropriated to mean all sorts of things, though. The original meaning might be even more relevant to data centers...

I mean... I guess it could mean that now, but that is certainly not what it meant originally or how it was ever used.

This has nothing to do with any translation of any language, it's a US English expression.

Any time I think of the art of war, I think of this song:

https://youtu.be/gGYlocT1kOA

Thank you for the correct interpretation, I really need to remember that one

Mostly to get their kids guaranteed entry into the university.

and now the courts are saying “fuck you”

It's one Court and unsurprisingly it's the Court located right there in town. I strongly suspect that the Third Court of Appeals is going to have a different take on this mess.

At least where I live you can't wash away a deed restriction like this by transferring the property a couple times.

Actually just did read the article, had to dig it up off an archive site. Honestly this seems like it's a garden variety case of deed washing. Pass the property back and forth a few times between various entities, somewhere in the line the deed restrictions get 'accidentally lost', and what comes out in the end is a parcel with no restrictions and the only one with any interest in enforcing restrictions is five or six owners ago (all with impeccable arm's length separation of course) so if a court does try and fix it you end up with a giant mess of transactions to unwind, some of which may not be possible to unwind.

Sadly if I'm correct that means the most likely outcome is the deed restriction is enforced and the data come center company files a claim with their title insurance. The best shot at actually unwinding any of this is that the property was transferred for significantly below market value or for nothing between some of those entities in the middle, which makes it a lot easier to argue they were acting as one.

Not a lawyer either, but the article explicitly says “sold”, so I assume it’s not just leasing

In 2003, the Texas Parks and Recreation Foundation granted the land to another non-profit called the Williamson County Park Foundation. A month later, that non-profit gave the land to the City of Taylor. Five years later, in 2008, the city of Taylor sold the land to the Taylor Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) for $15,000. In 2025, TEDC sold the land to Blueprint, the data center developers, for $10 million.

I can just see it- 'Okay kids it's that time of the year again, whoever wants to get their computer merit badge and their camping merit badge, bring your tent at meet at 6:00 p.m. in the parking lot of the data center on our old campground...' 🤣

(I'm sure that's not the only restriction heh)

But yeah I agree that's the way to go, basically guarantees the donation recipient stays in line and the instant they don't the donation evaporates.

Damn, you really can’t control your legacy, huh?

Unfortunately it seems like the donator specified the usage in this case as well, but the courts are straight up ignoring it.

On July 7, 1999, Bland’s descendants granted 87.97 acres of land to the “Texas Parks and Recreation Foundation, a Texas non-profit corporation, to be held in trust for future use as parkland by Williamson County, Texas,” according to a copy of the deed reviewed by 404 Media.

tax benefits to donations, as opposed to maintaining it

I generally hate the principle of subscriptions + ads + paywalling stuff to viewers but not to crawlers, it’s pretty much double-dipping while baiting people for SEO.

On the other hand, I understand that in this day and age keeping a news outlet afloat without “outside influence” requires doing stuff like this. It’s a hard thing to balance but in either case I appreciate the insight from your comment, I admit I didn’t look them up and I figured they were just another money-hungry megacorp-owned outlet.

Corrupt Bastard: "We will name it...Data Park."

then hopefully the city will be made to honor it