The constraint on data center construction used to be power. Then it was transformers and turbines. This week it became zoning.
On August 11, Fort Worth’s City Council voted unanimously to begin the process of enacting a 90-day data center moratorium and to create a Data Center and Infrastructure Committee. The same day, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order establishing an interdepartmental task force to review data center proposals. Aurora, Colorado’s council, meeting August 10 and 11, rejected a six-month moratorium but adopted new data center regulations including water requirements.
What the municipal data center rules actually do
Fort Worth’s timeline is specific: notice on October 9 for a first public hearing, and a committee report back to a council work session on November 3. Critically, projects with zoning applications already submitted or approved are exempt. That grandfather clause converts the date a developer filed into a number with real money attached to it.
Chicago’s executive order pulls Buildings, Environment, Planning and Development, Technology and Innovation, and Water Management into a single review, co-chaired by the mayor’s chief sustainability officer and chief of policy. It tightens air permit review and noise rules and adds cross-departmental scrutiny of energy and water impacts. The city has roughly 39 data centers.
“Chicago will not allow unchecked development to strain our water supply, drive up energy costs, or compromise the health of our communities,” Johnson said. “We are open to innovation and investment, but it must be done responsibly, transparently, and in partnership with the people most affected.”
The polling that landed the same day
The Annenberg Public Policy Center released survey results on August 11 showing 61 percent of U.S. adults oppose new data centers in their area, up 12 points from a February and March survey. Support fell to 14 percent from 21. The sample was 1,320 nationally representative U.S. adults, fielded June 16 through July 19.
The bipartisan split is what should worry developers: 69 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of independents opposed. There’s no coalition to build against that. It’s not a partisan issue, which means it can’t be solved by picking a friendlier jurisdiction within the same state.
What contractors should price differently
Data centers have been carrying nonresidential backlog for two years. If entitlement becomes the binding constraint, three things change on the contractor side.
Preconstruction spend gets riskier. Design, geotech, utility coordination and long-lead procurement all commit money before a moratorium resolves, and a 90-day pause that slips to nine months strands it. Second, community engagement stops being a marketing function and becomes a project function with a budget line. Third, pursuit timing starts mattering as much as pursuit quality, because in Fort Worth’s structure the firms whose clients filed first are the ones still building.
Industrial developers have watched this movie in other sectors. Getting a township land development approval is routine right up until it isn’t, as anyone tracking food and manufacturing sites can attest; Clemens Food Group’s $130 million Hatfield expansion moved through a Hatfield Township land development filing in March on a plant that has operated there for generations. New uses with heavy water and power draw don’t get that benefit of the doubt.
At least half a dozen other municipalities took data center actions the same week, from a six-month moratorium in Mount Vernon, Washington to a one-year ban in Plain City, Ohio, though those are reported locally rather than confirmed in council minutes. The direction is not ambiguous.