Washington County’s fight over a proposed Waterford data center is really about NDAs, trust, and who actually has leverage over siting and operations.
County officials admit they’re bound by NDAs with the data center developer but stress the company can build without them, which means local government has little direct control over where or how the facility goes up.
With almost no zoning in 21 of 22 townships, commissioners say they lack land-use tools to shape data center placement, leaving property sales and land aggregation to private deals between owners and the developer.
Residents are pressing on water, power, and waste impacts from a “closed-loop” cooling system, but the county doesn’t appear to have strong technical or regulatory hooks yet to demand detailed AI/data center infrastructure disclosures.
The commission defends its $13,000-per-month relationship with Sunday Creek Horizons as necessary for economic development and legislation like HB 522, while residents question whether lobby-style support is skewing priorities toward data center growth over community protections.
For AI infra watchers, this is a snapshot of how hyperscale or GPU-capable data centers can advance in weak-zoning counties with limited oversight, high opacity under NDAs, and mounting local concern about energy and water use.
Worth a read for understanding how local governance gaps can accelerate or constrain AI data center build-outs in secondary markets.
