This week’s Zoning In shows the data center debate moving decisively from city halls to statehouses. New York lawmakers introduced a three-year moratorium to study grid, ratepayer, and water impacts—while other states are floating similar “pause and prove it” approaches. Referendums (Janesville), lawsuits (Hobart), and even NDA backlash in Michigan signal that process and transparency are now just as combustible as power and water. At the local level, timelines and trust are everything. Fermi’s permitting […]

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This week’s Zoning In highlights a troubling pattern playing out across multiple markets: projects are making headlines long before they ever reach the community microphone. From Monterey Park and DeKalb County to Lowell Township, Spartanburg County, and Imperial County, residents are showing up angry—not because data centers exist, but because they’ve been reading about proposed projects in the press for months—sometimes more than a year—before a single town hall, briefing, or listening session ever occurred. […]

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Two weeks into the New Year, 2026 is already picking up exactly where 2025 left off—contentious, politicized, and increasingly unforgiving for data center development done on autopilot. This week’s Zoning In shows opposition accelerating across multiple fronts at once: environmental groups challenging utility planning at the state level, auditors undercutting economic impact claims, lawmakers floating moratoria, and local governments are hitting pause while they scramble to update zoning codes. What’s notable isn’t just the volume […]

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This week’s Zoning In makes one thing clear: opposition to data center development is no longer just a local land-use fight; it’s becoming a durable political force that will carry straight into 2026. From city councils rejecting projects despite heavy lobbying to moratoria, lawsuits, recalls, and even candidate recruitment efforts explicitly aimed at stopping data centers, community pushback is reshaping elections and policy conversations at every level. What’s especially striking is how this resistance is […]

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This week’s Zoning In highlights how quickly pushback—and now litigation—is reshaping the data center landscape. National advocacy groups are assembling new legal tools to challenge AI facilities, as Amazon exits Tucson’s Project Blue, Michigan logs 5,000 public comments on a 1.4-GW power deal, and West Shreveport’s MPC rejects a 2.8-million-sq-ft campus. From Brandon, MS, to Hanover, VA, to Meta’s El Paso AI build, communities are demanding hard numbers on water, power, noise, and grid costs—and […]

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