Former Republican Party of Texas Chairman James Dickey is challenging claims that data centers hurt nearby property values, citing a Texas-focused analysis that found no measurable decline in ZIP-level home values after facilities opened.
Data center debate expands
Data centers support cloud computing, online banking, health care records, defense technology, and artificial intelligence tools, but their rapid expansion has drawn scrutiny from residents and local officials weighing water use, electricity demand, noise, grid reliability, and proximity to residential neighborhoods.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, North Richland Hills Mayor Jack McCarty said he opposes data centers near residential areas as city officials review rules for projects tied to the artificial intelligence race.
DX also previously reported that Provident Data Centers and PowerHouse Data Centers announced plans to develop a 768-acre hyperscale data center campus in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Dickey now leads JD Key Consulting, an Austin-based government affairs firm that lists data centers, energy, AI and technology, banking and finance, manufacturing, and water and infrastructure among its industries. The firm also says Dickey advises data center developers on ERCOT interconnection, interim hearing strategy, and the regulatory landscape heading into the 90th Legislature.
Property-value claim tested
Dickey framed the issue in a June 30 X post about claims that data centers reduce nearby property values.
“Datacenters are ‘gonna kill my property value,’” Dickey wrote, quoting what he described as testimony from a Texas landowner at a county commissioners court hearing. “It’s an often-repeated fear. But does it have any basis in reality?”
Datacenters are "gonna kill my property value."
That's a Texas land owner testifying at a county commissioners court hearing last month.
It's an often-repeated fear. But does it have any basis in reality?
🧵 pic.twitter.com/LYxsoVWWjD— James Dickey (@jamesdickey) June 30, 2026
In a June 29 Hyperscale News analysis titled “45 Texas ZIP Codes Got A Data Center. Home Values Barely Moved,” Dickey wrote that the study compared 45 Texas ZIP codes that gained a first data center at least three years earlier with 168 same-metro comparison ZIP codes that did not have data centers.
The study used the Zillow Home Value Index because Texas does not publicly disclose actual home sale prices. Dickey wrote that the analysis used a matched difference-in-differences design to compare host ZIP codes with similar ZIP codes in the same metro area.
The measured effect on local home values was about +0.2%, which Dickey described as statistically indistinguishable from zero.
“Not one specification produced a statistically significant drop in home values,” Dickey wrote.
Dickey wrote that the result held across nine specifications and four methods for calculating standard errors.
School tax base argument
Dickey also argued that data centers can help school districts because they add taxable property without adding students.
The analysis found that host school districts did not see enrollment grow faster than comparable districts after a data center arrived, with a measured enrollment effect of +1% that Dickey described as statistically indistinguishable from zero.
The fiscal impact varied by district. Data centers made up roughly 47% of Patton Springs ISD’s tax base, about 14% of Del Valle ISD’s tax base, and about 5% of Northwest ISD’s tax base, according to Dickey.
Dickey wrote that the school-funding benefit is “concentrated, not universal,” with a single data center potentially making up a large share of a small rural district’s tax base while having a much smaller effect in a large urban district.
Limits of the finding
Dickey wrote that the analysis does not settle every question about data center growth in Texas.
“Power, water, and grid reliability are real constraints,” Dickey wrote. “But the specific claim that these facilities hurt the neighbors’ home values is one the Texas data does not support.”
The findings are based on ZIP-level data, not a sale-by-sale analysis of individual homes immediately next to data centers. Dickey wrote that Texas’ non-disclosure rules make the kind of sale-by-sale analysis used in Northern Virginia unavailable in Texas.
The full report, including methodology, robustness tests, school-finance analysis, and limitations, is available to Hyperscale News annual subscribers.
