Data Center Moratoriums

The first week of October 2026 showed the data center policy landscape consolidating around the patterns set in September: statewide frameworks tightening in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, and local governments converting temporary pauses into permanent rules. In Pennsylvania, the Senate Communications and Technology Committee unanimously advanced SB 1408 on September 29 — a ban on non-disclosure agreements between data center developers and the local governments and state agencies that oversee them — extending by statute the NDA prohibition Governor Shapiro imposed by executive order in August. Virginia's Governor Spanberger signed Executive Order 22 on September 18, establishing a Data Center Accountability Framework and designating the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area a cooling water scarcity area; within two weeks, Suffolk's Planning Commission had voted 8-0 to recommend prohibiting standalone data centers in every zoning district, with a City Council vote set for October 21. New York's statewide executive-order moratorium remains in force while the broader Responsible Data Center Development Act sits on Governor Hochul's desk with a December 31 deadline. At the local level, the restriction wave continued without pause and increasingly took permanent form. Lovejoy, Georgia banned data center construction citywide on September 29 after a proposed 3.5-million-square-foot campus drew opposition, and Edgewater, Florida's unanimous permanent ban — covering AI data centers and crypto mining — heads to voters November 3 as a charter amendment. Warren County, Ohio adopted a six-month hyperscale moratorium on September 28 while awaiting an Ohio EPA water study, Palm Springs extended its moratorium nearly two years to August 2028, and Georgetown, Kentucky directed its counsel to draft a ban on hyperscale facilities — a week after neighboring Scott County extended its own pause. Memphis is poised to become the largest Southern city with a data center moratorium: a consolidated 12-month pause passed two readings and faces a final vote October 6, driven by scrutiny of xAI's Colossus campus and over Chamber of Commerce objections. Tribal governments are also moving — the Osage Nation introduced legislation requiring tribal Congress approval for hyperscale projects, following the Cherokee Nation's August ban. A second, quieter trend is the shift from blanket pauses to detailed zoning codes that confine rather than prohibit. Saginaw, Michigan replaced its expired moratorium with a permanent ordinance classifying data centers as special land uses with 500-foot residential setbacks; Madison, Wisconsin unveiled a framework capping buildings at 100,000 square feet and excluding hyperscale campuses outright; Manitowoc County finalized a draft ordinance limiting campuses to under 500 acres; and Jesup, Georgia and East Buffalo Township, Pennsylvania advanced conditional-use and industrial-district-only rules. Mercer County, Kentucky illustrated the friction in this transition: its fiscal court unanimously rejected proposed hyperscale zoning regulations as too permissive, keeping a one-year moratorium in place instead. Meanwhile approvals continue where communities assent — Kline Township, Pennsylvania unanimously approved Amazon's 350-acre campus, and Cheyenne, Wyoming cleared a 1,259-acre annexation. Trends to watch: the October 6 votes in Memphis and Oakland and Buffalo's mid-October moratorium vote (amended September 30 to add a nine-member task force); the October 21 Suffolk council vote on Virginia's first citywide prohibition recommendation; the Pulaski County, Arkansas veto-override attempt expected October 27; Pennsylvania SB 1408 on the Senate floor; Governor Hochul's pending decision on New York's Responsible Data Center Development Act; and the November 3 ballot, where Edgewater's charter amendment joins data center measures in more than two dozen localities nationwide.