Residents repeatedly raised concerns over the facility’s possible impact on the environment and the cost of water and electricity for utility customers.
But Township Supervisor Kevin McNamara says the data center meets local zoning requirements and simply refusing to consider it would leave Van Buren in a legal quagmire:
“You can’t just say no. If you say no...you go to court and the court decides what to do and they decide how to build it. And as badly as maybe I didn’t want the data center...I’m not letting a judge in downtown Detroit build our data center. We’re gonna build the best damn data center we possibly can.”
McNamara says the township brokered a tax incentive package that includes Google covering any increase in water rates, preserving wildlife corridors on the site, and building barriers to dampen noise from the facility.
