St. Joseph County Council rejected rezoning for a massive 14-building data center complex near New Carlisle after months of debate and an eight-hour meeting.
The project would have added another hyperscale footprint next to Amazon’s already enormous data center buildout in the area, signaling this corridor was on track to become a major Midwest compute and AI hub.
Supporters stressed the lost property tax revenue opportunity, which matters as AI-scale data centers can materially shift local fiscal baselines due to their power density and long-lived infrastructure.
Opponents focused on preserving rural character and clearly had enough political leverage to override both a heavy PR campaign and backing from county party leadership.
From an AI infrastructure lens, this is another example of local siting risk: even power-accessible land near an existing hyperscale campus can be blocked by community pushback and land-use politics.
The decision underscores that large GPU and cloud builds now face not just supply and power constraints, but also rising social and regulatory resistance at the county level.
Worth a read for anyone modeling where the next wave of AI data center capacity can realistically land and what can still derail it late in the process.
Source: Council denies rezoning for data center near New Carlisle
