Champaign County IL one-year data center moratorium (2026)
Champaign County, Illinois — County Board Unanimously Passes a One-Year Data Center Moratorium in April 2026 After More Than 100 Residents Packed the Chamber Carrying 'Protect Our Water' Signs, Creating a Task Force to Write Zoning Standards for Undeveloped Land
Champaign County, IL · Champaign County, Ill. — one-year data center moratorium (passed unanimously, April 2026)
- Status
- In effect
- Expires
- April 23, 2027
- Applies to
- Developers seeking large-scale data center approvals in Champaign County during the one-year moratorium
- Enforced by
- Champaign County Board; county zoning administration
The Champaign County Board UNANIMOUSLY passed a one-year data center moratorium in April 2026, giving a newly created task force time to develop ZONING STANDARDS FOR UNDEVELOPED LAND in the county. More than a hundred people packed the county board's tight chambers on April 23, 2026, carrying signs reading 'PROTECT OUR WATER' and 'APPROVE THE MORATORIUM,' to support pressing pause on large-scale data center development. Two things make this entry worth recording beyond the measure itself. The timing is early — April 2026, well before the June-to-September wave that produced most of the local instruments in this dataset, and at a point when a county pausing data centers was still unusual. And the task force's remit is unusually precise: not 'study data centers' in the abstract, but develop zoning standards for UNDEVELOPED LAND. That framing identifies the actual exposure for a largely agricultural county in east central Illinois — large parcels with no existing use designation, which is exactly what a hyperscale developer looks for and exactly the category most rural zoning codes address least. A county that names undeveloped land as the problem is further along in its analysis than one that simply pauses everything. Illinois context: the state's POWER Act stalled in the spring session, which is why Ottawa extended its own moratorium into 2027 explicitly to wait for state rules that never came.
Who is protected: Champaign County, Illinois residents; county groundwater and agricultural land
Legal detail
Champaign County, Ill. — ONE-YEAR DATA CENTER MORATORIUM passed UNANIMOUSLY by the County Board in APRIL 2026. TASK FORCE REMIT, and the analytically interesting part: the moratorium gives a NEW TASK FORCE time to DEVELOP ZONING STANDARDS FOR UNDEVELOPED LAND IN THE COUNTY. That is a materially more precise mandate than the open-ended 'study the impacts' remit most moratoriums in this dataset confer. UNDEVELOPED LAND IS THE CORRECT TARGET for a largely agricultural county: large unzoned or minimally-zoned parcels are what a hyperscale developer seeks, and rural codes typically address them least \u2014 the same structural gap that let a data center be readable as a WAREHOUSE in Clayton OH 365-day data center moratorium (2026) and that Forest Park, Georgia discovered when Digital Realty built BY RIGHT (Forest Park GA 90-day data center moratorium (2026)). PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: more than 100 people packed the county board chambers on APRIL 23, 2026 carrying signs reading 'PROTECT OUR WATER' and 'APPROVE THE MORATORIUM'. TIMING: April 2026 places Champaign County among the EARLY ADOPTERS, months ahead of the June-September 2026 wave that produced the majority of instruments indexed here, and before the statewide actions (NY Hochul EO — Statewide Data Center Moratorium (2026) in July, Pennsylvania EO 2026-05 data center restrictions (2026) in August) that accelerated it. EXPIRY: a one-year term from April 2026 lapses around APRIL 2027 \u2014 among the earlier expiries in this dataset, alongside Groveland Township MI one-year data center moratorium (2026) (February 2027). ILLINOIS CONTEXT: the state POWER Act STALLED in the spring 2026 legislative session, which is the express reason Ottawa IL data center moratorium extended to 2027 extended through 2027-08-25 \u2014 Illinois counties and municipalities have been acting without the state framework they expected. Other indexed Illinois measures: Rockford IL six-month data center moratorium (2026) and Godfrey IL data center moratorium extension (2026).
Key facts
| Jurisdiction | Champaign County, IL |
|---|---|
| Level | County |
| Strength | Moderate |
| Enacted | April 23, 2026 |
| Citation | Champaign County, Ill. — one-year data center moratorium (passed unanimously, April 2026) |
| Private right of action | No, agency enforcement only |
| Penalties | Large-scale data center development may not be approved during the one-year moratorium |
| Topics | data-center siting and energy · consumer protection · government use of AI |
| News report | As people protest data centers across the Heartland, lawmakers rush to regulate — MPR News |
Related data-center siting and energy rules elsewhere
- Superior WI Data Center Moratorium (1-year) · In effect
- Dane County WI Hyperscale Data Center Moratorium · In effect
- Madison WI Data Center Moratorium (1-year) · In effect
- Manitowoc County WI Data Center Moratorium · In effect
- WA SB 5982 (Data Center / Clean Energy) · In effect
- Dayton OH data center moratorium (180-day, Apr 2026) · In effect
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