Saline Township Board Votes 4-1 to Deny Oracle/OpenAI Data Center Rezoning; Developer Sues, Township Settles

In September 2025, the Saline Township Planning Commission recommended denial of a rezoning request for what would become the Related Digital/Oracle/OpenAI “Stargate Michigan” data center campus (later nicknamed “The Barn”). The Township Board followed suit, voting 4-1 to deny the rezoning.

Related Digital and affiliated landowners then sued the township in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, alleging “exclusionary zoning” — arguing that because Saline Township had no land zoned for industrial use, its categorical refusal to rezone unlawfully excluded a “necessary” land use under the Michigan Constitution.

Rather than litigate, the township settled. A consent judgment was filed October 15, 2025, permitting the project to proceed subject to conditions: no expansion of the facility beyond the agreed footprint, a noise limit, a prohibition on solar farms, and a commitment not to use water-intensive evaporative cooling.

A Saline Township resident living 256 yards from the planned site, Kathryn Haushalter, later moved to intervene in the settlement, alleging it had been negotiated in secret. In February 2026, Washtenaw County Circuit Court Judge Julia Owdziej denied the motion, ruling that by-right intervention was not available in an already-closed case.

Construction proceeded; the project broke ground June 1, 2026 (see 2026-07-15--saline-township-oracle-openai-caps-then-reverses-tax-abatement.md for the subsequent tax-abatement fight, and cascade-research note washtenaw-county-mi-data-center-trilogy-saline-ypsilanti-ycua-dte-ratepayer.md for full groundbreaking/community-benefits/financing context).

This sequence — local democratic rejection, followed by litigation that overrides the rejection via settlement rather than trial — is a structurally significant pattern distinct from the other two Washtenaw County data-center fights: Augusta Township’s resistance took the form of a zoning referendum (a direct-democracy override of an approval the board granted), while Ypsilanti Township’s resistance has taken the form of a utility-capacity moratorium (YCUA Resolution 26-08) rather than a zoning fight, since no rezoning vote has yet occurred there.