Ottawa, Kansas Approves 10-Year Moratorium on Large Data Centers After Resident Campaign

Voters in Ottawa, Kansas, have approved a decade-long ban on data centers with a capacity exceeding 25MW, marking a significant victory for local residents who organized against a proposed hyperscale facility that had already been withdrawn before the vote took place. The ordinance, passed during a poll held alongside the 2026 US midterm elections last week, received backing from 71.85 percent of voters in the Franklin County community.

The moratorium represents the culmination of a grassroots campaign led by Ottawa United, a group formed specifically to oppose a 450MW data center proposed for Proximity Park, a 300-acre site in the city. The project had been under discussion for more than 18 months, with the Ottawa City Commission agreeing to sell the land to developer Lightfield Energy LLC, which intended to build both a data center and a natural gas power plant on the property. However, negotiations between the parties failed to produce a development agreement, and councilors terminated the sale agreement at a meeting in September.

Jessica Christopher of Ottawa United told KMBC News that the coalition drew support from across the political spectrum, reflecting widespread opposition to data centers that has intensified across the United States in recent months. "It was a mix between Republicans and Democrats and a bunch of unaffiliated voters," she said. "And we all just came together for a common good, which is why we named it Ottawa United."

The vote in Ottawa is part of a broader wave of local resistance to data center development. Two other Kansas communities, Emporia and El Dorado, approved similar moratoriums during last week's elections, and more than 40 related pieces of legislation were backed by voters across the country at the midterms. The trend underscores growing concern among residents about the power consumption, land use, and environmental impact of large-scale computing facilities, even as demand for data center capacity continues to surge driven by artificial intelligence and cloud computing workloads.