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Monterey Park Data Center Ban
Coverage from Los Angeles Business Journal, Arizona Daily Sun, and others
Monterey Park, California, approved Measure NDC by roughly 86% to permanently prohibit data centers within city limits, following opposition to a proposed HMC StratCap facility near homes, a park, and youth sports fields.
The developer withdrew the roughly 247,000-square-foot project after the city imposed a moratorium and adopted a ban by ordinance. The vote gives residents a durable tool to block future projects and may encourage similar local campaigns, while highlighting the conflict between concerns over power, water, noise, and rates and the promised jobs, investment, and tax revenue from data centers.
The story is now more concrete and durable: Measure NDC passed by an overwhelming margin, and the ban is framed as harder to unwind because reversing it would require another voter-approved measure. The update also adds a clearer industry response, with the Data Center Coalition warning the ban could push investment and tax revenue elsewhere.
The core outcome is unchanged, but the framing has sharpened: the vote is now described as a ballot-box precedent within a broader California wave of restrictions, rather than just a local anti-data-center win. The current version also adds a clearer timeline around the council moratorium and narrows the opposition rationale toward noise, utility costs, and neighborhood impacts.