SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
EDINBURG — In what officials are calling a triumph of forward thinking, the City of Edinburg has scheduled an Oct. 6 vote on a special use permit for a data center that has not applied, does not exist, and according to Mayor Omar Ochoa, “to our knowledge, is not coming.”
“Right now, if a massive server farm wanted to move in tomorrow, they’d just build it, and there’d be nothing we could do,” Ochoa said while gesturing at an empty field west of U.S. 281. “So we’re voting on October 6th to deny that building permission. It’s called being proactive. Edinburgh does it. I mean Edinburg. Sorry, the press release had a typo.”
The data-center rule is one line item in a broader unified development code cleanup that a steering committee has been reading aloud, section by section, since spring. Witnesses say the committee is currently on page 340 of the parking-standards appendix and has begun to develop opinions about curb radii.
City Prepares Full Regulatory Arsenal For Imaginary Tenant
Planning staff have already drafted a 47-page permit application, three public hearing notices, and a water-impact study for the facility, which they describe as “roughly the size of four H-E-Bs, humming faintly, and consuming the aquifer at an unsettling rate.”
“We have to protect our water rights,” said interim permit czar Carla Benavides, taping a hand-drawn map of the hypothetical data center to a wall at City Hall. “This thing that isn’t coming could use millions of gallons. We’re not going to let a fictional corporation drain Edinburg dry. Not on our watch.”
At a packed community meeting, residents voiced concerns about the not-proposed project’s impact on traffic, property values, and the character of a corridor currently occupied by a tire shop and an empty lot with a horse in it.
“I’m all for growth, but this goes too far,” said one man who attended specifically to oppose the data center. “First it’s a phantom server farm. Then it’s a phantom distribution warehouse. Where does it end?”
Officials Deny Rumor They Are Also Regulating Bigfoot
Ochoa firmly rejected suggestions the city was overreaching. “A special use permit is not a ban,” he explained. “If a data center ever applies, it can simply fill out the form we made for it. We’re not anti-data center. We just want the chance to say no to one first.””, he said, adding that the city is also “keeping an eye on” the state’s permitting pause, whatever it pauses.
The Oct. 6 agenda item is expected to take four minutes. The phantom data center declined to comment.
FAQ
Q: Is a data center actually coming to Edinburg?
A: No. The mayor said so on Friday. The city is simply voting on rules for it, which is different.
Q: Could the city regulate other nonexistent things?
A: Commissioners tabled a proposed ordinance requiring a special use permit for the second Hooters everyone swears was there in 2009.
