Data Center Development On The Ballot Across America
Data centers have become more controversial than ever, due to several key environmental, economic, and social concerns. Citizens around the world are calling for more common sense and more civic engagement in an attempt to find common goals and common ground.
To help facilitate more productive civic engagement, several related issues are on the ballots in several states today. Some states seek moratoriums on new permits. Others seek an outright ban on data centers.
As of October 30, voters had decided six of the measures. In each case, a majority of voters favored greater limits on data center development, either by approving new restrictions or requirements or by rejecting a measure that would have facilitated or supported development.
Today, voters will decide on dozens of local ballot measures regarding data centers in 13 states: Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Voters in Arkansas and North Dakota will cast their ballots in December.
Ohio: There are more ballot initiatives (21) related to data centers in Ohio than any other state, and the state is already a major one for developers—154 data centers are operational, with 27 more under construction and 57 more being planned.
Thirteen municipalities have data center bans on the ballot, including Conneaut, Defiance, Granville, Grove City, Hubbard, Monroeville, Oregon, Pataskala, Piqua, Sunbury, Trenton, Upper Sandusky and Urbana. The townships of Monroe and Sprigg are voting on adopting new zoning regulations that would preserve the “rural and agricultural character” of their areas and effectively ban data center construction—the two small communities in southern Ohio are possible locations for major projects, including a 1,000-acre site being evaluated for an Amazon Web Services data center.
The town of Wilmington will vote on four questions related to zoning in four specific sites that would allow a data center project to move forward—after the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the local county’s board of elections’ decision to block a referendum on establishing broader restrictions. Voters in Ashville will decide whether to block a data center already under construction, while residents in Perry will vote on a resolution requiring developers to earn tax breaks with financial guarantees and noise limits.
Illinois: Six municipalities in the Land of Lincoln are voting to advise their local governments on whether to approve or build new data centers: Chouteau, Granite City, Joliet, Morgan, Nameoki and Venice. Meanwhile, voters in Bloomington will decide whether to approve a full moratorium on future data centers, after the city and nearby Normal enacted a six-month moratorium earlier this year on facilities using more than 5 megawatts of power.
Wisconsin: voters in Janesville will decide whether future projects costing above $450 million at an old auto parts factory should require a majority vote approval from the community, essentially deciding whether it can be used for data center construction. The question refers specifically to the site of a former General Motors plant that ended production in 2008 during the auto industry crisis, and left a toxic brownfield after it closed. Janesville has struggled to redevelop the site and has recently explored building a data center on the site—a proposal that has prompted significant public backlash.
Local governments in several other cities in Wisconsin have imposed temporary data center moratoriums over the course of the year, including Madison in January and Milwaukee in October.
Kansas: The towns of El Dorado and Emporia will vote on whether to ban “high impact” data centers, while the town of Ottawa will vote on a ban on “utility-intensive” data centers, or facilities that use more than 25 megawatts of power.
Maine: Four municipalities in the Pine Tree State are voting on data center moratoriums, but most of these have time limits: Peru and Wells are voting on 180-day moratoriums, while Wiscasset is voting on a six-month ban on new data centers and expansion projects. The town of North Berwick is separately voting on its own ban on data centers larger than 25,000 square feet. Larger cities in Maine, including Bangor, have already enacted local moratoriums, and Maine’s legislature passed a statewide moratorium earlier this year—which Gov. Janet Mills vetoed in April.
The measures outlined above extend the momentum created in dozens of communities over concerns that data centers consume mass quantities of electricity, water and land. Many of the communities with measures on the ballot today are in Republican-led districts.
Ballot initiatives are expensive and time consuming. They are a symptom of an emerging industry that needs more civic engagement and more transparency. To help facilitate better dialogue and better solutions site-by-site, Crossbow proposes a dynamic civic engagement program that will optimize benefits to all stakeholders.
Crossbow Communications is an award-winning public affairs firm. We influence public opinion and public policy around the world.
