In first, California city overwhelmingly votes to permanently ban datacenters

Residents in Monterey Park, California, became the first in the US to vote on a permanent ban on datacenters on Tuesday, and early results indicate a resounding victory for the prohibition.

While many cities and counties have already passed temporary or indefinite moratoriums via their local governments, Monterey Park would be the first to do so through a ballot initiative.

The ballot measure needs a majority vote – at least 51% – to win. As of 2am Pacific Time, 86.3% of the more than 7,000 votes counted so far were in favor of banning datacenters. While it can take days to finalize election results, the stark gap was enough evidence for Jose Sanchez, a city councilmember, to claim a “landslide victory” for residents who don’t want to live near datacenters.

“[This] shows unequivocally that residents in Monterey Park do not want datacenters in their community,” Sanchez said. “We hope that other communities will use the model set by residents here in Monterey Park as inspiration to stop data centers from encroaching in their backyard.”