Saline Township's board unanimously removed a $4.8 billion valuation cap from a proposed data-center tax break Friday, three days after imposing it, and based the revised application on about $43 billion in proposed Oracle investment near Ann Arbor, with proposed remaining the operative word. [1][2]

The reversal sharpens the public-cost question raised by New York's bounded permit pause, because New York assigned future water, grid and community standards while Saline advanced an incentive application before final investment, jobs and utility performance can be measured.

The Industrial Facilities Exemption Certificate would provide a 50% property-tax exemption for as long as 12 years without immediately exempting the full $43 billion, since taxable value would be determined as qualifying property and equipment enter service and undergo review by the township assessor and Michigan State Tax Commission. [2]

Township counsel said keeping the lower cap would violate a court-approved consent judgment and Michigan's Industrial Facilities Exemption Act, while the board approved the application before public comment and counsel said a clawback could require repayment of some savings if the developer abandoned the project before the exemption ended. [1][2]

No verified X post was recovered, and the vote represents neither a finished campus nor a calculated final tax cost, both of which require evidence from the qualifying property base, certificate, enforceable clawback, grid and water terms, actual construction, jobs and investment receipts.

-- DARA OSEI, London