Santa Fe County, NM — Ordinance No. 2026-06, Eighteen-Month Data Center Development Moratorium

Section 5 bars the County from accepting any new application for a Development Approval or Development Permit for a Data Center, bars the Board and any County body from further processing or acting on such applications, and bars issuance of any such approval or permit. 'Data Center' means a facility, or proposed expansion, designed or used primarily for housing, managing, operating or transmitting data with a proposed aggregate IT Load Capacity of 1 megawatt or greater, expressly including hyperscale, artificial-intelligence computing, cloud, colocation and cryptocurrency mining facilities, and excluding ordinary computer rooms, server closets and IT equipment incidental to a principal lawful use. Exemptions cover sub-threshold facilities, County-owned or County-operated governmental data processing, applications deemed complete before the effective date, and facilities with vested rights as determined by the County Land Use Administrator.

Technical detail

Adopted 2026-06-30; effective on recordation 2026-07-09 (Instrument #2087239, Santa Fe County Clerk Katharine E. Clark), so the eighteen months runs to approximately 2028-01-09. Self-repealing and extendable by the Board. Section 7 directs the County Manager to develop Data Center regulations and SLDC/SGMP amendments during the pause. Cites NMSA 1978 §3-21-1 and §4-37-1 and Brazos Land, Inc. v. Board of County Comm'rs of Rio Arriba County, 1993-NMCA-013.

Who is protected: Santa Fe County residents, through a pause on data center approvals while the County develops water, energy, siting, noise, heat, cumulative-impact, fiscal, e-waste and light/glare standards.

Who must comply: The County, the Board of County Commissioners, and every County committee, commission, department and official, none of which may accept, process, act on, or issue a Development Approval or Development Permit for a Data Center; and any applicant seeking one.

Key facts

Related data-center siting and energy rules elsewhere

• Superior WI Data Center Moratorium (1-year) · In effect
• Dane County WI Hyperscale Data Center Moratorium · In effect
• Madison WI Data Center Moratorium (1-year) · In effect
• Manitowoc County WI Data Center Moratorium · In effect
• WA SB 5982 (Data Center / Clean Energy) · In effect
• Dayton OH data center moratorium (180-day, Apr 2026) · In effect