When are we going to hold local government officials accountable for bullshit like this? Send them to prison.
Common Texas boilerplate: That for and in consideration of ten dollars ($10.00), cash in hand paid, and other good and valuable considerations, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the Grantor has bargained and sold, and does hereby bargain, sell, convey, and confirm unto the Grantee the following described real estate.
No shame against this family, they and their gift were taken advantage of by their city and its representatives. You don't know what you don't know, "unknown unknowns."
https://theconservationfoundation.org/protect-conservation-l...
> Conservation land trusts work for private and public land. There are many options available to help landowners preserve, protect, and restore land. Two of the most popular options are fee simple and conservation easements. The fee simple option has the conservation land trust owning and managing the land that is donated or sold. A conservation easement is where landowners and a land trust enter a legal agreement to permanently limit the use of an area to protect conservation values. Landowners can either sell or donate the easement to land trusts. Landowners retain ownership of the land, can sell their land in the future, or pass it on. But the conservation restrictions remain forever.
(i work with a land conservation trust in the midwest)
Looks like they chose the trust poorly - the trust is the one who sold it to the city I think?
Anyone pooh-poohing these developments is a NIMBY, and uh, proud YIMBY here! If someone wants to build a data center in my neighborhood, I'm all for it. It is going to help push humanity to Mars, as Elon often says, who I trust because he is very smart and always thinks before he speaks. I can't wait to have a robot wife on Mars while AI slop porn eats my brain alive, because I never had enough game to find a human one. Oh well. If a data center brings that to fruition, let's go for it! Enough with this NIMBY nonsense. Silicon Valley is much smarter than rednecks in Appalachia, and we know what's best for them. We're totally not soft-eugenicists and totally don't listen to Curtis Yarvin's deranged tripe. We also are totally ANTHROPIC, not misanthropic, in fact, so much so that Dario Amodei named his company that! Totally trust him, bro.
This is a jerk move by the city, but that is a different issue.
I agree that, in some cases, strong debate may be needed about land use tens or hundreds of years in the future from when these decisions are made. I would also say slowing down datacenter construction during a capital investment bubble is also a worthy goal, as once this land is developed, it is highly unlikely to be returned to agriculture, prairie, or park use cases.
Like software supply chain security, you're introducing operation latency to slow threat actors down.
This is closer to the time of the lawsuit and has some more details - they sold it to a trust who then sold it to the city some years later, and the city rezoned it in 2005. It's possible they missed the timing maybe?
To be clear, I guess that a city could be stupid and ignore a conservation easement, but I guess that is not likely.
nativeit•28m ago
“When nothing belongs to everyone, the rich will own everything, including the rebellions against them,”