In a meeting room at the Cadiz Puskarich Library on April 14, 2026, Bowerston Village Administrator Bart Busby asked the Harrison County Community Improvement Corporation a simple question: a data-center company had reached out about siting a facility in his village. What could Bowerston do about it?
Harrison County Commissioner Dustin Corder gave the answer on the record: “Yeah, then there's nothing you can do anyway."
Bowerston has no zoning. The village has roughly 350 residents, a water plant the council is preparing to bid out for replacement in August 2027, and an Ordinance 2026-10 winding through first reading that will raise the village water-and-sewer surcharge from $14.50 to $34.50 a month — a 137 percent jump that falls entirely on existing households. There is no mechanism in Bowerston's code for the village to negotiate with a data-center developer, condition an approval on community benefits, require infrastructure upgrades, or say no. The structural exposure is total. (Source: Harrison News-Herald, April 25, 2026.)
That is one Ohio answer to the data-center buildout. The other Ohio answer is now visible across at least twenty more jurisdictions that have, in the past six months, either paused new applications, prohibited the use outright, or rewritten their zoning codes from scratch. Some are cities of 200,000 (Dayton); some are townships of a few thousand (Sprigg, Adams County); one is a village whose mayor calls data centers a poor fit for “their largely residential community” (South Bloomfield, Pickaway County). The instruments differ. The political triggers differ. But across all of them, the question Busby asked has been answered the opposite way: not “nothing you can do,” but “here is what we are doing."
This piece surveys the Ohio map as of April 30, 2026, and pulls out what an Ohio township trustee, village council member, city commissioner, or planning-commission volunteer can use if they have to draft, vote on, or defend a data-center ordinance. The legal and political picture is changing fast — a case at the Ohio Supreme Court could rewrite the rules for every moratorium below — and the practical reference inevitably comes with caveats. But the wave is real, the templates are converging, and the gaps are becoming legible.
The map: at least twenty jurisdictions, twelve counties, six months
The Ohio Capital Journal reported on April 30 that “more than a dozen Ohio cities have enacted temporary moratoriums on data centers.” That floor is materially understated. Combining the existing Development Docket archive with web verification across local outlets, the count of Ohio jurisdictions that have adopted formal action — moratorium, prohibited-use designation, industrial-zoning elimination, or interim review overlay — is at least twenty as of the end of April. Counting jurisdictions that have introduced legislation but not yet voted it through (Cleveland, Streetsboro, Hamilton Township in Lawrence County, Niles), the figure rises to at least twenty-four.
The actions cluster geographically, and each cluster has its own driver. (Sources, this section: Ohio Capital Journal, April 30, 2026; Statehouse News Bureau, February 26, 2026; Cleveland 19, April 28, 2026; Tribune Chronicle, January 2026; Toledo Blade, February 2 and 18, 2026; Circleville Herald; Scioto Post; Food & Water Watch; WOSU; WSAZ; AOL/Record-Courier wire.)
Pickaway County moved first. Three jurisdictions — Ashville Village, South Bloomfield Village, and Muhlenberg Township — adopted moratoriums between December 15, 2025 and February 3, 2026, the most concentrated early Ohio cluster. EdgeConneX had filed an annexation-and-rezoning application in Ashville and withdrew it in mid-December 2025; the village council passed its 180-day moratorium five days later, on December 20, as an emergency act. South Bloomfield went further: a 180-day moratorium on December 15 plus a parallel revision of its zoning code that does not list data centers as a permitted use, plus elimination of the village's industrial-zoning category altogether. Mayor Aaron Thomas told the Scioto Post the actions were meant “to protect residents and ensure transparency as interest in Pickaway County continues to rise among data center developers.” Muhlenberg followed with a twelve-month moratorium on or about February 3, 2026, after Pacifico Energy proposed a data-center and power-plant project there.
Adams County is the geographic origin of the statewide constitutional-amendment campaign discussed below. Sprigg Township and Monroe Township passed moratoriums in late February and early March 2026. Sprigg's 12-month pause came after public pushback against a proposed data center near the former Stuart power plant — a project the developer projected would consume thirty-one times the energy of the rest of Adams County combined. Monroe's twelve-month moratorium is the only one in the surveyed inventory that pairs data centers with small modular nuclear reactors in a single ordinance.
Northwest Ohio added three Lucas County jurisdictions in February: Maumee on February 2, then Monclova Township and Richfield Township together on February 17 — all unanimous, all twelve-month. The Toledo Blade described Maumee's vote as having passed “with little discussion,” which is its own data point: the moratorium is no longer an unusual posture in northwest Ohio.
The Mahoning Valley is the cluster driven by specific projects. Lordstown Village passed a 180-day emergency moratorium on January 5, 2026, after first banning AI data centers outright in late 2025 and then reversing that decision in favor of the moratorium framework. The trigger is Bristolville 25 Developers, LLC, which filed an application for a data center on a 133-acre site straddling Lordstown (Trumbull County) and Jackson Township (Mahoning County). Bristolville 25 has petitioned the Ohio Supreme Court. Vienna Township passed a 180-day moratorium in February on a 2-1 vote; Trustee Kim Ellis voted against. Niles, the third Trumbull County jurisdiction, has scheduled a public hearing for 5 p.m. on May 20, 2026 to consider its moratorium ordinance — an earlier proposal by Councilman Aaron Johnstone went un-acted-upon at a Wednesday meeting before the April 22 Tribune-Chronicle coverage. The driver for Niles and the adjacent Weathersfield Township is Whitetail Creek LLC, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Bitdeer Technologies Group, which purchased property at 1047 Belmont Avenue in May 2025 and approached the city about annexation. The Niles mayor's office released a statement on April 20 that “Whitetail Creek LLC (Bitdeer) has not submitted to the city of Niles a formal petition to annex, zoning and building permit plans, or a utility use application,” and “the city has chosen not to take further action on the annexation request."
Northeast Ohio (Portage and Summit) is the most coordinated cluster — Tallmadge on April 13, Kent on April 15, Streetsboro's planning commission recommending a twelve-month pause to council, Shalersville Township extending its existing moratorium, Ravenna's unanimous twelve-month vote on April 20, and Norton's December 2025 moratorium following the October 17 withdrawal of Quantum HPC's “Project Triton.” The Ravenna ordinance is the textual template most other Ohio jurisdictions are drawing from: it covers “data centers, server farms, and cryptocurrency mining facilities” as three named uses so the activity cannot, as Councilwoman Carmen Laudato told the Record-Courier, “sneak in as something else.” Laudato's framing, on the record at a unanimous vote: data centers “are not economic development. They are locusts and leeches on our resources. They inflate people's utility costs."
Southwest Ohio acted last and went furthest. Dayton's City Commission passed a 180-day moratorium on April 22, 2026, with a parallel zoning text amendment recommended by the City Plan Board on April 14 that lists data centers as a prohibited use in the city zoning code. The amendment defines the use broadly — “a physical room, building or facility that primarily houses infrastructure for building, running, delivering, or transmitting technological applications and services” — and explicitly captures cryptocurrency mining, blockchain transaction processing, and server farms, plus “any other data-related operations as determined by the zoning administrator.” There was no specific filing in front of Dayton; the Director of Planning, Steven Gondol, wrote in his memo to City Manager Shelley Dickstein that “current zoning regulations do not properly account for data centers, and the impact they may have on nearby properties,” and noted “the probability that Dayton may receive a permit application in the future without proper regulations in place.” The Dayton Daily News story listing the action also named Cincinnati, Fairborn, and Washington Township (Montgomery County) as having adopted their own moratoriums or interim controls — the southwest Ohio cluster expanding around Dayton in the same news cycle.
Cincinnati is a structurally different instrument. Cincinnati did not pass a moratorium. Its City Council adopted Interim Development Control Overlay #89, “Data Centers" in February 2026 under Chapter 1431 of the Cincinnati Municipal Code, then extended it through the end of 2026 on April 1, with a separate nine-month extension approved by the Planning Commission in March. The overlay is not a ban. It triggers an additional Planning Commission review for any data-center proposal in the six zoning districts where the use is currently permitted (treated as “indoor storage” under the existing code). More than 22,000 individual parcels are within scope. Councilmember Mark Jeffreys, to WVXU: “We don't even have a classification for data centers. This will classify it. It'll also share recommendations on how we should think about thoughtfully regulating them, and without that, we're flying blind."
Central Ohio's Dublin/Plain City corridor is represented by Jerome Township (Union County), with a unanimous nine-month moratorium driven by residents living near existing Amazon data centers, and Washington Township (different from the Montgomery County Washington Township — this one straddles Franklin, Union, and Madison counties), with a 360-day moratorium framed by Trustee Chuck Kranstuber as a window to “take a closer look at potential risks and ensure first responders are adequately prepared.” Sunbury, in Delaware County, passed its moratorium on April 15 by a 6-0 vote, suspending the rules requiring three readings to adopt on a single reading; the action paused Amazon's $2 billion proposal for the city's new business park off Vans Valley Road. Mayor Joe St. John told 10TV the council wants the next eight months to learn how a data center could affect Sunbury and is waiting for Ohio HB 646, the state-level data-center study commission bill that passed the Ohio House 97-0 and moved to the Senate. (Source: WOSU, April 16, 2026; 10TV; Delaware Source.)
Ironton (Lawrence County), in southeastern Ohio's Appalachian corridor, passed a one-year moratorium as Ordinance 26-01 on its second reading at the January 26, 2026 council meeting. The trigger is Strata Expanse, which announced in December 2025 it had begun building a data center at 1476 County Road 1A in the adjacent Haverhill area, backed by Supermicro (server maker) and Ravel (intelligence platform). A petition titled “Stop the AI data centers in Lawrence County, Ohio” had collected roughly 5,178 signatures by the time of the council vote. Hamilton Township resident Danielle Fletcher has been pushing the township trustees for their own moratorium; Hamilton Township has not yet adopted one. (Source: Ironton Tribune; WSAZ; Data Center Dynamics; Ironton city site.)
Cleveland — by far the biggest Ohio city to consider a moratorium — has not yet adopted one. Councilmember Charles Slife introduced legislation on April 28 proposing a one-year pause; it is in committee. Slife framed data centers as “exploitative” to residents, citing PUCO's prior summer 2025 finding of FirstEnergy's “probable non-compliance” with grid demand for Cleveland's West Side and neighboring suburbs. (Sources: Cleveland 19, WOSU, April 28, 2026.)
That is twelve counties — Pickaway, Adams, Lucas, Trumbull, Mahoning, Portage, Summit, Montgomery, Hamilton, Greene, Delaware, Lawrence — plus Union, Franklin, Madison, and Cuyahoga where the cluster crosses into a fourth round of jurisdictions. The geography is the geography of the Ohio data-center buildout itself: Pickaway and Adams in the south-central corridor near the former Stuart power plant and the Pike County megaproject; Lucas in the Toledo/I-75 northwest; Trumbull and Mahoning in the Mahoning Valley industrial corridor; Portage and Summit at the northern edge of central Ohio's Columbus-Licking-Franklin cluster; Montgomery and Hamilton in the southwest. The wave is following the buildout, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, with a few-months lag.
The instruments: what these ordinances actually do
Across the inventory, four distinct instruments are in use, and they are not interchangeable. (Source for this typology: Development Docket research synthesis from the cited primary sources above.)
The temporary moratorium is the most common instrument. A council or board of trustees adopts a resolution or ordinance pausing the receipt, processing, issuance, or approval of zoning certificates, building permits, or other approvals for data-center construction. Durations vary: 180 days (Dayton, Ashville, Norton, Lordstown, South Bloomfield), six months (Tallmadge), nine months (Jerome Township), twelve months (Ravenna, Maumee, Monclova Township, Richfield Township, Muhlenberg Township, Sprigg Township, Monroe Township, Ironton, Cleveland-proposed), 360 days (Washington Township Montgomery; Washington Township Franklin/Union/Madison), and the Sunbury variant of “until January 31, 2027.” Several jurisdictions chose the emergency-adoption maneuver — suspending the procedural rules that require three readings of an ordinance and adopting on a single meeting (Sunbury, Ashville, Lordstown). Most include a carve-out for projects already authorized or with pending applications; that carve-out is its own legal vulnerability, addressed below.
The permanent zoning amendment is rarer but more durable. Dayton's prohibited-use designation, if adopted into the zoning code (the Plan Board recommendation goes to the City Commission for action), takes the use off the table in the city code rather than just pausing applications. South Bloomfield's industrial-zoning elimination is the most aggressive permanent posture in the inventory: the village removed the entire zoning category that data centers would otherwise fit, so a future applicant has nowhere to file. Vienna Township is using its 180-day moratorium to draft permanent zoning amendments — Tribune-Chronicle reporting describes a 70-decibel cap at the property line as a primary element. None of the surveyed Ohio jurisdictions has yet codified setback distances, decommissioning bonds, or on-site generation restrictions in a permanent ordinance, though several are studying these.
The interim development control overlay is Cincinnati's distinct instrument. Rather than pausing applications, it triggers an additional Planning Commission review for every data-center proposal in zoning districts where the use is permitted. The mechanism is appropriate for jurisdictions that want a stop-and-look check on every application without the political or legal exposure of a full moratorium. The trade-off: applications still go through, just with a higher procedural hurdle.
The planning study without moratorium is what Richfield Village (Summit County) chose. The village council voted on April 21 to refer potential land-use regulations governing data centers to the Planning and Zoning Commission for review — no pause on filings, but a study process that produces a draft ordinance for council consideration. Most Ohio jurisdictions that take this route (Harrison County's CIC, for instance, with its qualified-yes posture) treat it as a precursor to either a moratorium or a permanent amendment, not as an end-state.
A fifth instrument worth mentioning is what Bowerston has: no zoning at all. The Ohio home-rule asymmetry, discussed in the next section, makes this option particularly exposed for villages and townships whose authority to act is structurally narrower than a city's.
The legal frame: home rule, the megaproject exemption, and the Lordstown case
Three legal elements shape what Ohio jurisdictions can do, in what order. None of them is intuitive, and none of them is in the news coverage.
Ohio's home-rule asymmetry. Article XVIII of the Ohio Constitution, adopted in 1912, gives municipalities — cities and villages — broad authority to “exercise all powers of local self-government.” That authority extends comprehensively to Ohio's 247 cities and 684 villages. It does not extend to townships and counties to the same degree. (Source: Thomas Suddes column, Columbus Dispatch, April 26, 2026; Ohio Constitution, Article XVIII.) Townships exercise zoning authority only under specific statutory grants in Ohio Revised Code Chapter 519; those that have adopted Limited Home Rule Government under ORC Chapter 504 gain additional, narrower authority. Counties zoning is even narrower, available under ORC Chapter 303 but applicable only in unincorporated territory and only after the county commissioners have adopted comprehensive zoning. Most rural Ohio counties with significant data-center exposure — Pickaway, Adams, Harrison, Pike, and Lawrence among them — have not adopted comprehensive county zoning. That structural fact is the reason Bowerston's village administrator got the answer he got, and the reason why moratorium organizing in those counties has had to happen at the township level (Sprigg, Monroe, Sugar Creek) rather than at the county level.
A practical implication: a city or village can adopt a data-center moratorium under its own home-rule authority, the way Ravenna and Dayton did. A township has to comply with the procedural requirements of ORC §519.12 for any zoning amendment — including a thirty-day window during which a petition signed by registered electors equal to at least 35 percent of the total vote cast for governor in that area at the most recent general election can force a special-election referendum on the amendment. A motivated developer can, in principle, fund that signature drive and put the township's moratorium on the ballot.
The megaproject exemption is the part of §519.12 that most coverage has not addressed. The statute explicitly provides that “a decision of the board of township trustees to adopt a proposed amendment related to any property involved in a megaproject as defined in section 122.17 of the Revised Code shall take effect immediately upon adoption and is exempt from the referendum procedures.” (Source: ORC §519.12.) ORC 122.17 defines a megaproject as a project meeting specific investment and job-creation thresholds — historically a benefit, since the megaproject status fast-tracked tax incentives and other approvals. As written, the §519.12 carve-out cuts both ways: a township amendment “related to” a megaproject takes effect immediately and cannot be referred to a vote by petition. In a hostile reading, that means a megaproject designation can also be used to strip the local referendum check on a township ordinance favorable to the megaproject. In the data-center context, where any large hyperscale facility could plausibly meet ORC 122.17 thresholds, this carve-out is the hardest-to-defeat structural escape valve in the Ohio land-use code. None of the surveyed Ohio moratoriums has yet been tested against a megaproject designation; the test is foreseeable.
The Lordstown / Bristolville 25 case at the Ohio Supreme Court. On December 24, 2025, the Ohio Supreme Court issued an entry granting an alternative writ in Bristolville 25 Developer, LLC's challenge to Lordstown's moratorium — advancing the case to the evidence stage rather than dismissing it. (Source: Business Journal Daily; WFMJ.) The legal question is whether Bristolville 25's vested rights to develop under Lordstown's pre-amendment zoning had attached when it filed its application on October 20, 2025, before Lordstown adopted its moratorium. Bristolville 25 argues data centers were a permitted use under the prior zoning when the application was filed; Lordstown argues vested rights do not attach until a permit issues.
The case matters for every Ohio jurisdiction with a moratorium. The standard pending-application carve-out — Dayton's “the moratorium will not affect projects that have already received authorization and permits or have a current, pending application” — assumes the carve-out is necessary. If the Ohio Supreme Court rules with Bristolville 25, every Ohio moratorium adopted after an application was filed is exposed to a vested-rights challenge. If it rules with Lordstown, the moratorium template is materially strengthened.
A useful, though non-binding, analogue arrived on April 24, 2026, when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled against Invenergy in Worthwhile Wind, LLC v. Worth County Board of Supervisors. Justice Christopher McDonald, writing for the majority: vested-rights doctrine applies only where a developer has obtained a permit or formal governmental approval for the project; spending money on planning is not enough. The opinion explicitly stated that Worthwhile Wind had spent less than 1 percent of total project cost when the moratorium passed and the project remained “largely undefined.” (Source: Iowa Supreme Court Opinion, April 24, 2026.) The Iowa rule, applied in Ohio, would mean a developer cannot block a moratorium with a pending application alone — only an issued permit creates vested rights. Ohio courts are not bound by Iowa precedent, but the reasoning is portable.
The pending-application carve-out, then, is doing two things at once. It protects developers who have been working in good faith under existing rules. It also creates a vulnerability: a developer can in principle file a placeholder application before a moratorium passes and then claim vested rights against the moratorium. The defensive choice for an Ohio jurisdiction drafting now is whether to include the carve-out (most do; Dayton does), narrow it (some specify “complete applications,” not just filings), or omit it (none of the surveyed Ohio ordinances does). The Bristolville case will likely force this choice into focus.
What Ohio ordinances have built — a working checklist
Synthesizing across the surveyed inventory, the recurring concrete elements in Ohio's data-center moratoriums and zoning amendments are these. Council members and trustees can use the list as a checklist when drafting their own. (Sources: see jurisdiction-specific citations above; the synthesis is editorial. Outside-Ohio benchmarks are flagged as such.)
Definitional sweep. The single most copied element in Ohio. The Ravenna ordinance defines three categories — “data centers,” “server farms,” and “cryptocurrency mining facilities” — so the use cannot be re-filed under a different label after the moratorium expires. Dayton extends the definition with a catch-all: “any other data-related operations as determined by the zoning administrator.” Lordstown narrows to “AI data centers” and includes carve-outs for the village's own data-center operation, small-scale server rooms, and manufacturing of components. The lesson: define broadly, name the obvious successor categories, and leave a discretionary catch-all for the zoning administrator if your jurisdiction trusts that office.
Duration. Practical experience across the inventory: 180 days is enough to produce a draft ordinance and run it through a planning commission; 12 months is enough to run it through a planning commission, public hearings, and a referendum window if §519.12 applies; 360 days is the upper bound that several Ohio jurisdictions have chosen when they want maximum drafting time. Sunbury's “until January 31, 2027” is essentially a 9.5-month variant pegged to the council's projected timeline for HB 646. The duration signals seriousness; longer durations are easier to defend on rational-basis grounds because they show intent to actually study and draft.
Carve-out for pending applications. Standard Ohio template. Dayton's language — “the moratorium will not affect projects that have already received authorization and permits or have a current, pending application” — is in nearly every adopted ordinance. The Bristolville case may force Ohio jurisdictions to revisit this language. Until that ruling lands, a defensible posture is to specify “complete applications” (not just filings), and to define “complete” by reference to the procedural code in force on the date of filing. That tightens the carve-out without eliminating it.
Emergency-adoption maneuver. Several Ohio jurisdictions (Sunbury, Ashville, Lordstown) suspended the procedural rules requiring three readings of an ordinance and adopted on a single meeting, citing the immediate threat of a filing. The emergency provision is in most municipal procedural codes; using it requires a finding that the moratorium is necessary for immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety. The legal exposure is small — emergency clauses are routinely upheld — but the political exposure can be larger if the public has not had time to comment.
Combination with permanent zoning. The most defensible posture in the inventory pairs a temporary moratorium with one or more permanent amendments. Three Ohio templates: Dayton's prohibited-use designation, South Bloomfield's industrial-zoning elimination, and Vienna Township's decibel-and-megawatt caps under development. The pattern is clear: jurisdictions that pause without simultaneously drafting permanent rules find themselves drafting under deadline pressure when the moratorium expires.
Decibel caps at the property line. Vienna Township is exploring a 70-decibel cap at the property line. Indianapolis's draft ordinance, useful as a benchmark, sets the cap at 65 decibels with a 200-foot buffer between data-center buildings and residentially zoned land, plus limits on backup-generator testing to 7 a.m.–5 p.m. (Source: WFYI, WRTV.) Loudoun County, Virginia, requires soundproofed roof-top and ground-mounted mechanical equipment, fully-screened equipment, pre- and post-construction noise studies, limited generator-testing hours, and enhanced buffers atop a six-foot berm. (Source: Loudoun County official site.) None of the surveyed Ohio jurisdictions has yet codified noise-study requirements analogous to Loudoun's; that is a clear next step.
Setback distances. Ohio benchmarks have not yet been adopted in any surveyed ordinance. Outside Ohio, Loudoun County requires a 200-foot setback as standard and a 500-foot setback for the grandfathering resolution. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania's proposed model ordinance — introduced February 12, 2026 — requires a 1,000-foot setback from any property with residential structures, schools, daycares, community centers, places of worship, recreational facilities, or agricultural and conservation lands, increased to 2,000 feet in the most recent version. (Source: Luzerne County Planning & Zoning, PDF available at the county's document center.)
Decommissioning bond. No Ohio jurisdiction surveyed has adopted one. The Pennsylvania model-ordinance benchmark is financial security in the form of a bond, irrevocable letter of credit, or other financial security in the amount of 110 percent of estimated decommissioning cost minus salvage value, posted prior to issuance of a certificate of occupancy. (Source: York County, PA Data Center Model Ordinance, 2026 update.) For an Ohio jurisdiction, this is among the highest-leverage drafting opportunities — the absence of a decommissioning bond means the public absorbs the cost of facility removal if a hyperscaler walks away from a stranded asset.
On-site fossil-fuel generation restrictions. No Ohio jurisdiction surveyed has codified one. The Pike County megaproject — a $33 billion data-center campus paired with a 9.2-gigawatt natural-gas power plant — broke ground in March 2026 with no local ordinance addressing on-site generation. (Source: 2026-04-19 Docket coverage.) The 9.2 GW plant is, by editorial translation, roughly the total generating capacity of the state of Connecticut. (Editorial conversion; inputs: Connecticut nameplate generating capacity per the EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2025 is approximately 8–10 GW depending on definition; see Methodology for the formula.) Co-location with carbon-emitting power is the live policy question in Virginia's House budget negotiations and the structural question Ohio townships drafting now should anticipate.
Transparency mandates. No Ohio jurisdiction surveyed requires a developer to disclose the identity of the end-user, the project's expected energy and water draw, or the terms of any non-disclosure agreement signed with a host community. Columbus City Councilmember Christopher Wyche named this gap on April 22, 2026 at the Columbus Metropolitan Club Earth Day debate, after a long pause when asked how residents discern fact from propaganda: “That's your answer. The dead silence that you just heard.” (Source: Columbus Dispatch, April 22, 2026.) Wyche introduced the term “digital NIMBYism” to describe the reflex characterization of residents who ask for disclosure. The transparency-mandate gap is the third-largest drafting opportunity for Ohio jurisdictions.
The state-level lever: Article II §36a and HB 646
The sub-state moratorium wave is happening simultaneously with two state-level processes that will shape every local ordinance for the next two years.
The Article II §36a constitutional amendment is the larger lever. The proposed text, certified for circulation by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on March 26, 2026, reads in part: “The construction of a data center is hereby prohibited,” with “data center” defined as a facility with aggregate monthly demand or peak load greater than 25 megawatts. The campaign — organized under the Conserve Ohio banner by residents in Adams, Brown, and Clermont counties — needs 413,488 valid signatures from at least 44 of Ohio's 88 counties by July 1, 2026 to qualify for the November ballot. Volunteers are gathering signatures. Austin Baurichter, a Brown County resident on the petition team, told Ohio Capital Journal: “I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think it was a doable task.” Nikki Gerber of Adams County: “I feel completely confident that we're going to get enough signatures.” (Source: Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal, April 30, 2026; Ballotpedia.)
Twenty-five megawatts is, by editorial translation, roughly the electricity that 20,000 average homes use, using the EIA's residential consumption benchmark of approximately 10,500 kilowatt-hours per home per year and a continuous-load assumption. (Editorial conversion; see Methodology for the formula.) The threshold is meaningful: most non-hyperscale data centers fall below it; nearly all of the announced Ohio hyperscale projects are above it. If the amendment passes, it sets a state-level cap that overrides ORC 122.17 megaproject designations, OPSB transmission-siting authority, and any local zoning instrument permitting larger facilities. The local moratorium wave functions as the organizing infrastructure that will deliver the signatures.
Ohio HB 646 is the smaller, slower lever. The bill creates a state Data Center Study Commission charged with issuing best-practices guidance for local decision-making bodies within six months of formation. It passed the Ohio House 97-0 and moved to the Senate. The 13-member commission must include persons knowledgeable in data-center operations, agriculture, county and township government, rural electric cooperatives, water and environment impacts, municipalities, public utilities, and economic development and tax incentives. (Source: Ohio General Assembly; Signal Ohio; Ohio Capital Journal.) The Ohio Township Association has asked state leaders to include a township representative on the commission.
The HB 646 commission report, when released, will be the most authoritative state-level guidance Ohio jurisdictions can cite. Several jurisdictions — Sunbury and Muhlenberg explicitly — have framed their moratoriums as windows for receiving the commission's findings before drafting permanent ordinances.
What the next round of Ohio drafting needs to address
Three gaps stand out across the surveyed inventory, and each is an opportunity for the next jurisdiction that takes up a permanent ordinance.
The first is the decommissioning bond. The buildout is happening in a market that is already showing developer pullback — Brookfield's Compass walked away from a major Virginia data-center project in late April 2026; St. Lucie County, Florida saw a $13.5 billion proposal withdrawn in February. (Source: Bloomberg via Virginia Mercury; Sarasota Herald-Tribune.) The Ohio jurisdiction that requires a 110-percent-of-decommissioning-cost bond, posted prior to certificate of occupancy, will be the one that does not absorb the cost of facility removal if a hyperscaler files for bankruptcy or simply abandons a project mid-construction.
The second is on-site fossil-fuel generation. The Pike County 9.2-gigawatt natural-gas plant is the live precedent. The Virginia House budget would, beginning July 2027, condition continuation of Virginia's data-center sales-tax exemption on data-center operators not co-locating with carbon-emitting power, buying renewable-energy credits, and using non-carbon backup generators. (Source: Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury, April 29, 2026.) Ohio has no analogous restriction at any level. An Ohio township ordinance restricting on-site fossil-fuel generation would be the first in the country to do so at the township level. Whether that restriction would survive the §519.12 megaproject exemption is the structural question.
The third is transparency. The Columbus Metropolitan Club exchange that Wyche described — “the dead silence that you just heard” — is the structural barrier a local-control ordinance can address by requiring, as a condition of the application, public disclosure of the developer's identity, the end-user (hyperscaler tenant), the expected energy draw and water draw, and the existence of any non-disclosure agreements with the host community or the host utility. None of the surveyed Ohio ordinances does this. A jurisdiction that wrote it into its permanent zoning code would set a precedent that other Ohio jurisdictions could borrow within the same news cycle, the way they borrowed Ravenna's three-named-uses definitional sweep within four days.