A handful of North Carolina municipalities and counties are hitting the pause button on data center development.
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Orange County commissioners near Durham voted Tuesday to hold a public hearing in April before formally considering a one-year moratorium on large-scale data centers, The News & Observer reported. If the commissioners choose to move forward with a moratorium, they have already called on town staff to use the time to make changes to land use and zoning ordinances.
Nearby in Wake County, the town of Apex voted on March 10 to consider a one-year moratorium on new data center permits. This comes after Natelli Investments scrapped plans for a data center project, with the developer saying the project was no longer politically viable. Apex’s moratorium could come before the council for a vote as soon as next month.
Several counties and municipalities already have imposed data center moratoriums. Chatham County, west of Raleigh, placed a one-year moratorium on new data center permits in February.
In other parts of North Carolina, Gates County and the town of Canton in Haywood County passed moratoriums on data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities in recent months.
North Carolina has been viewed as more open than other Southeastern states to data center development. Associated Builders and Contractors named North Carolina “one of the nation’s premier destinations for data center development,” with multibillion-dollar investments from big-name tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon “reshaping the state’s construction market.”
Last year, North Carolina ranked 12th among states with the most data centers, boasting 110 of the facilities.
Local officials in North Carolina who advocate for moratoriums say it gives them time to create or update policies around development for this relatively new asset class. It can also give officials the space to work through local concerns.
Before Natelli’s data center was pulled, Apex residents had formed the Protect Wake County Coalition out of concern that the project would cause noise and air pollution, power grid strain and local water table depletion.
Other municipalities continue to welcome data center development. Earlier this month, the city of Lenoir announced that Google will expand its data center there with a $1B investment. Last month, Microsoft confirmed plans for a data center in the Person County Mega Park.
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