A developer in Pennsylvania has tried something new to get a data center approved. NorthPoint Development sent letters to Hazle Township residents in June offering $10,000 to every one of the roughly 4,500 households in town, a $45 million payout, in exchange for letting the company build the first of 15 buildings planned across 1,300 acres. In a township with a median household income of about $60,000, that is real money. Most residents interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said no anyway. Hazle Township’s government rejected the project on zoning grounds in November, NorthPoint sued to overturn the decision, and the township has since enacted a temporary moratorium while it rewrites its zoning laws.

Community opposition has blocked $18 billion and delayed $46 billion in data center projects across the country, according to Data Center Watch. Communities in at least 14 states have enacted temporary pauses on data center development. More than 30 North Carolina local governments have halted new data center development since February. Charlotte passed a 150-day moratorium in June, and a city survey found 78% community opposition. Palm Beach County commissioners voted 5-1 to deny a 1-million-square-foot project after a 12-hour public hearing. East Vincent Township in Pennsylvania unanimously rejected a 1.9-million-square-foot data center proposed for the historic Pennhurst site.

The polling explains why local officials are willing to say no. A Gallup survey found that 70% of Americans oppose the construction of new AI data centers in their own communities. An NBC News Decision Desk poll found 69% opposed, with 45% strongly opposed, including 81% of Democrats, 71% of independents, and a 57% majority of Republicans. A June Reuters/Ipsos poll found 77% of Americans concerned about data centers raising electricity costs. This is not a partisan issue, which is unusual and makes it hard for any elected official to hide behind party.

Both parties have noticed. Mentions of data centers in campaign ads grew from a handful in January to 62 in June, more than 110 in July, and about 164 in August. In Georgia’s gubernatorial race alone, more than $12.8 million has been spent on ads mentioning data centers. In Wisconsin, a PAC ad for the Democratic gubernatorial nominee promises to stop AI data centers from making energy bills skyrocket. In Florida, Republican nominee Byron Donalds vows to protect families from data centers that jack up utility rates. It is worth noting that a New York Times/Siena poll found fewer than 1% of voters name AI or data centers as their top issue, so the salience comes from its connection to utility bills rather than from the technology itself.

Direct cash payments are the logical escalation from what developers have been doing already. Community benefit packages worth tens of millions are now standard, covering fire departments, emergency services, and schools. NorthPoint touted another $120 million in payments over 15 years alongside the resident fund, plus sponsorship of free amusement rides at the local festival. Brent Miles, chief marketing officer at NorthPoint, said the payment idea came out of a contentious public meeting where residents asked what they had to gain, and described it as a direct response to the question of what is in it for me. He estimated the company has converted close to 100 initially skeptical residents.

The reaction in Hazle Township points to a possible problem with this approach. Residents heard the offer and asked whether they were being bribed, which is the response a direct payment tends to produce when trust is already low. The objections people raise at these hearings are about noise, property values, water, and electricity bills, and a lump sum addresses none of them. A homeowner who believes a project will cut $50,000 off their house is not made whole by $10,000, and a resident worried about a decade of construction noise is being asked to price something they never agreed to sell. Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order last month banning nondisclosure agreements between local governments and data-center companies, which suggests the suspicion about how these deals get negotiated is not coming from nowhere.

Payments also create a durable political liability. Any official who votes yes after residents receive checks now has to defend that vote against the accusation that it was purchased, which raises the cost of approval rather than lowering it. Expect the reaction to show up in local zoning rewrites, more moratoriums while towns figure out what to require, and pressure on state legislatures to set rules that take the negotiation out of individual town halls entirely.

The offer will probably get copied regardless. Nothing else developers have tried has moved local approvals, the capital behind these projects is enormous, and $45 million is a rounding error against a 15-building campus. We would expect the next versions to be structured more carefully, tied to utility bill credits or property value guarantees rather than lump sums, because those address the specific objections residents keep raising. Whether any of it works depends on something money is bad at buying, which is the belief that the people making the offer are telling the truth about what comes next.