The Oklahoma City Council Tuesday unanimously approved a temporary moratorium on new data centers within city limits, joining the growing list of cities and counties taking action to slow down the data center developments spreading across the nation.
The moratorium halts the acceptance of new applications, the processing of and the issuance of rezoning requests and permits related to the construction or expansion of data centers.
City Manager Craig Freeman urged adoption of the moratorium.
“Multiple applicants have been talking with staff about potential for data centers of various sizes. Some of these are getting to the hyperscale size, and there’s a lot of demand that places on our resources.”
Freeman said with the moratorium, the city would have a chance to step back with staff and evaluate the growth of the data centers, “to make sure that we can be strategic and consistent with how we’re treating these, to look to see if we need to amend our code to specifically address data centers.”
The moratorium takes effect immediately and will remain in place until either December 31, 2026, or earlier if amendments to the City’s Zoning Code regarding data centers are approved by City Council.
“The temporary pause on new data centers will give the City more time to understand how they affect our community’s resources such as energy use, water demand and land use,” Freeman said. “This brief pause ensures we move forward strategically, so future projects align with our community’s needs and support sustainable, long-term growth.”
During the moratorium, the City Council will evaluate the potential impacts of data centers and determine what regulatory framework should guide future development.
Planning Director Jeff Butler told council members prior to the vote that a substantial amount of research has already been done by legal, council, planning commission, planning staff and utility staff into drawing up an ordinance regarding data centers.
“We think that that can be done fairly quickly. We already have a draft of a draft ordinance that we planned on moving forward this summer.
Some speakers before the council urged an adoption of the moratorium, including Taylor Sanchez of an Indigenous organization named Honor the Earth.
“What’s happening in both the federal and state level legislative cycles indicates that municipal level moratoriums are one of the few tools of protection that our communities have in an unequal partnership with data developers that are making billions by building data centers in other communities that they would not build in their own,” she said.
Sanchez said the moratorium would slow the process down and allow opportunities for prior and informed consent among community members.
“Data center proposals are popping up rapidly across Oklahoma. The growth is outpacing the ability of regulators, researchers, and communities to fully understand and respond to its impacts. Slowing down the process allows for transparency with the community who must bear the harms of a technology that extracts local resources.”
The moratorium specifically exempts two pending rezoning cases for data centers.