Prosper town staff pulled a proposed data center rezoning off the Planning & Zoning Commission's agenda this week, just as opposition from residents across eight precincts reached a boiling point. The 39.3-acre project, known as Project Tomahawk, would sit near FM 1385 and Parvin Road in the northwest part of town, and it had been scheduled for a vote before officials abruptly delayed it.
Dallas-based developer White Rose Partners is seeking permission to rezone the site from agricultural use to a Planned Development district, according to Bisnow. The formal application, filed under Case ZONE-26-0007, also calls for amending the town's Future Land Use Plan to shift the parcel from residential and retail designations to Business Park, according to Town of Prosper planning records. That kind of change alters long-range municipal growth policy well beyond a single piece of land.
Town Development Services Director David Hoover said staff removed the item from the August 18 Planning & Zoning Commission agenda to give themselves time to review engineering studies commissioned by White Rose Partners covering potential noise, power, and water impacts, according to Community Impact. As of now, there is no scheduled new hearing date for the project.
Why This Site, Why Now
The 39.3-acre property sits roughly 645 feet east of FM 1385 and about 1,400 feet south of Parvin Road, immediately adjacent to the Brazos Electric Parvin Substation, town planning documents show. That proximity is central to the pitch: because the site already sits next to high-voltage infrastructure, Project Tomahawk would not need a new substation or transmission lines, per the project website cited by Bisnow's report. The plan calls for a single data center building occupying less than 20% of the property.
White Rose Partners says the project would use water efficiently, estimating roughly 300 gallons of water a day, and would connect to Prosper's water system if approved. The developer has also pledged to pay for the project's own infrastructure and electricity costs and to cap operational noise at 65 decibels. According to figures from Local Profile, White Rose Partners projects the development could generate between $1.3 million and $3.4 million in annual local property tax revenue, alongside more than 500 peak construction jobs representing $69 million in construction wages, and the developer's project website says the investment would total hundreds of millions of dollars while boosting the tax base for Prosper, Denton County, and the local school district.
Residents Push Back Across Eight Precincts
Not everyone is convinced. Aileen Blachowski, who serves as Republican Party chair for Denton County Precinct 1016, said the project would land squarely in residents' backyards and argued its impacts on neighboring homes would be too great. She also said the property itself is too small for a data center of this scale, and she opposed changing the zoning outright.
Blachowski said a bipartisan network of eight precincts has organized against Project Tomahawk, a coalition that turned out to voice opposition when the item was still on the Planning & Zoning Commission's agenda before staff pulled it. White Rose Partners did not immediately respond to Bisnow's request for comment on the pushback.
A Statewide Freeze Looms Over the Local Fight
Prosper's pause lands in the middle of a much bigger regulatory shakeup. Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order on August 3 halting new data center connections to the Texas grid, as Hoodline previously reported. The order came after ERCOT reported evaluating more than 474 gigawatts of total interconnection requests — with roughly 90% coming from data centers — compared with the state's record peak hourly demand of just 91.1 gigawatts set in July 2024, according to Community Impact. The resulting state audit is expected to examine power demands, water use, ownership, and other information, and reporting expects it to help clear a backlog of speculative projects requesting more than five times the power the Texas grid has ever produced.
State law adds another layer of financial exposure for developers like White Rose Partners. Under Texas Senate Bill 6, enacted in 2025, ERCOT can mandate power curtailments during grid emergencies and requires large flexible loads of 75 megawatts or more to cover 100% of their own transmission and connection costs, according to Utility Dive. Meanwhile, Texas House Bill 1223 grants qualified data centers 10- to 20-year sales and use tax exemptions on equipment and electricity — a break the Texas Comptroller estimates will cost the state $3.2 billion in foregone revenue over two years, per Server Country.
A Pattern Beyond Prosper
Public opinion in Texas has been trending against these projects for months. A June poll from the University of Texas and the Texas Politics Project found 56% of registered Texas voters oppose data center construction in their local communities, with opposition climbing to 62% among rural residents, according to The Texas Tribune. Water use is a persistent flashpoint: the Houston Advanced Research Center estimates Texas data centers already consume about 25 billion gallons of water annually, a figure projected to reach up to 161 billion gallons by 2030.
White Rose Partners is facing similar resistance well outside Denton County. In Illinois, the South Elgin Village Board of Trustees voted on August 17 to reject the developer's annexation request for a separate 20-acre project known as Project Kilo, according to The Observer. Hoodline previously covered that fight when it centered on a threatened dairy farm. Whether Prosper reschedules its own rezoning hearing, and whether Project Tomahawk can clear the state's grid audit, remain open questions for now.
