Why We Oppose This Project

This page is our argument. The rest of this site is documentation, and we have worked to keep it that way. Here we are telling you what we think and why. The facts underneath are still cited; the conclusions are ours, and you are free to reach different ones.

1. This community has no vote, and that is the whole problem

Ypsilanti Township cannot zone this project. Article VIII, Section 5 of the Michigan Constitution makes the Regents of the University of Michigan a body corporate with general supervision of the University’s institution, and courts have long read that as exempting the University from local land use regulation.

Any other developer proposing a 100-megawatt industrial facility here would face site plan review, public hearings, conditions, and a vote by people the community elects. The University faces none of that.

That exemption exists to protect academic independence from political interference. It was not written to let a university host a federal national security laboratory over a township’s formal objection. The University told the State that this project is 100 megawatts for Los Alamos National Laboratory plus a dedicated 10 MW academic center for the University’s non-classified research — roughly 91% federal, 9% university — with Los Alamos paying $285 million in net construction costs and an anticipated long-term lease.1 Its own FAQ describes a 240,000 square foot federal building including classified research, against a 50,000 square foot academic building.2

Whether constitutional autonomy stretches that far has never been tested in a Michigan court. We think it is a fair question, and we think a community is entitled to ask it before the concrete is poured rather than after.

2. Local ratepayers may pay for infrastructure that serves someone else

This facility needs a new DTE substation. In the 2024 state filing, two-thirds of that substation’s capacity was to serve the project and one-third was described as community benefit, with a $30 million capital contribution from the project.1 The current FAQ describes a dedicated substation that will exclusively power the facility.2

Who ultimately carries the cost of grid capacity added to serve a single large customer is decided by the Michigan Public Service Commission, not by the University and not by the Township. The University of Michigan’s own Ford School of Public Policy described the general pattern in a July 2025 brief: as demand surges, utilities commonly pass infrastructure upgrade and procurement costs on to residents and small businesses through higher rates.3

The project has not committed to an interruptible or curtailable arrangement, even though its own backup design — generators sized to roughly 10% of load — implies it can shed most of its demand when asked.2 A commitment that costs the University nothing would materially protect its neighbors. It has not been offered.

3. The township gets less from this than it would from a private developer

Michigan already exempts qualifying commercial data centers from personal property tax on their equipment. But a private operator still pays real property tax on land and buildings, and that money reaches local schools, roads, and emergency services.

The University pays neither. It is a public institution and its property is exempt. Roughly 144 acres have come off the Township’s tax rolls by purchase,45 and the facility that replaces them will contribute nothing to the local tax base while consuming local services — roads during construction, emergency response for a site with substantial on-site fuel storage and high-voltage equipment, and municipal water and sewer capacity.

Tax-exempt universities elsewhere have long accepted that this creates an obligation, and make substantial annual payments in lieu of taxes to their host municipalities. No such payment has been offered here.

4. The permanent employment is thin, and the headline number is not what it appears

The public materials cite more than 200 high-paying permanent research positions.2 The state filing describes the same 200 differently: as national laboratory jobs, created in Michigan, over ten years — and uses both “minimum of 200” and “up to 200” in the same document.1

Researchers do not work inside data centers. They submit jobs to a scheduler from a campus office, another state, or another country. A position enabled by a computing facility is not a position located at it.

The realistic on-site number is the project’s own other figure: 30 to 50 technical support roles. That is consistent with published staffing analysis of 0.15 to 0.35 full-time equivalents per megawatt,6 and with the Brookings Institution’s finding that data centers are among the least labor-intensive structures in the economy.7 The Ford School reached the same conclusion about data centers generally: infrastructure projects rather than job-creating businesses.3

Thirty to fifty jobs is not nothing. It is also not a reason to override a community.

5. The water commitments are softer than they sound

The FAQ says the facility will not draw from or discharge into the Huron River and will not use local groundwater. Good. But it also says the University is reviewing designs to consider closed-loop cooling and reclaimed wastewater — considering, not committing — and that any municipal water will be purchased through YCUA. It also confirms direct-to-chip cooling, which is a liquid-cooling technology.2

No public figure has been given for projected consumptive water use in gallons per day. Until that number exists, nobody can evaluate the commitment. In April 2026 YCUA voted a twelve-month moratorium on water and sewer service to data centers and AI computing facilities.5 That moratorium expires.

6. The project keeps getting bigger, and the descriptions keep changing

In December 2024 the University told the State it would build on a 20-acre property in Ypsilanti Township.1 Its holdings on Textile Road are now roughly 144 acres.48 The substation went from two-thirds project use to exclusive project use. The capacity is described as 100 MW plus 10 MW in one document and a maximum of 100 MW in another.

Any single one of these has an innocent explanation. Together they describe a project whose public account has not kept pace with its actual scope — and a community that has consistently learned the scope afterward.

7. Nothing here is enforceable

Read the commitments carefully and notice what form they take. Renewable fuel for the generators. Solar procurement — for the academic load only.2 Preserving most of the 144 acres as natural space.8 Noise no louder than a household air conditioner at the property line. Working with local leaders to identify opportunities for meaningful long-term value.

Every one of these is a statement on a web page. None is a deed restriction, a conservation easement, a binding community benefits agreement, a tariff condition, or a permit term. The one body that would ordinarily convert promises into enforceable conditions is the local government — and it has been exempted out of the process.

Promises made by an institution that cannot be held to them are worth exactly what they cost to make.

8. It cannot be undone

Construction lasts two or three years. The facility is intended to run for decades. The land, the substation, the transmission, and the traffic pattern are permanent on any timescale that matters to the people living beside them. There is no published decommissioning plan and no financial assurance for site restoration.

Decisions this durable deserve a process the affected community actually participates in. That is the objection underneath all the others.

What we are not arguing

We want to be precise, because imprecision is how good arguments get dismissed.

  • We are not against data centers. The computing capacity is genuinely needed and has to be built somewhere.
  • We are not against scientific research, high-performance computing, or the University of Michigan.
  • We are not against the construction jobs. Roughly 300 union trades jobs on a project this size are real, they will substantially go to Michigan workers, and those workers have earned them. We support labor standards on this project and on every project like it.
  • We are not claiming nuclear materials will be stored here. The University says no hazardous nuclear materials will be stored or used on site, no weapons production will occur, and no real-time defense operations will be conducted.8 We have no basis to dispute that and we do not.
  • We are not saying the backup generator design is deceptive. Sizing backup to roughly 10% of load is a legitimate engineering choice for research computing. Our point is what it implies about curtailment, not that it is wrong.

What would change our position

We are not asking for the impossible, and we think it is worth saying out loud what would actually satisfy us. Every item below is something the University could do without abandoning the project.

  1. A binding community benefits agreement with Ypsilanti Township, negotiated in public and enforceable in court, including an annual payment in lieu of taxes.
  2. A curtailable or interruptible arrangement filed with and enforceable through the Public Service Commission, obligating load reduction during grid stress events.
  3. Full cost responsibility for the substation and all associated grid infrastructure, directly assigned and not recovered from other DTE customers.
  4. Closed-loop cooling as a commitment rather than a consideration, with a published cap on consumptive water use in gallons per day.
  5. A recorded conservation easement over the portion of the 144 acres the University says will remain natural space, and a recorded cap on total developed capacity.
  6. A decommissioning plan with financial assurance sufficient to restore the site.
  7. Publication of the operating numbers: substation design rating, total interconnection request, projected consumptive water use, generator count and fuel storage volume, and how many of the 200 positions will have a duty station in this township.

None of that requires new legislation. It requires the University to accept, voluntarily, the kinds of conditions any other developer would face here as a matter of course.

Until then, we oppose this project at this location — and we will use every lawful process available to us: the Public Service Commission, EGLE permitting, municipal utility service decisions, the Legislature, and the fact that the Regents of the University of Michigan stand for election statewide.

Sources

  1. Michigan Economic Development Corporation, memorandum to the Michigan Strategic Fund Board, December 10, 2024, and MSF Resolution 2024-176. December 2024 MSF Board Packet, pp. 52–65. Full packet (PDF)
  2. University of Michigan Office of the Vice President for Research, LANL FAQ. Retrieved August 28, 2026. research.umich.edu
  3. Terry Nguyen and Ben Green, What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, with the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, July 2025. stpp.fordschool.umich.edu (PDF)
  4. The Michigan Daily, “UMich finalizes purchase of Textile Road parcel for planned Ypsilanti data center,” March 2026. michigandaily.com
  5. Charter Township of Ypsilanti, Data Center Information timeline and document archive. ypsitownship.org
  6. Hamm Institute for American Energy, Data Center Employment Forecast Analysis, November 2025. hamminstitute.org (PDF)
  7. Bahar and Wright, “New evidence on data center employment effects,” Brookings Institution, May 2026. brookings.edu
  8. The University Record, “University of Michigan selects Textile Road as preferred site for landmark research computing center,” August 2026. record.umich.edu

Last updated August 28, 2026. This page states our opinion. The factual claims supporting it are cited above and documented in more detail on our claims and record page. If you believe we have a fact wrong, tell us and we will correct it.