Port Angeles WA six-month data center moratorium (2026)

Port Angeles, Wash. (Clallam County) — SIX-MONTH MORATORIUM on data centers, described as a TEMPORARY BAN ON ACCEPTING OR APPROVING NEW DATA-CENTER PROJECTS, LEFT UNCHANGED following a PUBLIC HEARING held by the City Council on TUESDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026. THE HEARING IS ITSELF THE PROCEDURAL POINT: under RCW 35A.63.220 and RCW 36.70A.390 a Washington city that adopts a moratorium or interim zoning control WITHOUT a prior public hearing must hold one WITHIN 60 DAYS of adoption and adopt findings of fact justifying the measure, and a moratorium may run up to SIX MONTHS (renewable for further six-month periods on further findings, or up to one year where a work plan is adopted). A six-month term plus a subsequent public hearing at which the council leaves the measure unchanged is exactly the shape of the § 35A.63.220 ratification step. THIS ENTRY DOES NOT ASSERT that the council made the statutory findings — the source does not say — but the sequence is consistent with it. TESTIMONY, BOTH DIRECTIONS: residents raised ELECTRICITY, WATER USE, NOISE AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS; BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVES cautioned against shutting the door on projects. THE SUBSTANTIVE CONTRIBUTION IS COUNCILMEMBER DREW SCHWAB'S REFRAMING, and it addresses the single most persistent drafting problem in this dataset. Quoted: 'As we move forward, I DON'T WANT TO DEFINE DATA CENTER. It doesn't matter if it's another industrial user. The elements that we don't want, these are the things we have identified that we do not care for, are not something we would allow to be able to be built in town.' Schwab's position is that the eventual regulations should FOCUS LESS ON DEFINING A 'DATA CENTER' AND MORE ON REGULATING THE IMPACTS OF LARGE RESOURCE USERS. THE DEFINITIONAL PROBLEM HE IS SOLVING IS REAL AND DOCUMENTED ACROSS THIS DATASET: Poway CA AI data center ban ordinance, first reading (2026) prohibits 'AI data centers' on a WORKLOAD basis, which an operator can defeat by characterising a facility as general-purpose colocation, and the ordinance's definition of the term was not obtainable; Marysville KS 12-month data center moratorium (2026) needed an enumerated inclusion list (hyperscale, cloud, colocation, AI, cryptocurrency) PLUS an express exclusion for ordinary server rooms and incidental IT equipment to be administrable; Clayton OH 365-day data center moratorium (2026) records staff observing a data center could be admitted as a WAREHOUSE-type use under a code with no definition; Palm Springs Data Center Moratorium (2026) and Forest Park GA 90-day data center moratorium (2026) record the same silence being exploited. AN IMPACT-THRESHOLD ORDINANCE — expressed in megawatts of demand, gallons of consumptive water use, and decibels at the property line — IS DEFINITION-PROOF, because it attaches to measurable effects rather than to a contestable label. It also aligns with the substantive standards already indexed: Latah County ID data center regulations (2026) (groundwater source prohibition plus annual electrical consumption and peak demand reporting) and Aurora CO evaporative cooling ban ordinance, first reading (2026) (which regulates the COOLING TECHNOLOGY citywide and building-agnostically, and is the nearest existing example of Schwab's approach). THE COUNTERVAILING DIFFICULTY, NOT ADDRESSED IN THE SOURCE AND FLAGGED HERE AS ANALYSIS: impact thresholds set low enough to capture data centers will also capture existing manufacturing, cold storage and other legitimate industrial users, so such ordinances typically need carve-outs that reintroduce definitional questions by another route. NO DATES FOR THE MORATORIUM'S ADOPTION OR EXPIRY WERE OBTAINED — see notes.