Ypsilanti

Ypsilanti is a city of about 21,000 people in Washtenaw County, Michigan, adjacent to Ann Arbor, served by DTE Energy within the PJM Interconnection grid territory.

Ypsilanti, Michigan's utility authority blocked water and sewage hookups for new data centres for twelve months in late April 2026. Unlike a zoning moratorium, the action does not constitute granting or refusing a planning permit; it is a service-extension decision by a utility board, placing it outside the standard planning-law challenge mechanisms. No established legal-challenge pathway exists for this approach under current US law, making it a more durable form of local block than a zoning ordinance that could be appealed or superseded by a state legislature.

Ypsilanti contains substantial brownfield industrial land within the DTE Energy grid territory. Its utility authority's decision creates a de facto data-centre exclusion zone that mirrors a planning moratorium but operates on a different legal basis.

The Ypsilanti model is being watched by municipalities across the US that own or control their local water and sewer utilities. A utility authority that declines to extend service is exercising its discretion as a service provider rather than as a land-use regulator, a different statute with a different appeal procedure and different legal exposure. The approach is harder for state legislatures or courts to override than a planning-law moratorium.

The moratorium, imposed by the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority, directly affects two large proposals in the pipeline: a $1.2 billion facility linked to the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Thor Equities' proposed $1 billion data centre in neighbouring Augusta Township, projected to draw up to a million gallons of water a day. As of July 2026 the Indiana county wave of restrictions has adopted a comparable mix of zoning and utility-side tools, with roughly a third of the state's counties now restricting data centres.