This week’s Zoning In highlights how data center development is increasingly colliding with local politics and regulatory scrutiny. In California, the city of Monterey Park moved forward with a ballot measure to ban data centers citywide. In Utah, the Provo City Council denied a zoning change that would have allowed a new facility, while Michigan’s Gibraltar adopted a one-year moratorium to give officials time to establish development standards. Across several other communities—from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania—packed […]

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This week, the data center backlash picked up an unlikely amplifier: Comedian Charlie Berens, who is headlining a citizen-led town hall opposing a proposed facility in Beaver Dam, WI. It’s a signal that what were once niche zoning fights are spilling into the broader public conversation. Elsewhere, the pressure kept building — Birmingham imposed a pause on new applications, a major project collapsed in Apex, Missouri, residents protested a closed-door meeting, and lawmakers from Ohio […]

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Zoning In. The biggest signals this week came from San Marcos rejecting a $1.5B rezoning after a marathon public hearing, Illinois Gov. Pritzker proposing a two-year pause on new data center tax credits, and a broader tightening of the rules of engagement, from Washington’s push for stronger utility/ratepayer protections to Minnesota’s one-year ban and small towns like Columbiana, AL, codifying stricter zoning standards. At the same time, the process […]

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This week’s Zoning In shows the data center debate continuing to shift into a more overtly political phase. From Sand Springs to Monterey Park, communities are signaling that opposition is no longer just about individual projects. It’s about process, trust, and transparency, with residents increasingly willing to escalate fights beyond planning boards and into ballot measures, recalls, and sustained organizing. Across markets, three forces keep converging: local control, fiscal exposure, and infrastructure accountability. Cities are […]

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If anyone thought data center pushback might cool off in 2026, this week’s Zoning In points the other way: resistance is spreading, sharpening, and moving upstream into policy. Across the country, residents are packing hearings, organizing faster, and pressing officials to act earlier—while cities and counties respond with moratoria, zoning rewrites, stricter siting rules, and new requirements. Notably, private equity is now being pulled directly into the opposition narrative—including in a letter to the editor […]

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