Linn County Iowa Board Votes 2-1 for 18-Month Data Center Moratorium, Effective Immediately

On July 1, 2026, the Linn County, Iowa Board of Supervisors voted 2-1 to adopt an 18-month moratorium on new EU-3 (large-scale data center) rezoning applications on unincorporated county property, effective immediately through January 2028. Supervisors Ben Rogers and Stacey Walker voted yes; Louis Zumbach voted no after three hours of public comment. The vote follows the county’s earlier unanimous adoption of one of Iowa’s most comprehensive data-center ordinances, driven by concerns over cumulative water use, electricity demand, road wear, and emergency-services strain.

Linn County joins a wave of county-level data-center moratoriums moving in 2026, following Loudon County TN’s six-month moratorium days earlier (2026-06-30–loudon-county-tn-six-month-data-center-moratorium) and preceded by Lake County FL’s draft moratorium (2026-06-23–lake-county-fl-commissioners-draft-data-center-moratorium-july-vote), Citrus County FL’s rezoning denial (2026-06-18–citrus-county-fl-data-center-moratorium-holder-rezoning-denied), and Imperial County CA’s reversal (2026-06-16–imperial-county-ca-reverses-data-center-approval-moratorium). The pattern signals mounting local-government resistance to the fiscal and resource-capture dynamics tracked at 2026-06-11–data-center-fiscal-capture-tax-exemptions-state-budgets-electoral-salience.