Garfield Township puts a 1-year ban on data centers, cryptocurrency mining

Filed 52m ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: William Merritt Chase · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Garfield Township, Michigan, unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities, with an option to extend six more months, after residents packed a July zoning meeting over concerns about water, electric rates, and environmental impact.

Township officials say the pause, built through a zoning ordinance amendment rather than a standalone resolution, is meant to withstand legal challenges that have sunk similar bans elsewhere.

The move likely stalls a proposal from an Illinois developer to convert a Cass Road building into a small-scale data center, and joins a wave of similar bans across northern Michigan townships, even as state law forbids outright banning a land use.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

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A township that does its homework before banning something is almost suspiciously rare, which says less about Garfield Township and more about the baseline. The real test comes when the moratorium expires and the actual zoning fight begins.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Salty Ditty · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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