Ashville, Ohio just imposed a 180-day moratorium on new data center zoning, directly targeting expansion plans like the EdgeConneX campus.
The pause does not touch land EdgeConneX already controls and that is pre-zoned, so some build-out remains possible even while new applications are frozen.
Resident pushback centers on quality-of-life impacts—noise, light, and perceived health and safety risks—which translates into political risk and permitting friction for future AI and cloud builds.
The moratorium also buys time for a newly seated council and mayor, signaling governance instability that operators must factor into site-selection and project-timing models.
Neighboring municipalities in central Ohio, including South Bloomfield and Washington Township, are also enacting moratoriums, with at least one township exploring an indefinite data center ban.
Emergency services capacity, particularly fire response, is emerging as a specific constraint and bargaining point, not just generic “infrastructure” concern.
The article is worth a read to track how local politics and community resistance are starting to shape the real site-level risk profile for AI-scale data centers.
Source: After public pushback, Pickaway County village enacts data center pause | NBC4 WCMH-TV
