Volusia adopts ban on large data centers as Broward and Gilchrist move toward one-year moratoriums

The Volusia County Council adopted an ordinance on Oct. 20 that makes large-scale data centers a prohibited use in unincorporated Volusia County, the county said in a news release posted Oct. 21.¹ The same week, Broward County commissioners took up a motion to start drafting a one-year moratorium, and Gilchrist County commissioners held a hearing on a one-year moratorium of their own.²³⁴

Volusia: ban adopted on second reading

Ordinance 2026-22 adds a new Section 72-301 to the county code. It bars the county from accepting, processing or approving any application, permit, site plan, rezoning, comprehensive plan amendment or other approval to build, expand, intensify or operate a large-scale data center outside city limits. Under its text, it takes effect once a certified copy is filed electronically with the Florida Department of State.⁵ The county’s release says the rule does not govern land-use decisions inside municipalities.¹

The ordinance borrows its definition from state law: a single location with a data center on site and an anticipated monthly peak load of 50 megawatts or more, measured as the highest average load over a 15-minute interval.⁵⁶

The staff summary in the Oct. 20 agenda packet says the council voted unanimously on Aug. 17 to have staff draft a countywide ban for unincorporated areas and voted unanimously on Oct. 6 to bring the ordinance back for a second reading. It cites Chapter 2026-65, Laws of Florida (Senate Bill 484), which took effect July 1, as the source of county authority over large-scale data centers. Staff wrote that a 2025 state law, Senate Bill 180, otherwise bars cities and counties from adopting more restrictive comprehensive plan or land development rules until Oct. 1, 2027.⁵

The release does not give a vote count.¹ WKMG-TV reported that Councilman Jake Johansson questioned whether a ban was the right approach and said the county could instead regulate the effects and weigh each project on its merits, while Councilman David Santiago pointed to unanswered questions about water and electricity use.⁷

Broward: drafting a moratorium

Broward’s Oct. 20 agenda listed, as item 40 on the consent agenda, a motion from Commissioner Lamar Fisher directing the County Attorney’s Office to draft an ordinance setting a temporary, one-year moratorium on developing large-scale data centers in unincorporated Broward County, using the same state-law definition.²⁶ The motion calls for drafting; it does not itself impose a moratorium. WPLG Local 10 reported that the commission approved it unanimously.⁸

Gilchrist: one-year moratorium hearing

Gilchrist County published notice of an Oct. 19 public hearing in Trenton on Ordinance No. 2026-12, which would declare a temporary moratorium on accepting, reviewing or approving development permits, special use permits, site plans, rezonings and similar applications for data center facilities.³ The county’s business impact estimate describes a one-year moratorium meant to give the county time to study data centers’ effects and review its comprehensive plan and zoning rules, and says it knows of no businesses likely to be affected.⁴ WCJB-TV reported that commissioners passed the moratorium unanimously at the hearing.⁹

What the records do not show

• No Volusia record found online by Oct. 21 gives the Oct. 20 vote count, and no minutes of the meeting were found.
• Broward’s Legistar entry for the Oct. 20 meeting lists its minutes as a draft and records no action or vote on item 40, so the unanimous vote is as Local 10 reported it.²
• No Gilchrist agenda, minutes or adopted ordinance text was found online; the vote result is as WCJB reported it. The hearing notice does not say whether Gilchrist’s ordinance uses a megawatt threshold or covers the whole county.
• The Broward agenda item does not set a date for hearings on the ordinance it asks the county attorney to draft.