The data center fight in San Marcos, Texas
San Marcos has an active data center moratorium on this tracker. 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
Not a pause — a zoning ban. Passed 4-3 after failing once by a single vote; data centers are now ineligible in every zoning district. First Texas city to do it, and a live test of the 2023 'Death Star' preemption law
Source
read 2026-08-04
An expiry date is the earliest a pause could have ended — extensions are common, so confirm with the clerk before citing it.
Recent news
- San Marcos becomes the first Texas city to ban data centers, testing its local control
- San Marcos City Council blocks proposed data center
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 2 headlines archived.
Where the decision gets made
City Council — Ordinances, resolutions, the annual budget and the city tax rate — and, unusually, the city's own water, electric and wastewater rates. San Marcos was the first Texas city to ban data centers.
Meets: 1st and 3rd Tuesday monthly — 3:00 p.m. work/executive session, 6:00 p.m. regular meeting
Where: City Council Chambers, City Hall, 630 E Hopkins, San Marcos, TX 78666
Public comment: Regular meetings include citizen comment. The sign-up process and rules are on the city's Citizen Comments page and the Legistar agenda portal (san-marcos-tx.legistar.com).
councilmembers@sanmarcostx.gov · 512-393-8000 · website
Read from the official page on 2026-08-05. Meeting details change — confirm before you go.
Who votes on it
| Name | Role | Phone | Recorded stance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jane Hughson | Mayor | — | — | not recorded |
| Matthew Mendoza | Council Member | — | — | not recorded |
| Josh Paselk | Council Member | — | — | not recorded |
| Alyssa Garza | Council Member | — | — | not recorded |
| Shane Scott | Council Member | — | — | not recorded |
| Lorenzo Gonzalez | Council Member | — | — | not recorded |
| Amanda Rodriguez | Council Member | — | — | 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 Texas.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Texas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Elsewhere in Texas
- Hill County — Rescinded
- Hays County — Enactedexpires 2026-12-31
- Texas (Abbott directive) — Enacted
- Fort Worth — Proposed
- Lavon — Enactedexpires 2026-11-05
- San Antonio — Proposed
- Denton — Proposed
As of August 2026 · 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.