Garfield Township MI data center and crypto mining ban (2026)

Charter Township of Garfield, Mich. (Grand Traverse County) — one-year temporary ban on DATA CENTERS AND CRYPTOCURRENCY MINING FACILITIES, approved unanimously by the Township Board on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, with a discretionary SIX-MONTH EXTENSION available if the board deems it necessary. PROCEDURAL ARCHITECTURE — THE POINT OF THIS ENTRY: the Township Planning Commission first recommended an AMENDMENT TO THE ZONING ORDINANCE authorizing temporary bans, and the moratorium was adopted under that amended authority rather than as a freestanding ordinance or resolution. Township officials stated the reason expressly: municipalities that enacted 'knee-jerk moratoriums' without that groundwork 'are being challenged and losing in court because they didn't go through the process that we went through.' This is the clearest statement in the dataset of the legal-durability difference between a moratorium grounded in amended zoning authority and one adopted ad hoc, and it is the transferable lesson for any jurisdiction drafting one. SCOPE: covers cryptocurrency mining alongside data centers, closing the gap that data-center-only language leaves. PURPOSE: time to update the township zoning ordinance to address such projects. PRACTICAL EFFECT: likely stalls a proposal by Illinois-based developer Tom Cervenka to repurpose a Cass Road building as a small-scale data center — note this is a SMALL-scale project, so the ban is not limited to hyperscale. STATE CONTEXT: Michigan legislators were concurrently pushing a statewide data center freeze; environmental groups were still pressing lawmakers on a state moratorium and regulations as of 2026-09-14.