The data center fight in Merrillville, Indiana
As of October 1, 2026, Merrillville, Indiana has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Jun 1, 2026; documented end date 2027-05-31).
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
1-year moratorium (Jun 1, 2026 to May 31, 2027) adopted at the Town Council's May 26, 2026 meeting, citing four developers who had already approached the town. Council President Rick Bella said the town is watching the AWS/"Hobart Devco" campus under construction in neighboring Hobart before writing its own rules. A widely syndicated report of a further 6-month extension (~Jul 2026) could not be traced to a verifiable source
SourceNews
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.
Recent news
23 stories tracked since 2024-08-15 across 6 outlets. 13× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 7× Local officials are moving to pause or block the project. Most recent: “Merrillville council extends data center moratorium by 6 months” (Chicago Tribune, 2026-07-18).
- Merrillville council extends data center moratorium by 6 months
- Merrillville council waits on AG before acting on ICE warehouse resolution
- Merrillville reschedules data center informational event for July 16
- Merrillville Council OKs year data center moratorium
- Merrillville Council OKs year data center moratorium
- Merrillville approves 1-year data center moratorium
- Merrillville approves 1-year data center moratorium
- Merrillville officials place one-year moratorium on data centers
- Merrillville explores data center ballot question amid revenue squeeze
- Developer looking to invest up to $900 million in Merrillville data center that would bring hundreds of jobs
- Two more data centers proposed for Merrillville, where $900 million data center already being considered
- Panduit making progress on Merrillville warehouse
+11 more on the story tracker.
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 23 headlines archived.
Where the decision gets made
Merrillville Town Council — Zoning/land-use ordinances and the data-center moratorium for the Town of Merrillville (unincorporated Ross Township area within town limits, Lake County).
Meets: Bi-monthly Council Meetings on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month at 6:30 pm; a Council workshop on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 6:30 pm. (Also in the complex: Plan Commission 3rd Tuesday 6:30 pm, Plan Commission workshop 1st Tuesday 6:30 pm, Board of Zoning Appeals 4th Wednesday 6:30 pm, Redevelopment Commission 4th Tuesday 6:00 pm.)
Where: Town of Merrillville Municipal Complex, 7820 Broadway, Merrillville, IN 46410
Public comment: Not documented on the town's public pages found in this pass (no separate public-comment policy page located); agendas/minutes are posted at the URL above ahead of each meeting.
219-769-5711 · website
Read from the official page on 2026-09-02. Meeting details change — confirm before you go.
Who votes on it
| Name | Role | Phone | Recorded stance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rick Bella | Council President | rbella@merrillville.in.gov | 219.736.5217 | Publicly explained and defended the one-year moratorium at the May 26, 2026 meeting, saying the town would use the year to study impacts of the neighboring Hobart data-center campus before deciding what to allow in Merrillville. |
| Rhonda Neal | Vice President | rnneal@merrillville.in.gov | — | not recorded |
| Shauna Haynes-Edwards | Council Member | shedwards@merrillville.in.gov | 219-232-8747 | not recorded |
| Leona Chandler Felton | Council Member | lchandler@merrillville.in.gov | — | not recorded |
| Margaret Uzelac | Council Member | — | 219.769.0819 | not recorded |
| Shawn Pettit | Council Member | spettit@merrillville.in.gov | 219.746.7269 | not recorded |
| Keesha M. Hardaway | Council Member | kmhardaway@merrillville.in.gov | 219-629-9099 | not recorded |
From the locality's own roster page; "not recorded" means no public statement is on file, not neutrality.
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 Indiana.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Indiana briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in Indiana
- Michigan City (27 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
- Starke County (39 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-15
- Pulaski County (44 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-02-02
- Marshall County (54 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- White County (56 mi) — Enactedexpires soon — 2026-10-20
- Fulton County (62 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-03-02
- Cass County (71 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- Elkhart (72 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-12-31
All 23 tracked actions in Indiana 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.