Residents who moved to Taylor, Texas for a rural community now have to contend with three data centers in their backyard.
Taylor, Texas is a rural community filled with farmers, mom-and-pop shops — and data center development. Residents who were promised an “idyllic,” historic town now must contend with the development of three data centers and a 1,200-acre semiconductor facility, the latter of which clogs roads with concrete mixers and creates construction noise audible in Taylor High School and in the houses built just over a mile away.
Inside Climate News reports:
“We moved for a small-town feel, for a tighter-knit community, for the ability to afford some land and do some agricultural stuff, and to have space for our kids to run around,” Medina said. “We did not move here to be closer to any kind of tech. It’s not part of the appeal.”
Even land intended to maintain the small-town feel isn’t safe from the data center rush. Descendants of one late town resident, Howard Bland, Sr., sold his 87-acre property to the Williamson County Park Foundation to be used for parkland. The property then bounced to Taylor’s Economic Development Corporation who sold it to NCP Travis TPP Project, LLC for $10 million. NCP Travis TPP Project plans to build a 135,000-square-foot data center on the land.
Read the full story: Rural Charms Drew Residents to Taylor, Texas. Then Came the Data Centers.
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