As we wrap up the year, we wish you a happy holiday season and a healthy, prosperous New Year. This abbreviated Holiday Edition of Zoning In includes year-end analysis from Adam Waitkunas on how data center community relations reached an inflection point in 2025—and what the industry must do differently in the year ahead.
Data Center Community Engagement Comes of Age
In 2025, community opposition to data center development crossed a critical threshold, evolving from a localized entitlement risk into a nationally consequential political force. Projects stalled or failed not due to technical flaws, but because secrecy, late-stage engagement, and misaligned incentives eroded trust.
As AI accelerates the scale and speed of development, the developers best positioned for success in 2026 will be those who treat community engagement as early-stage risk mitigation—embedding transparency, stakeholder intelligence, and coalition-building into site selection well before ground is broken.
You can read Adam’s full year-end analysis here.
Governments welcomed data centers. Now they’re grappling with the fallout
A global AI-driven data center boom is running headfirst into grid constraints, high electricity costs, and local backlash—especially in hotter regions where cooling loads spike. Rest of World’s visual investigation finds entire national data center footprints clustered in “too hot” temperature bands (including countries like Singapore and the UAE), while places like Mexico are leaning on gas generators as grid capacity lags. The through-line: governments are offering incentives and promising jobs, but communities are increasingly demanding transparency on water, energy, land use, and real economic upside.
2026 Legislative Agendas Put Data Center Incentives in the Spotlight
States are still competing for data centers with tax incentives—but 2026 bills show the “strings attached” trend accelerating. Expect more prevailing-wage requirements (including proposals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey), more energy-use-linked fees and surcharges (Minnesota, New York), and a sharper push to curb NDAs that keep project details from the public (with New Jersey teeing up one of the strongest moves yet). The policy direction is clear: incentives aren’t going away, but lawmakers are trying to prove communities and ratepayers aren’t getting a blank check.
Petition against Page data center proposal disqualified
Opponents of a proposed 500-acre, potentially $10B data center in Page, Arizona took a procedural hit after the city ruled their referendum petition ineligible due to filing/format issues under state law. Organizers say they’re regrouping, but the article underscores a recurring theme: skepticism that job promises match reality, and heightened alarm over water use, pollution risks, and noise—especially with a tourism economy and iconic landscapes nearby. The city says more public input opportunities are ahead, but the conflict is far from over.
A quiet revolt in the heartland
This Indianapolis Star piece frames the backlash as a widening “kitchen-table” issue: communities questioning who benefits when massive power-hungry projects arrive with huge incentives, opaque project sponsors, and limited local control. It highlights the tension between Big Tech’s economic-development messaging (jobs, investment, community funds) and residents’ fear of becoming “digital gated communities” paying the cost—financially and environmentally—without sharing in the upside. Politically, it points to a real risk: local officials may face electoral consequences for rubber-stamping projects.
Georgiastate regulator questions if data centers serve customers’ best interests
Georgia’s PSC unanimously approved a massive grid expansion plan—nearly 10 gigawatts—aimed at meeting surging data center demand. Commissioner-elect Peter Hubbard says the decision was rushed, lacked transparency, and could ultimately balloon to far higher total costs once fuel, operations, and future buildout are included—raising the core question of whether ratepayers will truly be protected. Georgia Power says customers won’t bear the brunt and points to projected bill impacts and a rate freeze through 2028, setting up a major policy fight over who pays for AI growth.
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Data center impact on ratepayers tops legislative agenda in Massachusetts
Massachusetts State Rep. Rodney Elliott has filed legislation aimed at preventing residential and income-eligible customers from subsidizing the soaring energy demands of large data centers. The bill would block utilities from shifting data-center-related grid and infrastructure costs onto households, require detailed cost attribution reviewed by the Department of Public Utilities, and reflects mounting local pressure tied to projects like the Markley Group facility in Lowell—where noise, air quality, transparency, and rate impacts have become flashpoints.
Opposition to AI is a political force. Maine’s leaders should catch up.
After a Lewiston data center tax-break deal was voted down amid a sudden wave of public pressure, this commentary argues Maine is entering the national AI data center debate—and candidates are behind the curve. It frames hyperscale AI facilities as extreme resource users (power and water) and claims the common thread is an “anti-democratic” process where communities learn late, can’t identify project backers, and lack meaningful leverage. Whether you agree with the author’s rhetoric or not, it captures the political reality you’ve been tracking: AI infrastructure is becoming an election-year issue, not just a zoning issue.Louisiana creates fast track to approve power plants for data centers, big electricity users
Louisiana regulators approved a “lightning speed” pathway to greenlight new power plants for large electricity users like data centers—potentially cutting approvals from ~two years to eight months. Critics warn the rule weakens consumer protections by suspending competitive bidding and letting big customers pay only half the plant costs (putting the rest on ratepayers), even as utilities profit on infrastructure investments. Supporters cite Meta’s Northeast Louisiana project as the blueprint—illustrating how the data center boom is reshaping utility regula
