Boone County
Indiana county that became the 12th to impose a data-centre moratorium, running through June 2027.
Last refreshed: 15 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Is Indiana building a de facto statewide data-centre ban one county vote at a time?
Timeline for Boone County
Mentioned in: Indiana counties turn pauses into bans
Data Centres: Boom and BacklashMentioned in: A third of Indiana counties resist
Data Centres: Boom and BacklashVirginia forces water draw into daylight
Data Centres: Boom and BacklashVoted unanimously on 15 June for a one-year data-centre moratorium in unincorporated areas
Data Centres: Boom and Backlash: Indiana freezes its 12th county on AIBackground
Boone County's moratorium sits within a rapidly hardening statewide pattern. By 13 July 2026, roughly 30 of Indiana's 92 counties restrict data-centre development, up from 12 when Boone County voted in mid-June. Marshall and Cass counties have gone further, banning new data centres outright rather than pausing them. In Indianapolis, the Metropolitan Development Commission's committee voted 10-3 on 13 July to recommend a moratorium on new data-centre approvals through December 2027, with the full City-County Council due to vote on 10 August.
Boone County commissioners themselves voted unanimously on 15 June 2026 for a one-year moratorium on new data centres in unincorporated areas, running through 15 June 2027, while the county drafts permanent zoning rules. It was the 12th Indiana county to enact such a pause, part of a pattern assembled through individual county votes that share no common veto point rather than any single state bill or governor's action.
Boone County sits immediately north-west of Indianapolis and is one of Indiana's fastest-growing counties, a belt of suburban and exurban development that has become attractive for logistics and tech infrastructure. Meta's existing campus in Lebanon's LEAP (Limitless Exploration Advanced Pace) innovation district is explicitly carved out of the moratorium via municipal annexation, meaning existing large operators are protected while new applications are frozen.
The county-by-county pattern has widened into something closer to statewide coverage without any single point of appeal for developers. Each moratorium or ban runs on a different timeline with different carve-outs, but the cumulative effect, now roughly a third of the state's counties and moving city government in Indianapolis too, is that a large majority of Indiana's land area is effectively closed to new hyperscale development while communities write the rules that should have preceded the boom.