Ohio bill to prohibit data center property tax exemptions (2026)

OHIO — BILL INTRODUCED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES earlier in September 2026 by 'a group of Ohio House members LARGELY REPRESENTING URBAN AREAS OF THE STATE' to PROHIBIT PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTIONS FOR DATA CENTERS. STATUS: INTRODUCED ONLY. No bill number, sponsor names, committee referral or action is reported in the located source. THE INSTRUMENT CLASS IS THE POINT. This dataset is overwhelmingly composed of LAND-USE instruments — moratoria on accepting, processing or approving applications; conditional use requirements; district confinement; setbacks; outright prohibitions. Those determine WHERE a facility may be built. A PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTION DETERMINES WHETHER IT PENCILS. Repealing the exemption forbids nothing and requires no zoning authority; it withdraws a public subsidy. THE FISCAL-LEVER COHORT IS SMALL AND NEWLY VISIBLE: New Jersey Quijano AI data center delay and study commission bill (2026) (delaying subsidies and tax incentives alongside approvals), the Illinois pause on state data center incentives (recorded as a lead from Troy IL reporting), and on the other side of the ledger the Indianapolis Metropolitan Development Commission's approval of a $240 MILLION TAX BREAK for Sabey Data Centers (dispositioned as an enabling subsidy). WHY URBAN LEGISLATORS: property tax exemptions are described as 'a significant tool that can have a big impact on LOCAL GOVERNMENT BUDGETS.' Ohio property tax abatements for data centers shift the burden of school district and municipal revenue foregone, and the sponsoring bloc's composition tracks that incidence. THE SOURCE IS A POLICY COMMENTARY and applies a three-part test — 'does it work, does it help, and who does it help' — reporting on the first that OLDER LITERATURE on economic development incentives finds only ABOUT 2 TO 25 PERCENT of economic development projects make location decisions based on incentives, while NEWER STUDIES FOCUSED SPECIFICALLY ON DATA CENTER INCENTIVES reach different conclusions (the retrieved text is truncated before the newer studies' finding is stated, and it is NOT inferred here). THAT EMPIRICAL QUESTION IS THE CRUX: if incentives do not move siting decisions, repeal costs nothing in investment and recovers revenue; if data center siting is unusually incentive-sensitive, repeal is a de facto exclusion achieved without zoning. THE ENTRY DOES NOT RESOLVE IT. OHIO CONTEXT, AND IT IS THE MOST EXTENSIVE LOCAL RESPONSE RECORDED ANYWHERE IN THIS DATASET: separate reporting establishes that AT LEAST 138 OHIO MUNICIPALITIES AND TOWNSHIPS HAD ACTIVE DATA CENTER MORATORIUMS AS OF 2026-09-17, that 23 COMMUNITIES HAVE EFFECTIVELY BANNED DATA CENTERS, and that AT LEAST 23 MORE ACROSS SEVEN COUNTIES are considering similar proposals — with the true count likely higher because many villages and small townships do not publish ordinances or minutes online. THIS DATASET INDEXES ONLY A HANDFUL OF THOSE (Lima OH 18-month data center + water service moratorium (2026), Canton OH data center zoning chapter (2026), Twinsburg OH 12-month data center moratorium (2026-065), Clayton OH 365-day data center moratorium (2026), Columbus OH proposed data center regulations — water, sewer, decommissioning (vote expected Aug 24+), Jackson Township OH One-Year Moratorium on Data Centers, McDonald OH one-year data center moratorium (2026) and Pioneer OH six-month data center moratorium (2026) from this sweep), SO OHIO COVERAGE HERE IS KNOWN TO BE A SMALL FRACTION OF THE ACTUAL PICTURE. A statewide repeal of the property tax exemption would operate across all 138 at once, which is the argument for a state fiscal instrument over municipal zoning: uniform reach without 138 separate enactments. NOT OBTAINED: the bill number, the sponsors by name, the bill text, whether the prohibition is prospective or would reach existing abatements, any megawatt or investment threshold, and committee referral.