Data Center Activity Is Surging Across California — and Local Governments Are Moving to Slow It

Data center proposals are multiplying across California, and the local response is organizing faster than the projects themselves. In early June 2026, voters in Monterey Park approved a permanent ban on data centers, reported as the first voter-approved ban of its kind by a U.S. city (Confirmed — public record). It is not an outlier. Over the spring and summer, city councils, planning commissions, and county boards across the state have taken up moratoriums, outright bans, zoning changes, ballot measures, and new advisory bodies — and the volume has climbed sharply. For site selectors and developers, the pattern shows where California’s political risk is concentrating, and how quickly a favorable siting environment can turn contested.

The trend, in detail

The acceleration is visible in the meeting record itself. A review of California city and county agendas tracked by Obedio found data center items appearing in roughly one or two meetings a month in the spring, rising to seven distinct meetings in June and at least ten in the first three weeks of July (Confirmed — Obedio agenda tracking). The mix also shifted from discussion to decision: early items were study sessions and public comment, but by July the agendas carried draft ordinances, zoning amendments, ballot resolutions, and committee appointments.

The map of local action

The clearest sign of momentum is how far these items have moved past discussion, and how many distinct tools jurisdictions are using. Monterey Park’s council voted unanimously in March to place a ban before voters and extend an existing moratorium; the developer withdrew its project weeks later, and residents approved the permanent ban in early June (Confirmed — public record). In the Coachella Valley, a proposed roughly 450-acre AI data center campus drew packed town halls and a city survey, and in June the Coachella City Council approved a moratorium and directed staff to draft a ban (Confirmed — public record).

The Imperial Valley has become the most active front. Imperial County’s Board of Supervisors approved a 45-day moratorium on data center permitting on June 16, 2026 and extended it to a full year on July 14 (Confirmed — public record). The county also created a nineteen-member Data Center Advisory Committee to review land use and zoning options, with recommendations due no later than January 1, 2027, and asked each of its seven incorporated cities to appoint a representative (Confirmed — public record). Brawley and El Centro both took up those appointments on July 21. Nearby, Calexico weighed a potential moratorium (Proposed) and Calipatria reviewed a draft resolution to ban data centers inside city limits (Proposed).

The same moves are appearing well beyond Imperial County. Cudahy’s Planning Commission considered a zoning ordinance amendment on July 20 to add a “data center” use classification and prohibit it citywide (Proposed); Poway’s council asked staff to review how to manage stand-alone commercial data centers (Confirmed — public record); and Sierra County’s board scheduled a discussion of data center development impacts (Confirmed — public record). San Jose’s council, for its part, voted to draft guidelines rather than a ban (Confirmed — public record).

Alhambra has gone furthest of the cities on this list, and it shows how quickly a jurisdiction can move from zoning to the ballot box. On June 22, 2026 the City Council adopted an ordinance (O2M26-4863) that defines data centers and bars them from the city’s employment zoning districts while permitting them in no other zone — an effective citywide prohibition, since uses not listed as permitted are prohibited (Confirmed — public record). The council then introduced a measure to take the ban to voters as well: Ordinance O2M26-4868 would place a citywide data-center ban on the November 3, 2026 general municipal election, consolidated with the statewide general election in Los Angeles County, alongside a separate, unrelated term-limits measure (Proposed). Because the June ordinance already carried a CEQA determination, the city treats the ballot version as enacting the same ban with no further environmental review required, and set a second reading and adoption for July 27, 2026 (Confirmed — public record). And in Ridgecrest, the fight has reached the California Energy Commission, where the proposed RB Inyokern data center is under review as a Small Power Plant Exemption (docket 26-SPPE-01), carried as a recurring item on the city’s council calendar (Confirmed — public record).

Why it matters for site selectors and developers

California remains one of the country’s largest data center markets, and the demand driving these proposals is not going away. But the local record now carries information a developer needs before committing to a site. Political risk is rising unevenly — the same use can be welcomed in one jurisdiction and banned in the next — so reading the local posture is part of site diligence, not a formality after entitlement. Several of these measures also aim to end by-right approval, under which a qualifying project is permitted more or less automatically, in favor of discretionary review, standards, or prohibition (Confirmed — public record). That change lengthens timelines and adds veto points.

Neighboring jurisdictions are engaging even where they hold no authority: Ridgecrest has no permitting power over the Inyokern site, yet it has committed to revisiting the project on a recurring schedule (Confirmed — public record), and comment letters or political pressure from adjacent bodies can still shape conditions and timing. The economic case is real but contested. Proponents cite construction jobs and annual tax revenue in the millions of dollars (Speculative — proponents’ projection), and those figures win institutional and labor support in some regions — but they have not, on their own, settled the water and power questions.

The risks and obstacles

Water is the recurring objection. Large campuses draw heavily for cooling, and several proposed sites sit in stressed basins; the Inyokern proposal is in the Indian Wells Valley basin, designated in critical overdraft under SGMA, and reported versus estimated usage figures often diverge by orders of magnitude depending on who is counting (As reported / opponents’ estimate). Power is a close second, with round-the-clock industrial load raising questions about grid capacity and about diesel backup emissions (Confirmed — public record). Opposition is organized and sustained — petitions, packed hearings, and coalitions of residents, school districts, conservation districts, and in some corridors federal installations — and it is increasingly reaching the ballot box, where a “no” is durable in a way a council vote is not. Where projects are described in phases, opponents raise CEQA’s “independent utility” test and argue the phases should be reviewed as a single project, a line of challenge already visible in the Inyokern review (Confirmed — public record).

What to watch