The Lease, Development Agreement and Funding Agreement each define what happens if litigation voids the deal differently: one treats a successful legal challenge as a pause, one lets either side simply terminate, and one doesn’t clearly address litigation as a triggering event at all. The three signed documents don’t agree with each other on the single most consequential open legal question in the deal.

Housing affordability is usually discussed as a spending problem, solved with subsidies, tax credits or public-private deals. Savannah's proposal is a reminder that it is often a permission problem first.

A facility that pays ordinary commercial property taxes, on infrastructure a company builds with its own capital, is a genuine fiscal asset—one that broadens the tax base and can lower the burden on everyone else. A facility built on public bonds, discounted utility rates and abated taxes is a different animal entirely.

Texas does not need to choose between subsidizing data centers and stopping them. It can require developers to provide credible information, establish predictable rules and make projects pay for the infrastructure necessary to serve them.

Discretionary review creates a different problem: uncertainty after the fact. A project may appear acceptable under existing plans, but developers still cannot know whether officials will approve it.