I’m a voter who prefers we establish rules that be followed rather than encumber every project with a lengthy community dialogue.

▲

thewillowcat 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

These companies aren't coming in, buying property at market rates, and developing it with existing infrastructure under current zoning laws. They usually want tax breaks, major infrastructure changes, and other accommodations and guarantees. It's completely reasonable for people to want a dialog with their representatives before those kinds of arrangements are made with a company on their behalf. And it's entirely reasonable for them to vote out reps that are overly accommodating.

I live in an historic district. I had to attend a public meeting a couple years ago to get approval to change a lamp post. It is perfectly reasonable to ask tech companies to show up and defend massive projects to the public.

▲

WarmWash 21 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Usually the state gives tax breaks and the town gets double it's tax revenue. That's why the councils rush to vote yes, and $20-30M annually is a rounding error for the datacenter.

▲

jnwatson 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A meeting to get a lamp post change is exactly how progress stops. It is why we can't build anything in US and it costs a billion dollars per mile of high speed rail.

	▲	defrost an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		A data centre isn't a lamp post.
	▲	_DeadFred_ an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Communities passed and paid bonds to have water hookusp. Built infrastructure. They should have a say in who gets access and why. There are plenty of places datacenters could build without hassle, but they want access to readymade infra, and that comes with a reasonable tradeoff.

▲

susiecambria 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, rules are absolutely necessary. And community engagement is also essential. Community input might be tiring, frustrating, and the like but people get to speak as part of the process and because they have a right to.

▲

freejazz 39 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Lengthy community dialogue" is your assumption

▲

sidewndr46 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That'd pretty much defeat the point of having local government. If politicians can't get their hand in the cookie jar, what's the point?

▲

starik36 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's it right there. Rules, not deals.

	▲	ghaff 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The two are often difficult to dissociate. My town had a fairly fractious town meeting around a rezoning proposal that was mostly for a fairly specific commercial purpose--that passed through a basically procedural mechanism in a second meeting.