Community briefing

The data center fight in Dane County, Wisconsin

As of October 1, 2026, Dane County, Wisconsin has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Jun 4, 2026; documented end date 2027-12-04).

Status is derived, not stored — a pause with a documented end date flips to Expired on its own — and the source is right next to the claim.

Status today

Enactedexpires 2027-12-04status

Jun 4, 2026action taken

Locallevel

18-month moratorium on hyperscale data centers in county zoning areas. Advisory committee to study benefits and pitfalls

SourceNews
read 2026-08-13

An expiry date is the earliest a pause could have ended — extensions are common, so confirm with the clerk before citing it.

The project on the table

QTS Dane County — In review

Operator: QTS Data Centers · Size: 750 MW

Multi-billion dollar, 750MW renewable-powered data center campus in Dane County, Wisconsin.

Next: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.

Latest in the record

2026-06-04 — The Dane County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an 18-month moratorium on zoning permits for hyperscale data centers in unincorporated county areas, running until December 2027. · source
2026-05-15 — A resolution was introduced on the Dane County Board establishing an 18-month moratorium on receiving or issuing zoning permits for hyperscale data centers in unincorporated areas. · source
2026-04-06 — The Town of Westport (Dane County) enacted a one-year moratorium restricting new data centers to no more than 10,000 square feet, part of a wave of local moratoriums following the QTS controversy. · source
2026-02-12 — Democratic state lawmakers proposed a statewide data center moratorium bill and held a day of action, citing the DeForest/QTS fight as a driver of the broader Wisconsin data center policy debate. · source
2026-02-03 — The DeForest Village Board voted unanimously 7-0 to reject QTS petition to annex nearly 1,600 acres of Town of Vienna farmland, formally ending the DeForest route for the project. · source
2026-01-28 — QTS withdrew its data center project from consideration in the Village of DeForest following staff recommendation against annexation and sustained community opposition. · source

Full dated timeline on the project tracker.

Source.

What to do next

Questions to ask at the hearing — force specific answers onto the record.
Estimate the impact — electricity, water, and rate pressure for any facility size in Wisconsin.
Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
Wisconsin briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.

Build a full action pack →

Nearby in Wisconsin

Madison (1 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-01-13
Wisconsin (1 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
Middleton (5 mi) — Enactedterm not documented
Town of Westport (6 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-04-06
Village of Cottage Grove (11 mi) — Enactedexpires 2028-01-20
Green County (29 mi) — Enactedterm not documented
Janesville (34 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-09-28
Town of Hampden (35 mi) — Enactedterm not documented

All 35 tracked actions in Wisconsin are on the state page.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

Illustrative rather than exhaustive — dozens of localities churn weekly, and this tracks the ones we have read a source for. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to the ordinance, the enacting body's own page, or a datable report of the vote, and were read on that date. Rows marked *unverified* came from bulk compilation and have not been checked against a primary source — the locality, the year, and the status may all be off. Verify one of those with the town clerk before citing it as precedent. **Expiry is derived, not asserted.** A row with a documented end date flips to *Expired* on its own once that date passes. A time-limited moratorium whose start date was never documented keeps showing as enacted — that is a known gap, not a claim that it is still in force. Moratoriums are also routinely extended, so an expiry date is the earliest it could have ended, not proof that it did.

Part of the U.S. data center moratorium tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0.