The data center fight in Linn County, Iowa
As of October 1, 2026, Linn County, Iowa has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Jul 1, 2026; documented end date 2028-01-01).
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
18-month pause on large-scale data center rezonings in unincorporated areas, passed 2-1 and effective immediately — adopted even after the county had put an ordinance in place
SourceOfficial
read 2026-09-02
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 Cedar Rapids Data Center Campus — Approved
Operator: QTS Data Centers · Owner: Blackstone · Filing LLC: QTS Cedar Rapids LLC · Acres: 612
QTS (a Blackstone portfolio company) is building a seven-building campus on 612 acres of Alliant Energy's Big Cedar Industrial Center; the Cedar Rapids City Council approved the development agreement with QTS Cedar Rapids LLC on 2025-01-28 with a minimum $750M investment, later announced by QTS as a $10B campus. The agreement includes up to $18M over 20 years to a Community Betterment Fund, tax increment financing rebates, and water-free cooling; the development agreement requires construction to begin within three years and finish within six.
Next: Approved — pivot from stopping it to a binding CBA: enforceable caps on noise, water and cost, plus a community benefit.
Latest in the record
- 2025-08-08 — QTS announced the Cedar Rapids campus as a $10 billion, seven-building development with water-free cooling and carbon-free energy sourcing in partnership with Alliant Energy. · source
- 2025-02-12 — The City of Cedar Rapids, Alliant Energy and QTS announced the data center campus, described by the mayor as the largest economic development investment in the city's history. · source
- 2025-01-28 — Cedar Rapids City Council approved a development agreement with QTS Cedar Rapids LLC for a minimum $750 million data center on 612 acres of the Big Cedar Industrial Center. · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Source. Read 2026-08-14.
Recent news
- Linn County data center committee to evaluate possible changes to existing ordinance
- Linn County will not rezone district near nuclear plant for data centers
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 2 headlines archived.
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 Iowa.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Iowa briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in Iowa
- Johnson County (28 mi) — Enactedexpires soon — 2026-11-08
- Buchanan County (30 mi) — Enactedfixed term, end date not recorded
- Dubuque County (46 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-05-26
- Peosta (46 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-20
- Marshalltown (67 mi) — Enactedexpires soon — 2026-11-23
- Marshall County (72 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
- Clinton (74 mi) — Rejectedterm not documented
- Jefferson County (75 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-08-11
All 21 tracked actions in Iowa 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.