Part One of a two-part series. This article reflects developments as of November 12, 2026, including preliminary results of the November 3, 2026 general election. Further action by the General Assembly during its post-election session, which runs through mid-December, may change the rules described below.
Few land uses have gone from welcome newcomer to lightning rod as quickly as the data center. Ohio is home to more than 250 data centers, the fifth-most of any state, and the Columbus region in particular has become one of the country’s leading markets for the facilities that power cloud computing and artificial intelligence. That growth has brought billions of dollars in construction and additional local tax revenue, depending on negotiated incentives. It has also produced a wave of local resistance. As of September 17, the Ohio Capital Journal counted at least 138 Ohio municipalities and townships with active moratoriums on data center development, and Ohio accounted for more than half of the data center measures that appeared on local ballots nationwide this November.
Much of that activity is happening in townships, where the legal footing for a moratorium is less settled than it is for a city or village. For landowners fielding offers from developers, for developers weighing potential sites, and for township officials and residents alike, it has become important to understand what townships are doing, the legal limits on what they can do, and where the disputes currently stand.
Background: How Data Centers Became a Local Issue
For more than a decade, Ohio has courted data center investment, in part through a state sales and use tax exemption for qualifying data center equipment under R.C. 122.175. That incentive, and the industry’s rapid growth, drew increasing scrutiny from state officials in 2026. As KJK previously covered, Governor Mike DeWine paused approval of new data center sales tax exemptions in late May while the General Assembly studied the industry. A bipartisan legislative committee has since held hearings, and the leading legislative vehicle, House Bill 646, was reported and then recommitted to the Senate Energy Committee on June 10, 2026, where it awaits further action.
The economic benefits and local costs vary by project. Supporters point to large capital investments, construction employment, and potential property tax revenue for local governments and schools, after applicable incentives. The Data Center Coalition, an industry group, told the Senate Energy Committee, citing a PwC study, that the industry directly employed 24,120 people in Ohio in 2024. Business organizations, including the Greater Cleveland Partnership, have urged communities to evaluate each proposal on its merits rather than impose blanket pauses. Opponents, in turn, raise concerns about electric demand and utility rates, water consumption, constant noise from cooling equipment, emissions from diesel backup generators, and the conversion of farmland; though power and water requirements vary with facility design. Those concerns are often loudest in rural and exurban townships, where, as the Ohio Township Association has noted, large amounts of available land can make a site attractive to developers.
Why Townships Are Different
Ohio cities and villages exercise home rule powers under Article XVIII of the Ohio Constitution. While Ohio townships do not have the same authority under the Ohio Constitution, some townships have statutory limited home-rule powers under R.C. Chapter 504, which are distinct from municipal constitutional home rule. As the Ohio Attorney General has summarized, townships have no inherent or constitutionally granted police power to zone and are limited to the zoning authority the General Assembly grants them by statute, primarily in R.C. Chapter 519. That distinction matters a great deal when a township attempts something the statutes do not expressly address, such as a moratorium.
The Ohio Township Association (the OTA) has acknowledged the uncertainty. In testimony to the Senate Energy Committee in June, the OTA’s executive director stated that townships are statutory entities and that, in the OTA’s view, explicit authority is needed in Chapter 519 to make clear that townships may regulate data centers through zoning. The OTA also cautioned that it is “somewhat of a misnomer” to say townships can simply “say no,” because a data center that meets the requirements of a district where it is already a permitted use may be able to proceed.
An important source of support for township moratoriums comes from a 2003 opinion of the Ohio Attorney General. Addressing a proposed pause on new housing in Violet Township, the Attorney General concluded that a township’s zoning power under R.C. 519.02 may support a temporary moratorium, “depending upon the terms of the particular zoning resolution, as well as the circumstances of the moratorium’s enactment.” Attorney General opinions are persuasive but do not bind the courts, and that opinion did not involve data centers. Whether a particular township moratorium holds up is therefore likely to turn on how it was adopted, how long it lasts, and whether the township is actually using the time to study and revise its zoning.
The Township Toolkit
Township responses to data centers generally fall into four categories, and many townships use more than one at the same time.
Temporary Moratoriums
The township pauses the acceptance or approval of zoning applications for data centers while its zoning commission studies the issue. Jerome Township in Union County, already home to two Amazon data centers, adopted a nine-month moratorium in September 2025, one of the first in the state. In Trumbull County, Weathersfield Township approved a six-month pause in April 2026 after a developer sought to annex land into neighboring Niles for a data center.
Definitional Bans
The township amends its zoning resolution to define “data center” without listing it as a permitted or conditional use in any district, which effectively prohibits the use. According to reporting by the Ohio Capital Journal, the Logan-Union-Champaign Regional Planning Commission reviewed 28 nearly identical township proposals of this kind between April and September 2026.
Conditional Use and Planned Development Requirements
Rather than banning data centers, some townships require case-by-case approval. Liberty Township in Butler County has studied limiting data centers to business or manufacturing planned unit development districts, and a Jerome Township trustee has advocated moving data centers from a permitted use to a conditional use.
Adopting Zoning for the First Time
Many townships, particularly in southern and eastern Ohio, have no zoning at all. Adopting zoning takes time and money and, as the OTA has noted, ultimately goes to the voters. In Harrison County, Green Township formed a zoning commission and adopted a 12-month moratorium on all new development while that work proceeds, although the commission missed the deadline to place a zoning resolution on the November ballot. Other townships moved faster. On November 3, voters in Monroe Township in Adams County, where a data center has been planned at a former power plant site, approved the township’s zoning plan, and voters in Sprigg Township also approved zoning for unincorporated territory.
A Closer Look: Shalersville Township
Shalersville Township in Portage County shows how these tools can overlap. The township’s zoning code already lists data centers as a conditional use in its light industrial district, subject to standards on utility usage, lighting, noise, and landscaping. The township imposed a moratorium on data centers in 2024, and that moratorium remains in effect as a developer and property owner pursue a proposed 750-megawatt data center campus on roughly 150 acres near the Ohio Turnpike interchange. On October 6, 2026, the trustees amended the township’s industrial zoning in a way reported to make the project more difficult.
The township is now considering expanded conditional use standards, with a residents’ group and the property owner each proposing their own version. On October 14, the Portage County Regional Planning Commission tabled the proposals, and the county prosecutor’s office reportedly cautioned that some draft provisions raise questions about the township’s authority. On October 20, the trustees unanimously extended the moratorium for another six months. The planning commission is expected to revisit the conditional use standards in December.
Legal Challenges
Many of the most visible court fights to date have involved villages and cities rather than townships, but they preview the arguments townships are likely to face.
In Pickaway County, the Village of Commercial Point adopted an 18-month moratorium on data center applications in May 2026, after a developer had already filed an application for a large data center campus. The developer filed a mandamus action directly in the Supreme Court of Ohio, arguing that its rights vested when it filed its application and that the moratorium cannot be applied retroactively. The village argued that the moratorium lawfully pauses review of pending applications and that the developer has an ordinary administrative appeal available. On October 27, 2026, the Supreme Court dismissed the mandamus action without a published merits opinion.
A similar dispute from the Village of Lordstown has been recently decided. On October 20, 2026, the Supreme Court of Ohio unanimously held that Lordstown had no duty to continue reviewing a developer’s site plan, submitted about two weeks before the village adopted a data center ban that it later converted to a moratorium, because the developer had not completed the preliminary steps required to apply for a zoning permit.
These two disputes invoke a longstanding principle of Ohio law: a property owner’s right to a permit is generally governed by the zoning in effect when the application is filed, not by later changes. Lordstown clarifies that the principle protects an owner who has satisfied the requirements to apply for a permit, not one who has only begun a preliminary review. The decision turned on the developer’s lack of a vested right rather than on the validity of the moratorium itself. Whether a township moratorium would survive a direct challenge to the township’s statutory authority remains an open question. The Commercial Point dismissal leaves unresolved how the vested-rights rule applies where a developer alleges that its application was complete before a moratorium took effect.
Challenges also run in the other direction. In August 2026, the Supreme Court of Ohio ordered the Village of Ashville’s fiscal officer to certify a referendum petition challenging a council resolution that approved a term sheet with a data center developer. The Court held that the resolution did not state sufficient reasons to be passed as an emergency measure, which would have shielded it from referendum. On November 3, Ashville voters rejected the agreement with roughly 82% of the vote. At the township level, residents in Stark County have sued the Perry Township trustees, alleging that a noise ordinance amendment and a tax exemption resolution connected to a data center project were adopted in violation of Ohio’s Open Meetings Act and other statutory procedures. That case was filed in September in the Stark County Court of Common Pleas.
Where Things Stand
Voters have now weighed in. According to preliminary returns, Ohio voters considered 21 local data center measures on November 3, and each result favored limits on development. In Wilmington, voters overturned four rezonings covering nearly 550 acres that would have allowed data center development, and Grove City voters approved a charter amendment requiring voter approval for developments occupying at least 50 contiguous acres, drawing more than 20 megawatts at peak capacity, or consuming more than 500,000 gallons of water a day. Meanwhile, many of the moratoriums adopted over the past year will expire in the coming months, forcing trustees to decide whether to extend them, as Shalersville has done, replace them with permanent zoning standards, or let them lapse.
The election also changed the statewide picture. Governor DeWine, who paused new data center tax exemptions in May, leaves office in January. Governor-elect Amy Acton has said she supports a conditional moratorium on data centers until developers meet requirements addressing utility costs, union labor, transparency, environmental protection, and community benefits. At the Statehouse, House Bill 646 remains in the Senate Energy Committee as the General Assembly returns for its post-election session, and lawmakers have introduced other proposals pointing in opposite directions. Some would scale back or end state incentives for data centers, and others would limit the ability of state and local governments to restrict them. The current General Assembly ends on December 31, and any bill not passed by then must be reintroduced in the next session.
For now, several fundamental questions remain open. Can a township with no zoning resolution impose a moratorium at all? How long can a “temporary” pause last before a court treats it as something more permanent? And will state government step in, whether by giving townships the express authority the OTA has requested, by limiting local restrictions on data centers, or by adopting statewide standards of its own?
In Part Two of this series, we will examine what happens once township trustees make a decision, including how recent changes to the township zoning referendum process affect residents who oppose an approval, and what options remain for landowners and developers when trustees say no.
Contact
Whether you are a landowner weighing an offer from a data center developer, a developer evaluating a township site, or a public official working through these issues, KJK’s Real Estate Practice Group can help. Contact James Scherer (JJS@kjk.com) or Ted Theofrastous (TCT@kjk.com) to learn more.