Milldam Monthly

Zoning In

Zoning In

From small-town Maine to Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada, communities across the country are hitting the brakes on data center development with moratoriums, tougher regulations and, in some cases, outright bans. Pennsylvania’s sweeping new requirements around transparency, community engagement, infrastructure costs and community benefits are particularly significant — turning many of the practices once considered industry “best practices” into formal expectations and mandates. Perhaps most notable, however, is how quickly the issue is moving beyond zoning […]

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Zoning In

Zoning In

Things continue to heat up for the data center industry, with this week’s headlines showing community opposition evolving into a much broader financial, political and regulatory challenge. Reuters reports that lenders are now factoring community support into financing decisions, while major projects face lawsuits in Missouri and Georgia, a gigawatt-scale development was withdrawn outside Atlanta, and Chicago and San Antonio are considering new moratoriums. The political pressure is also becoming harder to ignore. All three […]

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Milldam’s Adam Waitkunas Joins Loudoun County’s Buddy Rizer on Data Center Frontier Podcast to Discuss Data Center Community Engagement 

Milldam’s Adam Waitkunas Joins Loudoun County’s Buddy Rizer on Data Center Frontier Podcast to Discuss Data Center Community Engagement 

Milldam Public Relations’ President, Adam Waitkunas recently  joined Loudoun County Economic Development Executive Director Buddy Rizer and Data Center Frontier Editor Matt Vincent for a discussion on one of the most significant challenges facing the rapidly expanding data center industry: community trust. The Data Center Frontier podcast, “The Next Data Center Constraint: Trust,” examines how community acceptance and political durability are increasingly influencing where—and whether—new data center projects get built. As Waitkunas and Rizer discussed, […]

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Zoning In

Zoning In

If there was a single theme this week, it was that community engagement is becoming just as important as power, land and fiber—and this week’s headlines provided no shortage of examples of what not to do. From Wisconsin, where former New York City Mayor Eric Adams was booed while attempting to sell a local project, to Nevada, where a developer replaced a public town hall with a prerecorded video, to Pennsylvania, where public interest overwhelmed […]

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Zoning In

Zoning In

This week’s headlines reinforce a trend that is becoming impossible to ignore: the push for greater oversight of data center development is accelerating—and it’s spreading well beyond the markets where opposition first emerged. From The New York Times’ investigation into Meta’s confidential $50 billion Louisiana deal to Loudoun County considering a pause on new applications in the world’s largest data center market, the conversation is increasingly centered on transparency, public trust, and local control. Meanwhile, […]

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Zoning In

Zoning In

Zoning In This week’s headlines make one thing unmistakably clear: community opposition has evolved from isolated local disputes into a coordinated national movement reshaping how—and whether—data centers are built. From 142 organized protests across 42 states to new moratoriums, zoning regulations, utility investigations, and a growing bipartisan political movement, communities are no longer asking whether data centers should be regulated—they’re demanding a meaningful seat at the table. The industry’s challenge has never been clearer: technical […]

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Zoning In

Zoning In

This week’s biggest story wasn’t a new data center announcement—it was New York becoming the first state in the nation to impose a statewide moratorium on large-scale data center construction. If there was any doubt that community opposition has evolved into a major political issue, this week erased it. The ripple effects are already being felt: Palm Beach County rejected a major AI campus after a marathon, 12-hour public hearing, while residents packed meetings from […]

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Zoning In

Zoning In

This week’s roundup once again highlights an increasingly costly mistake for data center developers: waiting too long to meaningfully engage the public. The industry has been warned for years that engagement needs to begin early—before rumors spread, opposition organizes, and residents feel decisions are being made behind closed doors. Yet we continue to see developers arrive with completed plans, controlled announcements, and little meaningful outreach. Even more troubling, some projects that have already faced lawsuits, […]

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Zoning in

Zoning in

As we celebrate Independence Day and the principles of self-governance, this week’s Zoning In reflects a similar theme playing out across the country: communities are demanding a greater voice in shaping data center development. This week brought continued calls for moratoriums, lawsuits, protests, and greater transparency, along with San Marcos, Texas’ decision to ban data centers through its zoning code. We also saw the official end of Virginia’s long-running Digital Gateway project—a reminder that even […]

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Zoning In

Zoning In

Perhaps the most telling story this week remains the ongoing fallout from the Stratos project in Utah. After previously suggesting project opponents were tied to the Chinese government, investor Kevin O’Leary publicly retracted those claims, acknowledging he had no evidence to support them. Coming on the heels of his recent admission that the project rollout was mishandled, the episode has become a cautionary tale for an industry already facing a growing trust deficit. Rather than […]

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