Environmental advocates say they’re being shut out as Detroit drafts data center rules 18%
By Aaron Mondry19%
7/9/2026, 3:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Optimism Bias, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 17.7% saturation with 193 hits. Analysis detected 1,300 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,092 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 27.6% and a BS Rank of 18% (22,110 of 26,785 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 82.50% of the article peer group.
A working group convened by City Councilmember Scott Benson to help shape Detroit’s first regulations for data centers is drawing criticism from environmental advocates.
They say the process favored industry voices, happened largely out of public view — and could lead to policies that prioritize data centers over residents.
The Data Center Zoning and Policy Working Group met three times starting in April, and on June 12 submitted its final materials to the City Planning Commission, which is expected to complete a draft ordinance by the end of the month.
Benson also created several subject-matter subcommittees to provide additional input.
Not all members of the subcommittees were members of the main working group.
The environmental subcommittee met only once and had not submitted materials before the larger group wrapped up its work.
Andrew Bashi, a staff attorney with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and a member of the subcommittee, said the process appeared designed to sideline environmental advocates.
“The suspicion that many of us had from the beginning was that the subcommittee was a way to compartmentalize community resistance to data centers,” he said.
Data centers have become a flashpoint in communities across the country as tech companies race to build the computing infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence.
While the projects can bring temporary construction jobs and tax revenue, opponents argue these developments consume enormous amounts of electricity, generate noise pollution and create few permanent jobs.
Earlier this year, Benson proposed a two-year moratorium on new data centers, saying it would give the city time to enact regulations.
He said he convened the working group to help inform that effort.
“The No. 1 item that prevents a municipality from protecting its residents from a data center being located in a municipality is lack of regulations,” Benson said.
“So the city will not have, under my watch, a lack of regulations.”
Benson is looking to have City Council vote on a new ordinance by the end of the year.
Environmental advocates want Mayor Mary Sheffield to enact the two-year moratorium on data centers.
Her office did not respond to a request for comment.
Who was at the table
A list of stakeholders invited to the group’s first meeting shows six representatives from DTE Energy, two from the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and two from labor unions involved in data center construction.
Erma Leaphart, a retired conservation organizer for the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, was the lone community and environmental advocate invited.
Leaphart acknowledged the group heavily favored those who would benefit from data centers and lacked critical voices.
She chairs the environmental subcommittee, which she said wasn’t given enough time to submit recommendations to the full working group.
But she also thought it was important to engage with the process.
“This train is leaving the station, and I do not plan on not being on it,” Leaphart said.
“We have a role and obligation to provide something, so let’s do the best we can in this period of time that we’ve been given.”
Benson rejected criticism that the working group favored data center supporters, describing its participants as “very diverse.”
Asked to identify environmental or community representatives besides Leaphart, Benson cited Erin Stanley, a policy analyst from Councilmember Latisha Johnson’s office.
Questions about transparency
Because the working group wasn’t subject to the Open Meetings Act, it wasn’t required to provide public notice, take public comment, record meetings or publicly release the documents it submitted to the City Planning Commission.
Eden Bloom from Detroit People’s Platform, who serves on the environmental subcommittee, said he obtained the agenda and meeting minutes only after multiple requests to Benson’s office.
Asked about criticism that the meetings were not open to the public, Benson said it was “very clear and very public that we were hosting those meetings,” and that members of the public could have attended if they had asked.
Bloom disputed that account, saying he and Theo Pride, the organizing and operations manager for Detroit People’s Platform, asked to attend but never got a response.
“Since day one, when (Detroit People’s Platform) got wind of what was happening, we said we need to switch this to a task force,” which he said would be more accountable to the public.
Benson repeatedly declined to describe the submission as a report or recommendations, saying only that the group provided “documents” to the Planning Commission.
Outlier Media requested the documents Wednesday.
Benson said his office would provide them but had not done so by publication.
He said one of the most important conclusions from the group was that hyperscale data centers — the largest of this kind of computing facility — were effectively impossible in Detroit because of land and electrical constraints.
But meeting minutes reviewed by Outlier stop short of that conclusion.
Instead, a DTE representative said the city currently lacks the necessary infrastructure, and several participants warned against drafting an ordinance that closed the possibility of hyperscale facilities.
What happens next
The City Planning Commission will take the guidance and documents it received from the working group to define data center types and draft a zoning ordinance before holding public hearings and sending a proposal to City Council.
Marcell Todd, director of the City Planning Commission, did not respond to questions in time for publication, including whether the environmental subcommittee’s materials could still inform the proposed ordinance.
“There will be public hearings for that policy, as required by law,” Benson said.
Some community groups are doing their own organizing.
The Eastside Community Network, which has advocated for stronger environmental regulations around pollution from the Stellantis factory, has convened its own data center study group.
Donna Givens Davidson, the nonprofit’s executive director, said she wasn’t surprised by how Benson conducted the working group.
“He has not really demonstrated a willingness to protect environmental health against industrial goals,” she said.
But Givens Davidson said she’s not too concerned because of the public process that will follow.
She believes there’s still plenty of time for advocacy.
“This opportunity to have a closed-door meeting between industry and city officials about how to make this work — advocacy is separate from that,” she said.
Bloom is less optimistic and worries that the city has already decided it will allow data centers.
“It’s almost like making residents go through a process ... when the die is already cast,” Bloom said.
This article first appeared on Outlier Media and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Speakers
6speakers48%attributed speech565writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageAndrew Bashi
53 attributed words10% of attributed speech40% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.