The data center fight in White County, Indiana
As of October 1, 2026, White County, Indiana has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Oct 20, 2025; documented end date 2026-10-20).
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
12-month moratorium on new data center development in unincorporated White County, adopted 2-1 (Davis and Pass for; Smolek dissenting, saying a development agreement wasn't imminent and the county still owed follow-up on an earlier wind/solar pause). Prompted by Blue Ladder Development's proposed data center at Mid-America Commerce Park in Wolcott (roughly 184-300 acres, up to four data halls), which had seen repeated rezoning delays; residents cited water, land-use and transparency concerns. A same-named "White County" moratorium with different commissioner names found in search is almost certainly a different state's White County — not this one
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.
The project on the table
Wolcott Data Center (Mid-America Commerce Park) — Awaiting decision
Operator: Blue Ladder Development · Acres: 322
Proposed data center at Mid-America Commerce Park, Wolcott, at the intersection of U.S. 24 and CR 1100 West. Site plans describe up to four data halls (~327,612 sq ft each), a 50,000 sq ft office building, and a 100,000 sq ft warehouse, with full build-out projected for 2029 and ~1,000 construction jobs over the build-out period; the developer's own site describes it as a 'closed-loop, minimal-water' campus seeking no incentives. Rezoning covers ~184 acres (per an Aug 2025 lawsuit) within a larger ~322-acre parcel. The rezoning applications were filed by the White County Redevelopment Commission rather than the property owners (BOWS4CRM and Liebengood Family Partnership) -- neighboring landowners Bart and Amy Snyder sued in Aug 2025 alleging the redevelopment commission lacked a notarized letter authorizing it to act as agent and that no site plan was submitted with the rezoning application, both allegedly required under White County's zoning ordinance. As of a June 2026 community open house, the project was still moving forward despite the moratorium and the pending lawsuit; White County Economic Development Organization President Randy Strasser confirmed the open house was authentic and co-hosted with the commissioners.
Next: Heard 2025-08-11; decision pending. Call the board clerk for the vote date and get on the notification list.
Latest in the record
- 2026-06-29 — Blue Ladder Development and White County commissioners co-host a public open house on the proposed data center at the Monticello Best Western. · source
- 2025-10-20 — White County Commissioners vote 2-1 (Davis, Pass for; Smolek against) to adopt a 12-month moratorium on data center development, expiring Oct 20, 2026. · source
- 2025-08-11 — Area Plan Commission public hearing on the ~184-acre Mid-America Commerce Park rezoning; officials admitted no site plan had been submitted. · source
- 2025-08-01 — Bart and Amy Snyder sue the White County commissioners, the White County Redevelopment Commission, and property owners BOWS4CRM and Liebengood Family Partnership to overturn the rezoning, alleging procedural defects (no notarized agency letter, no site plan). · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Source. Read 2026-09-02.
Recent news
9 stories tracked since 2021-06-16 across 8 outlets. 6× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 3× Local officials are moving to pause or block the project. Most recent: “White County to address data center regulations” (Now Georgia, 2026-09-01).
- White County to address data center regulations
- 322-acre data center could be built in White County, Indiana
- White County Data Center Plans Move Forward With Community Open House
- White County data center plans move forward with community open house
- 322-acre data center could be built in White County, Indiana
- Three Indiana Counties Pass Data Center Moratoriums
- 3 counties put moratoriums on data center projects
- 3 counties put moratoriums on data center projects
- White County man killed, officer injured in exchange of gunfire
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 9 headlines archived.
Where the decision gets made
White County Board of Commissioners — Zoning/rezoning ordinances (including the data-center moratorium), rezoning applications in unincorporated White County, county administrative and budget matters
Meets: Regular sessions at the John C. Heimlich Conference Room, 2nd Floor, County Government Center; typically 8:15-10:30 a.m. on scheduled meeting dates (exact recurring day-of-month not independently confirmed -- verify against the county's Upcoming Meetings page before publishing a specific cadence)
Where: White County Government Center, 110 North Main Street, Monticello, IN 47960
Public comment: Public comment is taken during regular Commissioners' meetings and at Area Plan Commission hearings on rezoning requests (e.g., the Aug 11, 2025 public hearing on the Mid-America Commerce Park rezoning). The county also co-hosted a public open house with the developer (June 29, 2026, Monticello Best Western) on the proposed data center.
david.davis@whitecounty.in.gov · 574-583-4879 · 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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| David Davis | Commissioner | david.davis@whitecounty.in.gov | 574-583-4879 | Voted for the Oct 20, 2025 data-center moratorium (part of the reported 2-1 majority). |
| Kaleb Pass | Commissioner | kaleb.pass@whitecounty.in.gov | 574-583-4879 | Voted for the Oct 20, 2025 data-center moratorium, citing the complexity of data centers and the need for county staff to have more time to research impacts and best practices. |
| Mike Smolek | Commissioner | mike.smolek@whitecounty.in.gov | 574-583-4879 | Cast the lone dissenting vote against the Oct 20, 2025 moratorium, saying a formal development agreement for a data center was not imminent and noting the county had passed a wind/solar moratorium in March 2025 without following up on it. |
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
- Pulaski County (22 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-02-02
- Cass County (27 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- Fulton County (38 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-03-02
- Starke County (39 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-15
- Howard County (42 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-08-18
- Miami County (42 mi) — Enactedterm not documented
- Marshall County (50 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- Boone County (53 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-06-15
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.