A Big Week for Data Centers in MoCo - Why We Urge a Moratorium
The short version: MoCo Alliance is pushing Montgomery County to pause a zoning change that would fast-track data centers until grid, water, and equity impacts are actually studied.
Our Take
Credit to MoCoAlliance for flagging something that keeps happening across the country: a zoning text amendment (ZTA) that quietly rewrites the rules to welcome hyperscale data centers shows up on a county agenda, and by the time most residents hear about it, the hearing date is already set. In Montgomery County, that hearing is 2/24, and the ask from MoCoAlliance is straightforward — hit pause and write the water, power, and health protections into law before the buildout starts, not after.
This is the pattern we track everywhere: local officials treat data centers as a tax-base and jobs win, and the zoning code gets amended before anyone has answers on what it does to the substation down the road, the aquifer under the county, or the electric bill of the retiree three streets over. A moratorium isn't anti-growth, it's just insisting that the community gets to see the deal before it's signed, not after the concrete's poured.
If you're in Montgomery County, MoCoAlliance's letter link and testimony sign-up are worth five minutes of your time before the 24th. And if you want to see how this same fight is playing out block by block nationwide, check our facility map and our take-action page for tools to push your own council to slow down and look before it leaps.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of MoCoAlliance, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.