Hamilton County, TN Commissioners Vote Unanimously for One-Year Data Center Moratorium

Hamilton County, Tennessee commissioners voted unanimously on July 15 for a one-year moratorium on new data centers in unincorporated areas of the county. County Mayor Weston Wamp directed the Planning Department to develop permanent data center zoning regulations by March 2027, before the moratorium expires. No specific hyperscaler is publicly named as the trigger. Chattanooga, the county seat, sits at the intersection of Tennessee Valley Authority electricity infrastructure and Southern connectivity corridors that have made it an AI-campus target.

Hamilton joins Loudon County, TN’s earlier six-month moratorium (2026-06-30–loudon-county-tn-six-month-data-center-moratorium) as the second Tennessee county to pause new data-center approvals in 2026 — both moratoriums cite the same TVA-infrastructure exposure, suggesting the state’s TVA service territory is emerging as a distinct regional front in the national datacenter-moratorium wave.