DeSoto County Commission Rezoning for DCIP Group Data Center Fails in Tie Vote; Second Application Vote Set

After a marathon six-hour DeSoto County commission meeting Tuesday, an application to rezone roughly 238 acres to accommodate a hyperscale data center project narrowly failed in a tie vote, WGCU reports. One commissioner, Steve Hickox, recused himself over a potential conflict of interest, but not without registering his disapproval of the project: “Nothing in this life is free,” Hickox said. DCIP Group had sought a total of about 826 acres to build out a complex of data centers in DeSoto County, according to the article. Commissioners were scheduled to vote Wednesday on another rezoning application from the same developer, which has sought to assemble roughly 826 acres for a complex of natural gas-powered data centers near Arcadia.

The result of the Wednesday vote is not in the source. The fight runs through the county’s moratorium and the carve-out for DCIP’s pending application: 2026-06-25–desoto-county-fl-data-center-moratorium-dcip-carve-out, 2026-07-29–desoto-county-fl-moratorium-approved-loophole-preserved.