Howard County suspends data center development until fall 2027

Amid growing opposition to data center development nationwide, the Howard County Council unanimously passed a temporary moratorium on the development of new data centers to study their impacts.

The bill’s sponsor, Christiana Rigby, said the pause is necessary because the county’s existing zoning framework for data centers, which dates to 1993, does not fully account for the scale, impacts and operational characteristics of modern facilities.

The legislation creates a task force to study data centers’ impacts and advise the council on next steps.

The suspension comes as the council is barred from making changes to the zoning code until after November’s general election. Rigby said the moratorium, which ends Nov. 2, 2027, is intended to give the incoming council time to complete the spring 2027 budget cycle, hear testimony and vote on the task force’s recommendations.

She called the moratorium passed Monday evening a “balanced approach” and acknowledged that data centers will likely play an important role in the county’s redevelopment plan for the Columbia Gateway district.

Rigby said the moratorium is not intended to permanently block data centers, nor will it affect existing facilities or those approved for construction.

“We’re not looking at just a ban for a ban’s sake,” Rigby said. “We’re saying how and where data centers will be in Howard County. I’m excited to gain more recommendations for the innovative ways we can use data centers in our community.”

Americans are increasingly scrutinizing the environmental and economic impacts of data centers. Questions about their job creation and energy and water consumption have sparked grassroots efforts to block them in many places across the country.

Howard County has a few data centers already. There’s a large one in Laurel on Eternal Rings Drive, with another in the works at the same location. The University of Maryland Medical System owns a data center in Columbia that is partly powered through a solar energy agreement. Cogent Communications operates a center in Elkridge on Race Road.

The county collected about $552,000 in revenue from data centers in the 2025 tax year.

Howard County’s moratorium aligns it with several Maryland jurisdictions that have paused data center development until further study can be conducted.

The Baltimore County Council voted in February to temporarily freeze data center development until 2027 to give the planning board time to develop recommendations for regulation.

Prince George’s County passed a moratorium last fall and created a task force of elected officials, environmental advocates, labor unions and industry representatives, prompted in part by opposition to a proposed hyperscale data center near the former Landover Mall site. Such facilities typically occupy more than a million square feet and host at least 5,000 servers.

Harford County is considering a permanent ban on data centers, with a public hearing scheduled for June 9.

Some Howard residents, environmental groups and the Howard County Association of Realtors testified in favor of the bill in May.

The bill “gives Howard County time to develop the rules we need before we’re locked into decisions that will affect our community’s infrastructure, with environmental and budget consequences for decades,” wrote Carl Latkin, a representative for the Howard County Sierra Club, in a May 18 letter to the council.

Groups representing the state’s building and tech industries, such as the Maryland Tech Council and the Maryland chapters of the commercial real estate group NAIOP, testified that developing a policy was reasonable, but the pause on data center applications was unnecessary.

“A blanket data center moratorium sends a negative market signal that may not be easily reversed at the end of the moratorium,” wrote Tom Ballentine, NAIOP Maryland’s vice president for policy, in a letter to the council.

Ballentine called for data center developers, owners and operators to be represented on the county’s task force.

Ahead of Monday’s vote, council members approved an amendment requiring task force members to have expertise in utilities infrastructure, water resource management, climate resilience, environmental science, acoustic mitigation, economic development, and data center development and operations. Two members must also be representatives of building trades unions.

Council members will each appoint one member to the 11-person task force and the county executive will appoint the remaining six. Part of the task force’s work will be to hold a hearing for public comment. The task force has a year to deliver its findings to the council and county executive.