Chelsea AL one-year data center moratorium (2026)

Chelsea, Ala. (Shelby County, Birmingham metro) — ONE-YEAR MORATORIUM ON DATA CENTERS passed 2026-07-21. PROVENANCE IS THE NOTABLE FEATURE AND IS RECORDED DELIBERATELY: the measure was captured not from coverage of Chelsea's own vote but from a report on the WESTOVER council POSTPONING its data center moratorium, in which Chelsea was cited as the neighbouring comparison — 'The neighbouring city of Chelsea passed a one-year moratorium on data centers on July 21.' THIS IS A METHODOLOGICAL POINT WITH DATASET-WIDE IMPLICATIONS: a sweep keyed on headlines will miss any municipality whose measure received no dedicated story, and such measures surface only incidentally in coverage of some other jurisdiction. The Ohio finding quantifies the same problem from the other end — at least 138 Ohio municipalities and townships hold active data center moratoriums while this dataset indexes roughly ten, with the compiling outlet noting that many villages and small townships publish neither ordinances nor minutes online. INCIDENTAL CAPTURE IS THEREFORE A PARTIAL CORRECTIVE, AND ITS YIELD HERE WAS AN EXACT DATE, which most rows in this queue lack. ALABAMA CLUSTER: Tarrant AL 12-month data center moratorium (2026), Foley AL six-month data center moratorium (2026); Westover POSTPONED its own measure (a negative, recorded in the ledger); Brookwood approved annexation and rezoning for a proposed data center near a middle school (enabling). NOT ESTABLISHED: the vote, the adopting body's precise identity (`_body_type` city-council is an inference), the ordinance number, the operative scope, and any threshold.