Warrick County IN 180-day data center moratorium (2026)
Warrick County, Indiana — Commissioners Unanimously Pause Data Center Development for 180 Days at a Special 9 a.m. Meeting, After the Area Plan Commission Suspended Its Own Rules to Meet the Timeline (August 11, 2026)
Warrick County, IN · Warrick County, Ind. — 180-day data center moratorium (adopted August 11, 2026)
- Status
- In effect
- Expires
- February 7, 2027
- Applies to
- Developers seeking data center approvals in Warrick County during the 180-day pause
- Enforced by
- Warrick County Area Plan Commission / Warrick County Board of Commissioners
The Warrick County Board of Commissioners voted UNANIMOUSLY on Tuesday, August 11, 2026 to pause any data center development for 180 days. The votes came from Sarah Seaton, Stacey Franz and Terry Phillippe at a SPECIAL MEETING held at 9 a.m. The procedural urgency is the part worth recording. The evening before, the Warrick County Area Plan Commission voted to send the regulating ordinance to the commissioners and SUSPENDED ITS OWN RULES in order to meet the timeline for the special meeting. A plan commission suspending its rules and a board of commissioners convening a special morning session on consecutive days is not how routine zoning work proceeds; it is what a jurisdiction does when it believes an application may arrive before the pause is in place. Several entries in this dataset record jurisdictions that moved at ordinary speed and lost the project to a filing, an annexation agreement or a development agreement that landed first. Warrick County moved fast enough. The purpose of the 180 days is specific: to allow the county's DATA CENTER STUDY COMMITTEE to comb through a proposed ordinance regulating data centers in Warrick County and prepare it to come before the Area Plan Commission for recommendation, with the APC set to discuss that ordinance in November. Warrick County is in southwestern Indiana, near Evansville, in a state where nearly a third of counties had moved to restrict data centers by mid-2026.
Who is protected: Warrick County, Indiana residents
Legal detail
Warrick County, Ind. — 180-DAY MORATORIUM on data center development, approved UNANIMOUSLY by the Board of Commissioners at a SPECIAL MEETING at 9 a.m. on TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2026. VOTING COMMISSIONERS: SARAH SEATON, STACEY FRANZ and TERRY PHILLIPPE. PROCEDURAL POSTURE, and the notable feature: on the MONDAY EVENING immediately preceding, the WARRICK COUNTY AREA PLAN COMMISSION voted to send the ordinance to the commissioners and SUSPENDED ITS RULES TO MEET THE TIMELINE of the special meeting. Consecutive-day action, a rules suspension at the plan commission and a special morning commissioners' meeting together indicate a deliberate effort to have the pause in force before an application could be filed. THIS DATASET DOCUMENTS THE COST OF NOT DOING SO: Salem OR 120-day data center moratorium (Res. 2026-40) (application filed days before the vote), Rockford IL six-month data center moratorium (2026) (annexation agreement), Cle Elum WA emergency data center moratorium (2026) (2002 development agreement) and Lowell MA Markley data center diesel generator injunction (2026) (pre-moratorium plans preserved by settlement) each failed to reach the project that motivated them. Compare Gallatin TN 60-day data center application pause (2026), a 60-day holding action adopted for the same reason. PURPOSE OF THE 180 DAYS: to allow the county's DATA CENTER STUDY COMMITTEE to work through a proposed ordinance regulating data centers and prepare it to come before the Area Plan Commission for recommendation; the APC was set to discuss that ordinance in NOVEMBER. STRUCTURE WORTH NOTING: Warrick County had a study committee and a draft ordinance ALREADY IN PROGRESS when it adopted the pause, which is the inverse of the common pattern in which a jurisdiction adopts a moratorium and only then begins drafting \u2014 the 180-day term is correspondingly short because the work was already underway. STATE CONTEXT: nearly a third of Indiana counties had moved to restrict data centers by July 2026; other indexed Indiana measures include Portage IN Technology Campus district data center rules (2026), Madison County IN Six-Month Data Center Moratorium, Putnam County IN Data Center Moratorium and Boone County Data Center Moratorium.
Key facts
| Jurisdiction | Warrick County, IN |
|---|---|
| Level | County |
| Strength | Moderate |
| Enacted | August 11, 2026 |
| Citation | Warrick County, Ind. — 180-day data center moratorium (adopted August 11, 2026) |
| Private right of action | No, agency enforcement only |
| Penalties | Data center development may not be approved during the 180-day moratorium |
| Topics | data-center siting and energy · consumer protection · government use of AI |
| News report | Warrick County approves moratorium on data centers — Evansville Courier & Press |
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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