Government
$500M tax cut for proposed data center CloudBurst denied
water per day, according to the meeting presen- tation. The data center would also generate $1.22 billion in tax revenue for Guadalupe County, according to the presentation. Thompson said they are also having conversa- tions with Texas State Technical College and Texas State University on training programs. She also said they try not to strain community resources. “We will not be pulling from the local grid, so all of our generation will be behind-the-meter using both turbines and fuel sales,” Thompson said. “The generators we use, use no water.” What they’re saying Kutscher said the data center could have an overarching benefit to the county and he does not think it should be denied. He also said counties are regulated by the state and do not have land-use authority like cities do. “We do not get to pick and choose what we want to see on a property,” Kutscher said. “We have been inundated with residential development as one of the fastest growing regions in the state of Texas and in the country for some time now.” Kutscher also said counties were not allowed to put moratoriums on development. Precinct 4 Commissioner Stephen Germann said he could not support a tax abatement for the proposed data center until he saw the amount of water the data center would use in writing. “We are out of water,” Germann said. “If anyone wants to argue with me, talk to the farmers about their wells going dry.” Precinct 1 Commissioner Jacqueline Ott said she is not anti-AI data center, but it was concerning not to have all the information before the meeting
In a 3-2 vote, Guadalupe County Commissioners voted against a $500 million property tax abate- ment for a multibuilding data center campus with CloudBurst Texas on Feb. 24. Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher and Precinct 2 Commissioner Drew Engelke voted in favor of the tax abatement. A Chapter 312 tax abatement was the tax break under consideration by commissioners. The tax abatement is an agreement between a taxpayer and a tax unit that exempts increases in property value taxation for up to 10 years. It is an economic development tool available to counties, cities and special districts to attract new industries, accord- ing to the Texas comptroller’s website. What we know The data center would be about 220 acres. Approximately 142.5 acres are in Guadalupe County, and the remaining 77.5 acres are located in Hays County, according to agenda documents. The data center campus would be composed of 12 artificial intelligence buildings across 3 million square feet, said Cynthia Thompson, co-founder and executive chair of CloudBurst, during her presentation to the commissioners. “We’re a small company trying to build a data center here, locally in Texas,” Thompson said. The data center’s unnamed tenant would sign a 15-year lease agreement with the option to renew the lease for an additional five years. CloudBurst officials were seeking the Chapter 312 tax abate- ment to close out their funding and sign their tenant, Thompson said. If approved, the data center would provide 480 jobs at full build-out and use 24,000 gallons of
Proposed CloudBurst data center
New Braunfels
Seguin
1101
N
Cloudburst data center impact
480 jobs at full build-out
24,000 gallons of water per day
$1.22B economic impact
SOURCE: CLOUDBURST TEXAS LLC/COMMUNITY IMPACT
presentation. Charles McDonald, a small-business owner and farmer in Seguin, said he had concerns about the data center’s water usage. “Over the past few years, we’ve consistently seen our well drop, and it’s not been rising back up; it keeps going down and down. I have had sev- eral neighbors have their wells go dry and needing to have new wells put in,” McDonald said.
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