Billionaire Developer Overrides Local Opposition to Force OpenAI Data Center on Small Michigan Town
May 10, 2026
Billionaire Developer Overrides Local Opposition to Force OpenAI Data Center on Small Michigan Town
Across the United States, a growing conflict over data center construction is pitting local governments against their own residents. Municipal officials, under pressure to approve large-scale projects, increasingly face backlash from communities that oppose them. In Saline Township, Michigan, a small town of roughly 2,883 residents, this tension reached a tipping point when a township board and planning commission both voted to reject a massive data center proposal—only to be overruled by legal and financial pressure from a billionaire-backed developer.
The developer, Related Digital—a subsidiary of a real estate conglomerate owned by billionaire Steven Roth—proposed a 21 million square foot data center on 575 acres of farmland. In September, Saline’s planning commission voted down the request to rezone the land, aligning with the wishes of most residents. But just two days later, Related Digital filed a lawsuit, accusing the township of practicing “exclusionary zoning.” Facing a costly legal battle that could deplete the township’s limited budget—and with the added threat that the developer could bypass local zoning laws by partnering with the University of Michigan—the board quickly settled. In October, it emerged that the data center would be primarily leased to OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, and Oracle, led by Larry Ellison, as part of the $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative known as “Stargate,” championed by former President Donald Trump.
“I’m not sure there were any good solutions,” said Fred Lucas, the township’s attorney, in an interview. “If you polled everyone on the township board, they would have said the same thing: they didn’t want a data center there. We didn’t invite them, we didn’t encourage them.”
The legal strong-arming in Saline exposes a fundamental contradiction in America’s AI infrastructure boom: it is being imposed from above by tech billionaires and their political allies, rather than chosen by the communities forced to live with it. Town after town has been compelled to absorb the environmental and social costs of an industry obsessed with expansion—making it clear that when capital and democracy collide, capital wins. Kathryn Haushalter, a local mother who lives near the data center site, told Fortune that “it feels like I’m playing by a different rule book. Like I’m playing baseball and they’re playing football.” The $16 billion development, now approved, underscores how local opposition can be steamrolled by powerful economic and political forces in the race to build AI infrastructure.
Source: futurism
