Contested Data Center Projects: Lessons From Prince William, Peculiar, Tucson and Other Public Fights

For most of the last two decades, a data center rezoning in a supportive county was a local formality. That has changed. Data Center Watch, a research group that tracks opposition, reported in 2025 that about $64 billion of U.S. projects had been blocked or delayed by local opposition over roughly two years, with $18 billion blocked outright and $46 billion delayed.⁵ It counted at least 142 activist groups across 24 states, and found that public officials opposing projects were split across parties, 55% Republican and 45% Democrat.⁵

The pace has increased. The group’s first-quarter 2026 report said at least 75 projects worth about $130 billion were disrupted in those three months, roughly matching its count for all of 2025.⁶ The authors caution that delays have many causes, including utility availability, regulation and market conditions, so the totals are an indicator rather than a precise measure.⁵

For a landowner or developer, the practical point is that an approval can be slowed, reversed or voided after significant money has been spent. The cases below are public and well reported. Each one shows a different way a project became contested and what, in hindsight, would have shown up in diligence. They complement the general guidance in community engagement and local concerns and the screening approach in data center moratoriums and local restrictions.

The PW Digital Gateway in western Prince William County, Virginia, was planned as more than 2,100 acres and 37 data centers.¹² The Board of County Supervisors approved three rezonings (Compass, DG North and DG South) in December 2023 after a hearing that ran about 27 hours.⁷

Neighboring Oak Valley homeowners sued. In August 2025, Circuit Court Judge Kimberly Irving found that the county’s public notice for the December 2023 hearings did not meet state or county code, and that the county, not the newspaper, caused the defect.¹ In November 2025 the Court of Appeals barred construction while the appeal was pending.¹² On March 31, 2026, the Court of Appeals of Virginia unanimously affirmed that the rezonings were void from the outset.⁷ QTS, the remaining developer, dropped its last appeal in July 2026, ending the project.¹³

The lesson is procedural. A law-firm analysis of the case warned that notice defects could invalidate rezoning approvals, whatever the merits.¹⁴ For an applicant, that means confirming that every required advertisement actually ran. Notice is a step the applicant does not control but bears the risk of. The mechanics are covered in public hearings for data center projects.

In 2024, Diode Ventures, a subsidiary of Black & Veatch, proposed the Harper Road Technology Park in Peculiar, about 20 miles south of Kansas City: a roughly $1.5 billion campus on about 500 acres, with site plans showing up to seven 300,000-square-foot buildings. The city had made the use possible by adding a “data center” definition to its light industrial zoning code.²

Residents organized under the slogan “Don’t Dump Data on Peculiar,” citing noise, visual impact and property values, and asking for larger buffers, hidden power poles and more sound mitigation.² Attendance grew until officials moved meetings from City Hall to the local Lions Club.¹⁵ After the planning commission proposed removing data centers from the light industrial district, the Board of Aldermen did so, and data centers were no longer a permitted use in the city.² The mayor, who had announced the project, publicly criticized the pressure on aldermen, but the reversal stood.²

The lesson is that a use permitted by recent text amendment is only as durable as the board that adopted it. A by-right path created months earlier, for one project, is effectively a legislative decision that the next meeting can undo. Where possible, the safer position is vested rights under a filed and approved site plan or a development agreement, as discussed in development agreements for data center projects.

Project Blue was proposed by Beale Infrastructure on a roughly 290-acre site that needed annexation into Tucson, in part to reach city water service.³ In August 2025, after a packed council chamber and sustained opposition over water and energy use, the Tucson City Council voted unanimously to end negotiations and remove the annexation and development agreement from its agenda. The mayor also started work on an ordinance to limit future data centers.³

The project did not end there. Pima County had already approved a rezoning and land sale, and on December 16, 2025, the Board of Supervisors voted 3–2 to approve a binding agreement with Beale.⁸ In September 2025, after the city vote, the developer said it would switch to a closed-loop, air-cooled design that would not use water to cool equipment.⁹

Two lessons follow. First, a site that depends on a city for water, sewer or annexation gives that city a veto, even if county zoning is favorable; see annexation, jurisdiction and utility service areas. Second, in water-stressed regions the cooling design is part of the entitlement case. A plan that can run on closed-loop cooling or reclaimed water removes the most common objection before the hearing, which is why water stress and drought risk belongs in the first screen.

In Franklin Township on the south side of Indianapolis, a Google-affiliated entity filed in March 2025 to rezone about 468 acres for a four-building campus. The Metropolitan Development Commission approved it 8–1, but on September 22, 2025, Google withdrew the petition shortly before the City-County Council vote.¹⁰ Hundreds of residents filled the assembly room and two overflow rooms. Their concerns included water, power, flooding, tax exemptions, noise and nondisclosure agreements, after it emerged that a councilor had signed an NDA about the project.⁴

Bessemer, Alabama, shows the other end of the process. Residents near the site of the $14.5 billion Project Marvel filed suit in April 2025, arguing the rezoning was arbitrary spot zoning inconsistent with surrounding uses and any comprehensive plan. A temporary restraining order paused the council; the city then restarted the notice and rezoning process and gave final approval in November 2025.¹¹ The case was dismissed with prejudice in June 2026, more than a year after filing.¹¹ The developer has since said it will seek to rezone about 900 more acres.¹⁶

Confidentiality is normal early in a search, but it has a cost once a public process starts. The trade-offs are set out in confidentiality and project code names.

Three themes recur. Procedure matters as much as merits: notice, the record and plan consistency are what courts review.⁷¹¹ Physical burdens drive turnout: water, noise, power lines and rates come up in nearly every case.³⁴ And opposition is not partisan, so a county’s politics are a poor predictor of how a hearing will go.⁵ Local fights increasingly feed state policy as well; see state data center legislation trends.

• Read the comprehensive plan designation and recent text amendments: a use added in the last year or two is a political choice that can be reversed.
• Map who controls water, sewer, annexation and the road network. Each one is a separate approval and a separate place to say no.
• Count the homes within sight and earshot, and identify historic, park or battlefield land nearby.
• Ask the clerk how notice is published and keep proof of every advertisement, mailing and posting.
• Decide early what will be public: end user, water source, cooling design, noise limits, tax treatment.
• Check whether neighboring jurisdictions have adopted moratoria or new ordinances in the last year.

None of these items decides a case alone, and local counsel should confirm procedural requirements. Together they show whether a site is likely to become the next public fight. If you want an outside view before committing, you can get a site reviewed.