TAYLOR, Texas — A proposed data center in Central Texas is getting a lot of pushback from residents. Approximately 40 minutes north of Austin, a group of neighbors in the city of Taylor sued the data center. They are pushing back against the data center that could soon be under construction roughly 500 feet from their neighborhood.

“This property is supposed to be deeded for parkland,” said Pamela Griffin, a resident in the neighborhood next to where the data center will be built. “This land was given to this community.”

The 87-acre land near Griffin’s community is embroiled in a legal battle between her and Blueprint Data Centers.

“We do not need a data center,” Griffin said. “I’m not against them, but we don’t need them in our community.”

Despite Griffin’s land deed lawsuit, a Texas judge has ruled in favor of the proposed project.

“When a judge dismisses a lawsuit because the plaintiff or the plaintiffs lack standing, what the judge means is you’re not a person who has the legal authority to bring this lawsuit,” said Mike Golden, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Griffin and other neighbors argue the data center will take away natural resources like water and what was supposed to be the future site of a park, so her fight is not over.

“We are going to the appellate court now,” Griffin said. “We did file.”

Griffin is passionate about advocating for the community because it’s the neighborhood she was born and raised in. Her grandmother bought property there in the early 1960s, and the community became a safe haven for Black people in Taylor.

“We weren’t allowed to be in the city limits at that time because they would not sell to the Black and brown community, so my grandmother realized they had to buy land outside,” she said.

She worries about the future of her small community now that construction of a 135,000-square-foot data center will begin within the next year.

It’s a project the city says will bring millions in revenue to Taylor.

“What data centers do to a community is it brings an influx of new revenue to all the taxing entities, including the city, the county and especially the school district,” said Ben White, the president and CEO of the Taylor Economic Development Corporation.

He explained how the revenue might benefit the city.

“City council will have the ultimate say on how those revenues are spent, but it could involve new parks for citizens, improve streets for the citizens, improve programs for the citizens,” he said. “There’ll be a lot of variety of different uses of those funds the council could decide to use them on.”

White also addressed the controversy surrounding the deed when asked about it by Spectrum News.

“We feel comfortable that EDC, we did everything correctly on our side,” he said.

Griffin now awaits the Third Court of Appeals to decide on her case.

“I’m asking for the community and the Taylor people to stick together and understand my fight against this data center coming into our community,” Griffin said.