The data center fight in Hawthorne, California
As of October 25, 2026, Hawthorne, California has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Sep 9, 2026).
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
City Council adopted interim urgency ordinance U-2270 prohibiting establishment or expansion of data centers, per PublicCEO (published Oct 2026) and a search summary; initial term 45 days with a planned extension that could bring the total to about one year. Vote tally and effective date not stated; whether the first 45 days were already extended is unknown. Council date reported as Sept 9 (a Wednesday); no ordinance text read.
SourceNews
read 2026-10-11
An expiry date is the earliest a pause could have ended — extensions are common, so confirm with the clerk before citing it.
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 California.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- California briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in California
- Los Angeles County (11 mi) — Enactedno fixed end — runs until a condition is met
- Montebello (15 mi) — Expiredterm ran to 2026-03-28
- Monterey Park (17 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- Alhambra (18 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- El Monte (21 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-02-02
- Baldwin Park (25 mi) — Enactedfixed term, end date not recorded
- Lake Elsinore (61 mi) — Enactedfixed term, end date not recorded
- Escondido (91 mi) — Expiredterm ran to 2026-10-12
All 31 tracked actions in California 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.