Ottawa IL data center moratorium extended to 2027

City of Ottawa, Ill. (LaSalle County) — extension of the city's temporary data center moratorium, passed UNANIMOUSLY by ordinance in mid-August 2026, running THROUGH AUGUST 25, 2027. TERRITORIAL SCOPE: ALL ZONING DISTRICTS within the city — no district carve-outs, which distinguishes it from the single-district and industrial-only instruments elsewhere in this dataset. STATED RATIONALE, and the reason this entry is recorded separately: the city cited STATE INACTION on legislation that would set guidelines for how Illinois communities regulate data centers. The Illinois POWER ACT, which would address data center energy and water demands, STALLED IN THE SPRING 2026 LEGISLATIVE SESSION. Ottawa has been DRAFTING ITS OWN DATA CENTER ORDINANCE but is deliberately holding it so that local rules ALIGN with whatever the state ultimately enacts. INSTRUMENT CLASS \u2014 A DISTINCT CATEGORY: this is not a study-period moratorium. The city is not gathering information; it is waiting for a superior legal framework to exist so its own ordinance is not superseded or contradicted on adoption. A municipality in this posture will extend for as long as the state remains silent, which makes the expiry date a function of legislative calendars rather than local readiness. Compare Elma WA temporary ALPR moratorium (2026), which pauses pending a state Attorney General model policy in a different subject area, and Utica MI data center moratorium extension (2026), where the city attorney is waiting to see other communities' decisions. ILLINOIS CONTEXT: the Governor paused state data center INCENTIVES; the Village of Godfrey extended its own moratorium through 2027-01-31 (Godfrey IL data center moratorium extension (2026)); Rockford adopted a six-month pause (Rockford IL six-month data center moratorium (2026)); GovTech reported Illinois cities and counties acting broadly on data center rules.