Livingston County just blocked rezoning 1,000+ acres of Michigan farmland for a Meta-backed AI data center, putting a hard brake on adding new GPU-capable capacity in this region.
The fight centers on core infra issues—power costs, water draw even with proposed dry cooling, and local tolerance for the noise, light, and grid upgrades a hyperscale build would demand.
With a possible six-month moratorium coming, this is a clean example of how community and land-use pushback can slow AI data center rollout and is worth a closer read.
The question to me is why isn’t Meta doing massive levels of community outreach? It seems there is a lot going on about this particular data center, especially the fact that Meta as the organization using it had to be “leaked” (see previous coverage here).
Source: Livingston County planning commission rejects farmland rezoning for AI data center
