Escambia County FL Commissioners Vote 5-0 That Data Centers 'Not Permitted' Under Land Code

Escambia County, FL commissioners voted unanimously 5-0 to adopt a resolution declaring data centers “are not permitted under the county’s land development code and are not appropriate development in the county,” with a formal ordinance to codify the ban still to come. Neighboring Santa Rosa County passed its own 12-month moratorium the same day, suggesting coordinated regional resistance across the Florida Panhandle.

If the ordinance passes, Escambia becomes one of the first Florida counties to move from a temporary moratorium to a formal land-code prohibition — a structurally different and more durable outcome than the roughly dozen Florida county moratorium votes the timeline has tracked in 2026, which pause new applications for a fixed term rather than declare the use categorically impermissible.

Corrected 2026-10-01: cut an unsupported “scheduled for a public hearing August 6” detail (not in the cited WUWF source) and corrected Santa Rosa County’s measure from “a comparable measure” to “its own 12-month moratorium” — the source describes Santa Rosa’s action as a 12-month moratorium, not a permanent ban.