Re: Timing….
Well, it looks more that Zucks money was well received in Zeewolde
It was well-received by a couple of lobbyists and through them by the previous council, whose political signature was radically altered two weeks ago quite because of the rather underhanded way the datacenter was 'invited' (and only later found to be Metafeck's).
There's also the matter that the DC's power requirements would make meeting the government's green energy targets not just a little harder, so the current government is looking for ways to use that as one of the reasons to deny the final planning permission. On top of that, half the area the DC would be built on is owned by a govenment department whose conditions for environmental impact are pretty hard to meet if it's to be used for a DC.
And anyway, how much money would a DC bring in for a local council? It's not a bunch of local white van men doing the construction, there's no local computer shop furnishing the hardware, and once it's operating there'll be just a few warm bodies carting broken stuff out and replacing it with unbroken made to spec for Meta stuff shipped in from elsewhere, probably China.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
