California City Becomes First in U.S. to Vote a Datacenter Ban

Voters in Monterey Park, California, have approved a permanent, citywide datacenter ban at the ballot box, making the Los Angeles-area community the first in the United States where residents themselves, rather than a city council, have directly outlawed the facilities. Early results pointed to a lopsided verdict: as of 2 a.m. Pacific Time, 86.3 per cent of the more than 7,000 votes counted favoured the prohibition.

The measure needed only a simple majority of at least 51 per cent to pass. The margin was wide enough that city councilmember Jose Sanchez declared a “landslide victory” for residents who, in his words, do not want to live near datacenters, even before official results were finalized.

“[This] shows unequivocally that residents in Monterey Park do not want datacenters in their community. We hope that other communities will use the model set by residents here in Monterey Park as inspiration to stop data centers from encroaching in their backyard.”

Why the Monterey Park datacenter ban is a first

Plenty of American towns have pushed back on datacenters. What sets Monterey Park apart is the mechanism. Many cities and counties have already passed temporary or indefinite moratoriums through their local governments, but Monterey Park is the first to do it through a citizen ballot initiative.

That distinction matters. A council ordinance can be reversed by a future council; a voter-approved ban is harder to undo and, the city argues, easier to defend in court.

What did the ballot measure actually say?

The ballot question asked residents to approve banning datacenters citywide for a specific set of reasons. The official measure framed the prohibition this way:

• Protect air quality
• Protect drinking water resources
• Protect public health
• Prevent impacts to electricity and water rates

Under the approved rule, the ban stays in place “until ended by voters” — a deliberate design choice meant to lock it in.

How the vote came together

The result did not arrive out of nowhere. Monterey Park’s city council had already passed an indefinite moratorium on datacenters in April, after growing anger toward HMC StratCap, an investment company pushing to build a facility in the city. That proposed project would have covered nearly 250,000 square feet. Developers have since withdrawn the application.

Residents had raised a familiar set of objections: potential environmental harm, rising utility prices, and the sheer proximity of an industrial-scale facility to their homes.

Sanchez said the council pursued a ballot measure specifically to “make the ban on datacenters a lot more permanent” and because a direct vote would carry more weight in court. That mattered: HMC StratCap had threatened to sue over a possible extension of the moratorium and over the measure itself.

“Being able to go to court and say the residents of Monterey Park voted to ban datacenters is a much better gauge of where our residents are versus, only five city council members voted for an ordinance.”

The developer had pushed back on the wording before the vote. In a 4 March letter to the city council, HMC StratCap called the measure biased, writing that “the proposition is written in a manner that would greatly prejudice voters in favor of the measure.” After the results came in, developers indicated they would not pursue legal action.

Is local resistance to datacenters spreading?

Yes. While Monterey Park is the first U.S. city to enact a ban through a ballot initiative, several other communities are turning to voters in different ways to keep a tighter grip on datacenter development.

• Port Washington, Wisconsin: Voters approved a measure requiring local officials to get voter approval before offering tax incentives to datacenter developers.
• Augusta township, Michigan: Residents are set to vote in August on a referendum focused on rezoning 500 acres of land for a proposed datacenter.
• Janesville, Wisconsin: In November, the city is expected to vote on a measure requiring voter approval before greenlighting any datacenter project costing more than US$450 million.

The mood looks national rather than local. According to a new Gallup poll, seven in 10 Americans oppose the construction of AI datacenters in their own areas.

How is the industry responding?

The Data Center Coalition (DCC), a trade association that tracks these facilities across the country, opposes the Monterey Park measure and warns it sends a “signal that the area is closed for business.” The group, which has championed datacenter expansion, said it is not aware of any other datacenter-related ballot measures approved beyond the Monterey Park and Port Washington proposals. Sanchez said he was not aware of any either.

“It would deprive local residents of the opportunity to compete for jobs and investment, while also causing the area to relinquish substantial long-term economic investment, high-wage jobs, and critical tax revenue to neighboring areas or other states.”

That comment, from DCC director Khara Boender, captures the central tension in datacenter fights everywhere: communities weighing promised jobs and tax revenue against worries over water, electricity, and the character of their neighbourhoods.

What the California datacenter ban means for Canadians

The Monterey Park vote is an American story, but the friction underneath it travels easily across the border. Datacenters — especially the energy-hungry facilities built to power artificial intelligence — draw heavily on electricity and water, two resources that Canadian provinces and municipalities also manage closely.

As demand for computing capacity climbs, local debates over where these facilities belong, what they cost ratepayers, and who gets a say are likely to surface in communities well beyond California. For more on how technology shifts ripple into Canadian life, see our Technology news coverage, and for the energy-and-cost angle, our Business section.

The broader signal from Monterey Park is procedural as much as it is about technology. By putting the question directly to residents, the city created a precedent others may study when they want a decision that is harder to reverse and easier to defend if challenged. You can read the official measure details on the City of Monterey Park’s website.

The takeaway

Whether the ballot-box model spreads will come down to local politics, but the appetite for a direct say does not appear confined to one corner of one state. With seven in 10 Americans wary of AI datacenters in their neighbourhoods, expect more communities — on both sides of the border — to ask not just whether a datacenter is welcome, but who gets to decide.