The data center fight in Shawnee County, Kansas
As of October 1, 2026, Shawnee County, Kansas has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Aug 13, 2026; documented end date 2027-02-17).
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
2-1: no final action on data center land use applications until Feb 17, 2027. Applications may still be filed — Compass Datacenters can resubmit — they just cannot be decided
SourceNews
read 2026-08-23
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
Compass Wakarusa Campus — In review
Operator: Compass Datacenters · Acres: 600
10-building data center campus proposed on ~600 acres of light-industrial land southwest of Topeka; conditional use permit filed July 24, 2026, county flagged application 'incomplete' Aug 4.
Next: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.
Latest in the record
- 2026-08-20 — Topeka Planning Commission discussed a proposed text amendment creating specific zoning standards for data centers (including hyperscale facilities), prompted by the Compass proposal. · source
- 2026-08-19 — Topeka City Council held a special meeting where Compass and Evergy presented and fielded 90 minutes of questions on the proposed 400-MW-class project; Mayor confirmed the city moratorium remains in effect. · source
- 2026-08-13 — Shawnee County Commission voted 2-1 to approve a six-month moratorium on new data center applications through February 17, 2027; does not block Compass pending application from continuing review but no final approval can occur until it expires. · source
- 2026-08-11 — Topeka City Council amended its moratorium language, adding provisions on utility allowances for projects outside city limits, specifically addressing the Compass site near city limits. · source
- 2026-08-04 — Shawnee County Land Use division determined Compass CUP application was incomplete; Compass given until August 28 to resubmit. · source
- 2026-08-04 — Shawnee County commissioners issued an RFQ to hire an independent engineering/technical consulting firm to review data center applications. · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Recent news
- Prospective data center attends Shawnee Co. water meeting
- Shawnee County commissioners approve temporary moratorium for new data center applications
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 Kansas.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Kansas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in Kansas
- Topeka (4 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-07-14
- Lawrence (28 mi) — Enactedexpires 2028-07-14
- Pottawatomie County (39 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
- Leavenworth County (40 mi) — Expiredterm ran to 2026-08-11
- Riley County (45 mi) — Enactedexpires soon — 2026-11-12
- Lyon County (50 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-01-22
- Emporia (50 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
- Geary County (54 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-06-22
All 19 tracked actions in Kansas 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.