Cumberland RI data center zoning prohibition, Ordinance 26-22 (2026)

Cumberland, R.I. (Providence County) — ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENT listing DATA CENTERS AS A PROHIBITED USE, adopted by the TOWN COUNCIL 6-1 ON ROLL CALL on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2026 as ORDINANCE 26-22. Taken up for public hearing as OLD BUSINESS; meeting called to order at 7:31 p.m. with ALL SEVEN COUNCIL MEMBERS RECORDED PRESENT. SUBCOMMITTEE HISTORY: reported out of the ordinance subcommittee's SEPTEMBER 2 meeting with favourable passage on a 2-1 vote. INSTRUMENT: this is a CODE-LEVEL PROHIBITION, not a moratorium — data centers are 'now listed as a prohibited use under Cumberland's zoning ordinance.' Cohort: Irwindale CA data center ban ordinance (2026), Monterey Park Data Center Ban (Measure NDC), Jersey City NJ data center ban in industrial zones (Ord. 26-057), Edgewater FL AI data center ban (2026), Los Angeles County prohibition on data centers in unincorporated areas (2026) (this wave). THE SPONSOR'S ACCOUNT OF ORIGIN IS THE MOST EXPLICIT DESCRIPTION OF LOCAL-MEASURE PROPAGATION IN THIS DATASET AND IS WORTH RECORDING AS SUCH. District 4 Councilor JODI SWEET said the idea came to her AFTER WATCHING A NEIGHBOURING RHODE ISLAND TOWN FACE A DATA CENTER PROPOSAL; she then examined state activity and FOUND MOST RELATED BILLS SAT IN COMMITTEE THIS LEGISLATIVE SESSION. THAT IS THE MECHANISM THIS DATASET KEEPS RECORDING FROM THE OUTSIDE, stated from the inside: municipalities legislate because the state has not, and they learn the template from the neighbour that got the application first. Compare the same dynamic at Marysville KS 12-month data center moratorium (2026) and Sauk County WI 18-month data center moratorium (2026) (both pre-emptive, no pending project). STAFF WORK: PLANNING DIRECTOR AMELIA MORTON and TOWN DIRECTOR ROMEO MENDES prepared a REPORT WITH STATISTICS ATTACHED TO THE ORDINANCE — i.e. the findings are part of the legislative record, which matters for defensibility. FIGURES CITED BY THE SPONSOR ON THE RECORD (her assertions, not independently verified): data centers have grown significantly larger since roughly 2023; a facility can use more energy per day than an entire small city; ELECTRICITY PRICES IN VIRGINIA ROSE 267% OVER FIVE YEARS; A LARGE-SCALE DATA CENTER CAN USE AS MUCH WATER PER DAY AS 16,000 HOUSEHOLDS, 'close to the number of households in Cumberland'; Rhode Island received ONLY 80% OF NORMAL RAINFALL from June 2025 to May 2026. THE WATER COMPARISON IS THE RHETORICALLY DECISIVE ONE AND IS STRUCTURALLY THE SAME MOVE made at Marion County FL 12-month large data center moratorium (2026) (Commissioner Bryant: a 49 MW facility equals 10,000-15,000 households) and Eureka CA data center moratorium and 20,000 sq ft cap direction (2026) (staff: 1 MW ≈ 500-1,000 homes) — expressing facility demand in household-equivalents, here applied to WATER rather than electricity and calibrated to the town's own size. SHE ALSO DESCRIBED an expanding data center in a Massachusetts city, currently 352,000 SQ FT, built next to a neighbourhood, with residents dealing with NOISE AND DIESEL FUMES FROM 27 BACKUP GENERATORS — the diesel-backup impact recited in the Irwindale CA data center ban ordinance (2026) findings, here as an observed case. SPONSOR'S STATED PURPOSE: to ensure power companies, the state and tech corporations 'GET THEMSELVES IN ORDER' before anyone tries to build such a facility in town. SHE EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGED THE PROHIBITION'S REVERSIBILITY: 'no law or ordinance is forever' — the same durability point recorded at Irwindale CA data center ban ordinance (2026), where the mayor confirmed no ballot initiative was planned, in contrast to Monterey Park's voter-enacted Measure NDC. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: four members of the public spoke, ALL IN FAVOUR, including a speaker living just over the town line who works in Cumberland and cited threats to electricity and water bills and to local natural resource areas. THE DISSENTING COUNCILOR IS NOT NAMED and the ordinance's operative definition of 'data center' WAS NOT OBTAINED.