Lima, OH Will Keep Watering Google's Data Center. For 18 Months, No One Else Can Ask.

On Monday, September 14, 2026, the Lima City Council passed Ordinance 198-26. For 18 months it stops the city from processing any new standalone data center inside Lima. It also stops the city from taking new requests for Lima water from data centers outside the city line. The vote was six in favor and one abstention, with one member absent.

The second restriction reaches past Lima's own borders. Lima is a city of about 34,700 people in northwest Ohio, and it sells water to customers outside the city line. A year ago it agreed to sell Google between 5 and 10 million gallons a day for 20 years, for a $500 million data center in American Township, seven miles away. That deal survives. Section 1 of the new ordinance says the pause "shall be prospective in nature and shall not affect any preexisting contracts entered into prior to passage of this ordinance."

Much of the water is committed, and the window to ask for more is shut until roughly March 2028. A pause like this is temporary. It stops new applications while staff write rules. Lima has no data center rules yet, which is the reason it gives for stopping.

At a Glance

• Item: Ordinance 198-26, City of Lima, Ohio. An 18-month pause on new standalone data centers.
• Vote: Six in favor, one abstention, on September 14, 2026. Third Ward councilor Jesse Lowe abstained. Second Ward councilor Tony Wilkerson was absent. Councilman Derry Glenn moved to approve.
• Asked for by: Mayor Sharetta Smith and Utilities Director Mike Caprella. They sent Council a memo on September 8, 2026.
• What it blocks: Permits and zoning approvals for standalone data centers inside Lima. Also new asks for Lima water from data centers outside the city.
• What it does not touch: Contracts signed before passage, including Lima's water deal for the Google project in American Township.
• Length: 18 months, or until Council adopts data center rules, whichever comes first.
• Water at stake: Five reservoirs hold about 15 billion gallons. The city can treat about 30 million gallons a day. In 2025 it made 13.7 million a day on average, and 17.4 million on its busiest day.
• The Google deal: 5 million gallons a day guaranteed, 10 million a day at most, over 20 years. A $500 million project, announced March 16, 2026.
• Took effect: Right away. Council passed it as an emergency, which the mayor's memo had asked Council not to do.

What the Ordinance Stops

Section 1 of Ordinance 198-26 is one long sentence doing two jobs.

Lima City Council hereby imposes a moratorium on further processing of any application for any building permits, certificates of occupancy, conditional use, zoning approvals or any other administrative actions and approvals for standalone data center development within the corporate limits of the City of Lima, Ohio, or new requests for City-supplied water for data center developments outside the corporate limits of the City...

In plain terms: if you want to build a data center in Lima, the city will not take your paperwork. If you want to build one in a nearby township and buy Lima's water to cool it, the city will not take that request either.

The ordinance turns on the word "standalone" and never defines it. A data center built as part of something else, a hospital campus or a factory, may sit outside the freeze. Nobody has tested that.

The clock runs 18 months from passage, so to about March 14, 2028. It can end sooner. If Council adopts rules for new standalone data centers before then, the pause lifts the day those rules take effect.

Why Lima Can Set Terms Outside Its Borders

Most cities can only set rules inside their own lines. Lima has a second tool. It owns a large water system and sells into the county around it, so it can set terms for projects it cannot zone.

The numbers are in the mayor's September 8 memo. Five reservoirs hold about 15 billion gallons. The plant can treat about 30 million gallons a day. In 2025 the city made 13.7 million a day on average and peaked at 17.4 million. Hometown Stations WLIO gave the same reservoir and treatment figures the night of the vote.

The city uses less than half of what it can treat. The memo says the pause is not about capacity.

This proposed moratorium is not about a lack of water capacity. Lima's water system remains one of our greatest economic development assets.

Caprella told Council on September 15, 2025 that Lima once sold 7 to 8 million gallons a day to the local refinery, before it built its own water plant. The volume Google contracted for is in that range.

The city says the problem is its rules, not its supply. Mayor Smith told The Lima News that Lima's zoning code was written decades before data centers existed.

With the data center in American Township, the only question we had to review or answer was whether or not we had the water capacity. If one were to locate in the City of Lima, there are other questions that we should be asking as a city, and our current code does not provide for us to ask those questions or get any guidance about what those should be.

The Google Deal the Pause Protects

Lima's water contract for the Google project rides on Ordinance 191-25, from a year earlier. The title reads: an ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter into contracts in support of a developmental project in American Township identified as Project BOSC. The ordinance names no gallons, no rate and no term. Those came out in the meeting.

It failed the first time. On September 8, 2025 it lost its first reading 5-2, with Councilors Jordan and Thompson voting no. Council came back a week later and passed it 6-2 at a special meeting on September 15. Jordan and Thompson held their no votes both times.

At that second meeting Caprella said the deal guarantees the company 5 million gallons a day, with later phases possible. Mayor Smith said the contract caps the company at 10 million gallons. She put that at about 16 percent of the city's current water source. Allen Economic Development Group calls it a 20-year deal carrying a $13.7 million commitment to water lines and plant work.

Lima's minutes from the month after that vote record why Thompson said no: what data centers would do to the environment, and the drain on water and power. Those are among the subjects the city now says it needs 18 months to study.

Allen Economic Development Group named Google as the company behind Project BOSC on March 16, 2026. The figure given was $500 million, plus $50 million for local roads and pipes and $250,000 a year to Elida Local Schools under a 15-year agreement that offsets the taxes the project is excused from paying. Signal Ohio reported in July 2026 that the buyer put together about 373 acres of former farmland from five owners for roughly $45 million. Work began in 2026 and is aimed at 2030.

The site's power draw has never been published. Data Center Dynamics wrote in March 2026 that details about the data center, "including size and power capacity," have yet to be shared. That is still true. Lima's contract is written in gallons. By the mayor's account, water capacity was the only question the city had to answer.

The Mayor Asked for No Emergency. Council Passed One.

The mayor asked Council not to pass this as an emergency measure. Council did.

The September 8 memo lists four things Smith wanted in any legislation. The second is that it "proceed through the normal legislative process and not as an emergency measure." Lima ordinances normally get three readings. Ordinance 198-26 did not. Its preamble says the opposite.

...by reason thereof, this Ordinance constitutes a matter of administrative emergency and shall take effect immediately upon its passage, as set forth in Section 33 of the City Charter...

Section 5 spells out how that works. Under Charter Section 33, the ordinance takes effect at once if two-thirds of Council votes yes at first reading. Six yes votes on an eight-member Council clears two-thirds. So the pause was live that night, not a month later.

Nothing public explains why the drafting went the other way. Both documents sit in the same September 14 council file.

Two papers describe the tally differently. The Lima News said it "passed with six votes to one abstention." The Blade in Toledo called it unanimous with one abstention. Both fit the same count. No one voted against it.

The Abstention

Jesse Lowe, of the Third Ward, abstained. He told The Lima News he did not have enough information.

I don't know if they're trying to bring one within itself. We need more information, and they're not telling us nothing.

That question is still open. Smith would not say whether she had talked with other companies about bringing data centers to Lima. Her memo says only that the city is "potentially looking at additional large-scale data center developments and additional requests for Lima's water capacity." It names nobody.

No second Lima-area project shows up in any public record. The nearby projects on record are in other counties. QTS Data Centers, a Blackstone company, announced on May 29, 2026 that it would build a $10 billion campus on 902 acres in Van Wert, about 30 miles west. QTS said it would use closed-loop cooling, which recycles the same water rather than continuously drawing more, and that it would not consume water for cooling once operational. The same night Lima passed its pause, Pioneer, Ohio passed a six-month one.

Timeline

Why It Matters for Site Selectors and Developers

A city can block a project it cannot zone. Lima has no zoning power in American Township. It still shut off a path into it, because it sells the water. If you are siting in a township on the edge of a city, check who sells the water and whether that city has said anything about data centers. The zoning map will not tell you.

A signed contract is protected. An application is not. Google's deal came through untouched because it was signed before the vote. Applications are what a pause stops. Lima signed the water deal twelve months before it passed the pause.

Unused capacity is not the same as capacity for sale. Lima can treat about 30 million gallons a day and uses about 13.7 million. It says the pause "is not about a lack of water capacity." The city is asking how much of that room to commit, and to whom. Do not read a utility's spare capacity as supply you can buy.

Closed-loop cooling takes the water question off the table. QTS said its Van Wert campus will not consume water for cooling once operational. A project that asks for no city water does not meet the objection that drove Lima's pause.

What Is Still Unsettled

"Standalone" is undefined. The ordinance leans on the word throughout and never says what it means. A data center attached to another use may not be covered.

No rules exist yet. Smith has asked her directors to study land use, how far buildings must sit from property lines, screening such as trees or walls, noise, power demand, traffic, who pays for roads and pipes, what the city gets back in taxes, local hiring and community benefits. None of it is drafted. The pause buys time. It does not say what the answer will be.

Two key numbers are not public. The Google site's power draw has never been published, by Google, the county or the city. Neither has the water price. Ordinance 191-25 lets the mayor sign contracts but sets no rate.

Ohio has no statewide rulebook. Substitute House Bill 646 would have cut the data center sales tax break from 100 percent to 50 percent for new projects, halved local tax breaks, and required closed-loop cooling or water-saving practices. It stalled in June 2026 with neither chamber able to agree. Asked separately about reversing the governor's veto of an earlier attempt, House Speaker Matt Huffman, a Republican from Lima, said an override was not "practical and perhaps even possible at this point." With no state law in place, cities have been writing their own rules.

Nearby well owners have reported problems. Signal Ohio reported in July 2026 that building work has been tied to trouble with private wells nearby, and that Google handed out a flier noting reports of "sudden changes in water pressure, flow or temporary loss of water." The city system and the private wells draw from different sources.

What to Watch

• Lima's draft data center ordinance. It ends the pause the day it takes effect, so it can land well before March 2028. Watch whether it defines "standalone" and whether it sets water terms for buyers outside the city.
• Whether any company is named. A rezoning request or a water inquiry would answer Lowe's question.
• Allen County and American Township. Neither is bound by Lima's ordinance, and their zoning is the other half of what happens near the Google site.
• Case 2025-1458 at the Ohio Supreme Court. The Ohio Manufacturers' Association is challenging the data center electric rate the state regulator approved in July 2025. The outcome changes what Ohio's biggest electricity users pay.
• Whether Ohio lawmakers revive a data center bill. The state gave out about $1.57 billion in data center sales tax breaks in 2025. That number keeps the fight alive.

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