Azalia King stood fast against Micron; secret settlement, jaw dropping figures, and a mid December vote set up a cliffhanger…

Azalia King had been the last homeowner standing between local leaders and construction of a massive Micron chipmaking campus in upstate New York. After a week of intense bargaining, dueling legal threats, and public outcry, Onondaga County officials said Friday that King’s family reached an agreement to move her, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon announced. Details of the settlement will remain sealed until the county’s Industrial Development Agency votes to approve the terms, a vote scheduled for mid-December.

Earlier this year the county agency offered $100,000; the family countered with a $10 million demand. McMahon, who stepped into the negotiations personally over recent days, said the matter had reached a tipping point. “Both sides recognized the time was now,” McMahon said during a livestreamed press conference on Friday. “This all is being driven by a national security project that will change this community for generations to come. These things are tough. Nobody wanted to be essentially where we were.”

Scott Lickstein, King’s attorney, says the lawsuit she filed against county authorities last week helped speed talks and that the outcome served all parties. “She will be staying in the community,” Lickstein says. Several of King’s relatives did not respond to requests for comment on the arrangement.

Micron has said it aims to break ground in Clay, north of Syracuse, next month. The company cannot move forward until King vacates her house. Project managers already acknowledge the build is two to three years behind its original timetable. Full-scale chip production is not expected until 2045, even as project plans call for the first chips to ship in late 2030, roughly two years later than Micron had hoped.

The campus is a centerpiece of a federal push, launched during the Biden administration, to boost U.S. chipmaking and reduce reliance on overseas factories. Federal, state, and local subsidies tied to the project could total roughly $25 billion, according to activists who oppose some of the tax incentives. McMahon argued that the magnitude of the investment and the single remaining house could not coexist. “You can't accomplish having the historic investment and having that one house stay,” McMahon said last week. “Those two things can't happen together.”

King’s situation has stirred deep emotion in the region. She is 91 and has lived on the edge of the planned site for decades. King moved into the house near cattle pastures about 1965, a year that coincided with the rise of mass-produced microchips. Her property has become the lone dwelling on a 1,400-acre tract that once held dozens of homes. County officials gave notice that they could use eminent domain, the government power to seize private land for public use in exchange for compensation, to clear the site for Micron’s campus.

Residents and activists raised concerns beyond the displacement of a long-time neighbor. The project remains subject to pending federal permits. Locals warn about heavier traffic and note environmental risks tied to large-scale industrial construction, including threats to endangered bat populations and pressure on underground aquifers. For many in the area, King’s case captured the most personal and resonant element of the dispute.

Gloria Keeler, who calls herself a friend of one of King’s six children, described the prospect of forcing King to leave as cruel. She said the prospect of uprooting someone who already becomes “a little confused” at her current home is “just wrong,” adding that King’s children are “all sick to their stomachs worrying about this.” King’s relatives have publicly said she should not have to move.

Micron did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

The county’s current push toward eviction resurrected a long history between King and local officials. Around 1965, Onondaga County threatened seizure of the Kings’ original farm to make room for a power station, court filings say. That episode led the couple to take the Caughdenoy Road property they occupy now, along the western edge of what Micron has targeted.

During the dotcom boom, the couple endured seven years of renewed county pressure to sell land for a semiconductor plant, court filings indicate. In 2005, they sold a 47-acre parcel to the county for $330,750 and received a license to live rent- and tax-free on 3.61 acres of that land for the remainder of their lives. The fabrication plant officials had hoped for at that time never appeared. Glenn King, Azalia’s husband, died in 2015.

Micron revealed plans for the massive New York facility in October 2022. Company officials described a megafab meant to exceed the size of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s Arizona complex, with capacity to produce memory chips used across a range of electronics. Project documents show that part of King’s parcel is slated for parking structures and stormwater basins, making her property a practical obstacle to the campus layout.

In recent weeks, county officials turned to state eviction and eminent domain statutes to require King to vacate by mid-January, imposing fines as an enforcement mechanism. Last Monday, King sued the county development agency in state court. The suit argues any forced relocation would upend her life and violate the lifetime occupancy license granted in 2005.

The legal filing spells out King’s desire in blunt terms: King “merely wishes to live out her remaining years in her home, a place where she feels safe, comfortable and can have her family visit,” the lawsuit states, noting she has three dozen grandchildren or great-grandchildren. “Defendant is attempting to back out of the agreement … simply because plaintiff has lived longer than defendant anticipated … and the agreement has become inconvenient.”

After the suit was filed, McMahon reiterated the county’s position that the project must proceed because of its broader economic impact. He described the campus as a major job creator, with employment at peak expected to reach 9,000 positions. “This is about literally changing lives—creating economic opportunity for kids and for adults that we just haven't had,” he said. “If there was a way to have a house on a mega campus and have an individual safely stay there, we would have tried to facilitate that, and trust me, we have tried to facilitate that.”

McMahon added that officials presented a “fair and comprehensive” offer to the family that addresses King’s concerns while remaining mindful of public money.

A public hearing required under New York eminent domain law drew demonstrators this week. Dozens of people traveled from cities such as Buffalo and Boston to protest the county’s attempt to displace King, Keeler said. The protestors included neighbors, regional activists and legal advocates who argue the move is an abuse of government authority.

Bob McNamara, deputy litigation director at the Institute for Justice, said King had legal arguments that might have persuaded a court. “But you can see why, even armed with strong legal arguments, someone might not want to spend years in litigation against a well-heeled county government burning taxpayer dollars to try to tear down their house,” he says.

Most states curb eminent domain use so that seizures apply only to explicit public infrastructure projects and not to developments that chiefly benefit private companies. New York stands out, legal scholars argue, as a place where officials have broader latitude to take property for projects tied to commercial redevelopment. McNamara pointed to that legal contrast in blunt terms. “You couldn’t do this sort of Micron taking in Texas. Why are we letting New York officials get away with this?”

Academics who study eminent domain say the record does not strongly support the claim that seizures reliably produce economic gains. “Our results provide no evidence that eminent domain generates the economic benefits that are usually anticipated,” says Ronit Levine-Schnur, a law professor at Tel Aviv University, citing her upcoming paper that examines past property takings in New York City.

In Onondaga County, some residents doubt the bet on Micron will pay off. Others are taking steps to get out ahead of construction and traffic disruptions. Keeler said she relocated to neighboring Oswego County in September, in part to avoid the construction zone she expects Micron’s work would create. “We’re far from it now,” she said. The pending agreement with King’s family signals that more changes are coming to the region.