970 Towns Took Up Data Centers. A Handful Said Yes. One Said Yes to $1,200,000,000.

Rockingham, North Carolina took in two farms and zoned them for housing. The houses never came. Builders did not want land next to the sewage plant.

On August 4 the city Planning Board voted to rezone those 165 acres for a data center. Staff put the project's value at $1,200,000,000. All the taxable property in Rockingham is worth $824,331,324. The city is offering no tax breaks.

Between August 1 and August 24, 2026, we read records from 970 local governments with data center business. Rockingham is the biggest yes in the pile. It is also one of very few. Most towns either said no or said nothing.

At a Glance

• Biggest yes: $1,200,000,000 in Rockingham, North Carolina, on 165.07 acres, for about 30 full-time jobs. No tax breaks.
• Towns that wrote a way in: Olive Branch, Mississippi; Massillon, Ohio; Smithfield Township and West Brandywine Township, Pennsylvania. Rural Hall, North Carolina passed a resolution backing a data center outright.
• Local governments with data center business: 970.
• Moved to limit or block: 396, of which 337 used a pause and 59 a ban. The other 574 did not act.
• Where the bans are: 47 of the 59 are in New Jersey, about 80 percent. Ohio is next, with 3.
• Big company on the record: Amazon Web Services, the cloud arm of Amazon, in a tax fight in Trenton, Ohio.
• What we looked at: records from August 1 to August 24, 2026, the dates we got them, not meeting dates.

How thin the yes layer is

Towns have two ways to say no. A pause is temporary. It stops new applications for six months or a year while staff write rules. A ban takes data centers off the build list until a council undoes it. The 970 sort into three groups.

The first two bars are the 396 that moved to limit or block. The third bar is mostly silence, not welcome: a data center came up and nothing got settled. The towns that actually wrote a way in are a sliver of that third bar, and they are worth knowing by name.

The towns that said yes

Olive Branch, Mississippi, has 37,461 people. On August 18 it heard a rule allowing data centers in two zones, light and heavy industrial, with a special permit. That is a narrow yes, but it is written down, and a written rule is something you can plan against.

Massillon, Ohio, has 32,149 people. On July 20 a rule limiting data centers to its general industrial zone got a second reading, then a third. No final vote appears. Councilwoman Harwig Smith said the rule was changed "so now that data centers will only be allowed in General Industrial Districts, I-2."

Smithfield Township, Pennsylvania, has 1,457 people and a live application, Smithfield Gateway, due for a decision by October 31, 2026. West Brandywine Township, Pennsylvania, has 7,331 people. A task force wrote its rule in seven meetings between April 6 and July 7, 2026. Rural Hall, North Carolina, went further than any of them and passed a resolution backing a data center.

Christiansburg, Virginia, shows why these are worth finding early. It has 22,947 people, and data centers are allowed there now with no special permit at all. On August 17 it heard a plan to require one. Land you can build on without asking is getting scarcer, and the towns still holding it are not advertising.

Rockingham: the biggest yes, on land builders turned down

Terra Nexus Land Fund I, LLC asked to rezone about 165.07 acres at 316 Old Cheraw Highway. It is zoned for dense housing. The company wants light industry, limited to a data center. The Planning Board said yes on August 4, every member in favor.

The city took in the Clontz property in May 2025 and the Moss property in October 2025, both for dense housing. Terra Nexus owns both. Builders stayed away, staff wrote, because of the sewage plant. Two Duke Energy power lines cross the site, and staff called them the reason it suits a data center.

Staff made the case by comparison. Housing at two to three homes an acre would mean 330 to 495 homes and 3,300 to 4,950 car trips a day, against about 30 full-time jobs. Water use was put at 75,000 gallons a day, about what 375 homes use, plus 1,000 gallons of sewage. A noise study the company paid for put the site at 48.4 decibels at most, under the federal 55 and near the 50 to 55 nearby streets sit at. Trees stay 300 feet deep nearest Farmstead Court and 100 feet along the highway.

Then the water number changed. The owner told the Planning Board the cooling design is a closed loop that reuses the water. Daily use would drop to what 30 people use at home. Staff used the higher number.

The rezoning does not match the city plan, which calls for houses here at three to four an acre, or apartments at six to eight. Staff said so plainly, then pointed to a piece of North Carolina law.

"if a zoning map amendment is adopted and the action was deemed inconsistent with the adopted plan, the zoning amendment has the effect of also amending any future land use map in the approved plan, and no additional request or application for a plan amendment is required"

In plain terms: if the council rezones the land anyway, the plan changes to match. Staff added that this part cannot be challenged in court.

Trenton, Ohio: two townships fighting over the money

Trenton, Ohio, has 11,869 people. It is arguing with Madison Township and St. Clair Township over a planned Amazon Web Services data center. Finance director Matthew Mesisklis told the council that banning data centers inside the city would not stop this one. The land sits outside the city, and it is already zoned for heavy industry.

So the fight is over the money. The townships have started a tax deal that would hold back part of the new property tax the project creates and spend it on local costs. Mesisklis said their version runs 10 years and holds back 75 percent, against another that would run 30 years and hold back all of it. Neither draft promises the schools anything. Both townships said out loud they want the schools made whole, and Mesisklis asked them to put it in writing.

The towns that want you are also in the record

Piqua, Ohio gave its power deal with the Dayton Power and Light Company a third reading on August 23, plus a $1,000,000 a year fee. Staff put the utility's spending above $100,000,000. Piqua peaks at 66 megawatts. The project wants 1,400.

In DeSoto County, Florida a developer told an economic development meeting it had bought a dead power plant and the land around it for a data center. Cumberland County, Pennsylvania approved rules for East Pennsboro with a community benefits agreement built in. Vineland, New Jersey held another hearing on a data center already going up, a 129,622 square foot building plus a 587,980 square foot addition.

None of that shows up in a listing service. All of it is in the minutes, months before a deal is announced.

What Obedio surfaces each week

Every fact in this article came from a public meeting record. Obedio surfaces new data center activity from those records every week: rezonings and site plans, incentive and tax deals, land taken into a city and zoned for industry, utility franchises, bans and pauses and the hearings that lead to them, and the towns quietly looking for revenue.

You see it the week it happens, not months later when the deal is announced. In Rockingham, the useful moment was not the $1,200,000,000 headline. It was the year before, when a small city took in farmland, watched its housing plan fail, and started looking for something else to put there.

And tells you the moment it changes

When Rockingham actually votes. The Planning Board only recommended. The City Council decides, and the buffers and the noise limit bind nobody until it does.

When Rockingham settles which water number is real. Both sit in the file, and nobody has redone the math.

When a pause becomes a law. The 396 mixes bans that passed, rules with one reading, items set aside, and hearings not yet held. Which way a town leans is one thing. A law on the books is another, and only one of them stops you.

When the late minutes land. Towns publish weeks after they meet. Commercial Point, Ohio posted a record on August 23 for a meeting held July 6. Some of this month has not reached anyone yet.

What a no looks like

Piedmont, Oklahoma, has 8,551 people and took two data center rezonings at one meeting. Twenty-one people spoke on the first, from Cimarron ProjectCo LLC, and every one spoke against it, including Kelly Work of a group called Piedmont Informed. All four commissioners present voted to recommend turning it down. The second, from BLE Landholdings, LLC, was pulled before any vote.

Allen Park, Michigan, has 28,638 people. In May it put off a decision on a 26 megawatt data center at 7500 Enterprise. On August 18 the planning commission turned it down. The reasons were technical: equipment noise would get in the way of normal use of the public park and the homes on either side, the sound study did not match the other papers, and no licensed engineer had signed it. That last part is easy to fix. It still turned a delay into a no.

New Jersey is not pausing. It is banning.

Of the 59 bans in these records, 47 are in New Jersey, about 80 percent. Ohio is next, with 3. Old Bridge Township, 67,738 people, passed Ordinance No. 26-20, moved by Councilman Razzoli, banning data centers in every zone. Holland Township, 5,218 people, passed Ordinance 2026-15, moved by Committeeman Moustakas, seconded by Committeeman Miller. Hainesport Township, 6,055 people, passed Ordinance 2026-11, moved by Committeeman Montgomery, seconded by Committeewoman Evans. Millstone, Stafford, Holmdel and Delaware townships acted separately.

The details decide which projects get caught. Summit, 22,342 people, set its ban at 20 megawatts, which land use manager Augusto Dal'Maso traced to a Pinelands Commission report. In Paramus, 26,359 people, a member of the environmental commission got the draft changed. It had covered sites using 2 to 4 megawatts an acre. Now it starts at 1.

Lopatcong Township, 9,421 people, went against its own planners. Ordinance No. 26-06 keeps data centers out of the research, office and manufacturing zone. The planning board found it clashes with the town plan, because a 2012 review had encouraged data processing centers. Cinnaminson Township, 17,368 people, set its ban aside. Mr. Conda warned that other towns have been sued over rules like this, that losing could force the township to accept the data center anyway, and that Governor Sherrill has signed state legislation on these buildings.

New York acted statewide, and its towns cannot agree what it says

Five New York local governments mentioned a statewide freeze. No two matched. In Kent, the town lawyer said the Governor signed an executive order on July 16 freezing data centers statewide for a year. In Avon, a councilman said the freeze covers large data centers, including ones cooling 50 megawatts, plus a separate law at 20 megawatts. Yates County wrote that anything under 50 megawatts is not covered. Geneseo simply noted a freeze exists. In Ulster County, the chairman asked whether it came through the Governor's budget, and a staff member said it looked that way but he would check. If you have a site in New York, read the document, not the minutes.

Timeline

What to Watch

• The Rockingham City Council vote, and whether the conditions use the new water number or the old one.
• The Smithfield Gateway decision, due October 31.
• Whether the Trenton townships put school funding in writing.
• Whether Christiansburg gives up its open-door rule, and which towns still have one.
• The first lawsuit against a New Jersey ban. Lopatcong looks most exposed.

This article is factual background and is not legal, financial, or investment advice.