The Oneida County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to impose a one-year moratorium on new data center development in the county's zoned areas, giving the Planning and Development Committee time to study the industry's impacts before drafting permanent rules.
The board approved Resolution 56-2026/Ordinance Amendment 02-2026, amending Section 9.57 of the county's zoning and shoreland protection ordinance — a section that previously covered a since-expired livestock facility moratorium and was repurposed for data centers.
What it does
For 12 months, the county won't accept, process or issue permits for new data center development or expansion in unincorporated, zoned areas, unless the board extends or replaces the moratorium sooner. It doesn't apply retroactively to projects that already held valid permits, and officials said no data center applications are currently pending. The rule applies only in towns that have adopted county zoning; extending it to unzoned towns would require those towns to adopt full zoning first, staff said.
The ordinance defines a data center as a facility primarily housing servers, network equipment and data storage systems, along with supporting mechanical, electrical, cooling and security infrastructure.
Why now
County staff said data centers aren't addressed anywhere in current zoning code, meaning a proposed project today would be reviewed case-by-case as an unregulated land use. The ordinance cites potential impacts including heavy electrical demand, industrial-scale cooling systems, noise, emergency generators and fuel storage, and construction traffic near residential and agricultural land.
The resolution passed unanimously, 20-0. A full story on the board action will be published in our next edition.
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