Washington County

Moratoriums and bans

1. July 27, 2026 Hillsboro: Moratorium. After June work sessions that asked staff to study a pause and narrower zoning, the council unanimously adopted a 120-day pause on land use applications for new or expanded data centers and battery storage sites (a primary use is more than 20% of floor area, construction value or 20 MW of power) at a special meeting called on one day's notice; applications already filed continue. The city says it ends Nov. 24, 2026 and may be extended by six months (OPB reported an extension of up to 120 days). First-phase code changes (most zones closed to data centers, acreage caps in two industrial zones, 1,000 feet from schools) had a second reading set for Oct. 20; the outcome was not found. (City of Hillsboro, June 11, 2026; City of Hillsboro, July 27, 2026; City of Hillsboro, Aug. 2026; OPB, July 27, 2026; City of Hillsboro (Engage Hillsboro), Sept. 29, 2026; KATU, Oct. 7, 2026)
2. Oct. 6, 2026 Washington County: Regulations (proposed). Commissioner Nafisa Fai's amendments to a data center resolution for unincorporated areas (transparency, environment, fiscal terms) were pulled from the Oct. 6 agenda, with discussion set for Oct. 20 and a tentative vote Oct. 27; Fai had proposed a countywide pause in August, and no adoption was found. (KOIN, Oct. 6, 2026; KATU, Aug. 24, 2026)

Updates, newest first

1. Oct. 21, 2026 STACK Infrastructure POR03 campus, Hillsboro · STACK's campus page listed four POR03 buildings of 24 to 25 MW each and a planned 96 MW POR03E/F building. (STACK Infrastructure, Oct. 21, 2026)
2. Oct. 7, 2026 Digital Realty Wagon Data Center, Hillsboro · Hillsboro's first-phase code draft would bar data centers from most zones, cap acreage in two industrial zones and require 1,000 feet from schools; second reading was set for Oct. 20. (KATU, Oct. 7, 2026)
3. Oct. 6, 2026 Washington County: Regulations (proposed) · Commissioner Nafisa Fai's amendments to a data center resolution for unincorporated areas (transparency, environment, fiscal terms) were pulled from the Oct. 6 agenda, with discussion set for Oct. 20 and a tentative vote Oct. 27; Fai had proposed a countywide pause in August, and no adoption was found. (KOIN, Oct. 6, 2026; KATU, Aug. 24, 2026)
4. Aug. 24, 2026 Digital Realty Wagon Data Center, Hillsboro · KATU reported Digital Realty filed a land use application for the Wagon Data Center before the moratorium; the site sits just under 200 feet from Liberty High School, and the school district had a meeting set with the company for Aug. 28. (KATU, Aug. 24, 2026)
5. Aug. 12, 2026 STACK Infrastructure POR03 campus, Hillsboro · DCD reported that STACK, hours before the moratorium, had filed a development review to revise entitlements at POR01, a 4 MW site near the POR02 and POR03 campus, which the city listed as in review. (DatacenterDynamics, Aug. 12, 2026)
6. Aug. 12, 2026 Aligned Data Centers PDX campus (PDX-01 and PDX-02), Hillsboro · DCD reported Aligned had filed a pre-application for PDX-02 before the moratorium; the city's project manager said a pre-application is not a formal application and is not exempt. (DatacenterDynamics, Aug. 12, 2026)
7. July 27, 2026 Hillsboro: Moratorium · After June work sessions that asked staff to study a pause and narrower zoning, the council unanimously adopted a 120-day pause on land use applications for new or expanded data centers and battery storage sites (a primary use is more than 20% of floor area, construction value or 20 MW of power) at a special meeting called on one day's notice; applications already filed continue. The city says it ends Nov. 24, 2026 and may be extended by six months (OPB reported an extension of up to 120 days). First-phase code changes (most zones closed to data centers, acreage caps in two industrial zones, 1,000 feet from schools) had a second reading set for Oct. 20; the outcome was not found. (City of Hillsboro, June 11, 2026; City of Hillsboro, July 27, 2026; City of Hillsboro, Aug. 2026; OPB, July 27, 2026; City of Hillsboro (Engage Hillsboro), Sept. 29, 2026; KATU, Oct. 7, 2026)
8. June 23, 2026 QTS North HIL3, Hillsboro · OPB reported that 1000 Friends of Oregon and others had sued to overturn Hillsboro's approval of 17 data center enterprise zone applications, including ones filed by QTS. (OPB, June 23, 2026; KATU, June 25, 2026)
9. June 23, 2026 STACK Infrastructure POR03 campus, Hillsboro · OPB listed an applicant named SI POR03E among the companies whose Hillsboro enterprise zone approvals were challenged in court; whether it is tied to STACK was not stated. (OPB, June 23, 2026)
10. June 23, 2026 NTT Global Data Centers Hillsboro campus · OPB named NTT Global Data Centers among the companies whose 17 Hillsboro enterprise zone applications were challenged in court. (OPB, June 23, 2026)
11. June 23, 2026 Flexential Hillsboro data centers · Flexential and CoreWeave were named among the 2026 enterprise zone applicants in the court challenge. (OPB, June 23, 2026; KATU, June 25, 2026)
12. Oct. 2024 STACK Infrastructure POR03 campus, Hillsboro · STACK's campus brochure described POR03 as 200 MW on 55 acres, master-planned for eight data centers totaling 1.6 million square feet. (STACK Infrastructure, Oct. 2024)
13. Jan. 12, 2024 QTS North HIL3, Hillsboro · Hillsboro's Planning Division approved development review case DR-014-23 for two data center buildings on 50.96 acres zoned Industrial Sanctuary. (City of Hillsboro Planning Division, Feb. 14, 2024)
14. Oct. 18, 2023 Aligned Data Centers PDX campus (PDX-01 and PDX-02), Hillsboro · DCD reported Aligned had broken ground on PDX-01, planned as twelve 6 MW data halls. (DatacenterDynamics, Oct. 18, 2023)
15. Oct. 11, 2023 Flexential Hillsboro data centers · DCD reported CoreWeave would lease Flexential capacity in Hillsboro and put Flexential's four Hillsboro sites at about 800,000 square feet and close to 80 MW. (DatacenterDynamics, Oct. 11, 2023)
16. Jan. 10, 2023 Aligned Data Centers PDX campus (PDX-01 and PDX-02), Hillsboro · Aligned announced a 108 MW, two-building campus on 27 acres at NE 30th Ave. and NE Evergreen Rd. (DatacenterDynamics, Jan. 10, 2023)
17. Feb. 25, 2020 QTS Hillsboro campus · QTS announced a 92-acre Hillsboro campus planned for five data centers with about 1.5 million gross square feet and gross power capacity above 250 MW, the first building at 27 MW. (Lightwave, Feb. 25, 2020)
18. Feb. 12, 2020 NTT Global Data Centers Hillsboro campus · NTT announced a 47-acre Hillsboro campus of five buildings, about 1 million square feet and 144 MW of critical IT load. (Connect CRE, Feb. 12, 2020)

Statewide

HB 3546 (2025), the POWER Act (2025 Or. Laws ch. 323), tells the Public Utility Commission to put data centers that use or can use 20 MW or more into their own customer class at the investor-owned utilities, to assign them the cost of serving them, to require service contracts that protect other customers, and to report to the Legislature every even-numbered year; it took effect on passage and sunsets Jan. 2, 2035. The House passed it 41-16 on April 22, 2025. (Oregon State Legislature (OLIS), 2025; KATU, April 22, 2025; Oregon Public Utility Commission, Sept. 1, 2026) PUC docket UM 2377 (Portland General Electric): in Order No. 26-154, entered May 7, 2026, the commission created Schedule 96 for data centers and other large loads, set contract terms that charge a customer for grid investments it does not end up using, required enough clean power to be available before service starts, and added a 1-cent-per-kWh surcharge for Schedule 96 customers with 100 MW or more of allocated capacity to fund residential and low-income programs. The commission approved PGE's compliance rates at its July 7, 2026 public meeting (memorialized in Order No. 26-239, entered July 10), with new rates from July 8: data center rates rose an average 29% while residential rates fell 1.3%, commercial 2.1% and other industrial 1.4%. (Oregon Public Utility Commission, May 7, 2026; Oregon Public Utility Commission, July 10, 2026; Oregon Public Utility Commission, May 2026; Oregon Public Utility Commission (FlashAlert), June 9, 2026; Oregon Public Utility Commission, July 7, 2026; Oregon Public Utility Commission, Sept. 1, 2026) Pacific Power (PacifiCorp): the PUC approved a large-load tariff in the utility's 2024 general rate case (docket UE 433); a data-center-specific tariff proposed to implement the POWER Act (docket UE 463, Advice No. 25-015, Schedule 401) was pending, with a decision expected in late 2026. The PUC says Idaho Power is covered by the act but serves no qualifying data center in Oregon, that no other utility is covered, and that it has little visibility into data center load outside investor-owned utility territories. (Oregon Public Utility Commission, May 2026; Oregon Public Utility Commission, Sept. 1, 2026) The PUC's 2026 report estimates data centers at about 15% of investor-owned utility load in Oregon, rising to about 25% by 2030, with data center load growing about 36% a year since 2021; citing regional power planners, it expects consumer-owned utilities and the Bonneville Power Administration to host most of the region's data center load growth through 2030. (Oregon Public Utility Commission, Sept. 1, 2026) Property tax breaks: data centers have used standard enterprise zones (in Hillsboro, a 100% local property tax abatement for three to five years on new investment, with a community service fee and school support fee), long-term rural enterprise zones (up to 15 years, used by Amazon in Umatilla County with payments in lieu of taxes), and the Strategic Investment Program (for Google's newest The Dalles buildings, taxable value limited to $100 million for 15 years, plus a community service fee of 25% of the savings capped at $2.5 million a year). Citing The Oregonian, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported data center companies got two-thirds of $68 million in standard enterprise zone breaks, and OPB put their benefits at more than $45 million last year and $85 million this year (March 2026); the figures cover different periods and are forgone taxes, not payments. (City of Hillsboro, May 2026; East Oregonian, Nov. 14, 2020; East Oregonian (via Hermiston Herald), May 30, 2025; Columbia Community Connection, March 6, 2026; Oregon Capital Chronicle, March 2, 2026; OPB (via KLCC), March 2, 2026) HB 4084 (2026), Gov. Tina Kotek's economic development bill (2026 Or. Laws ch. 50), bars new data centers from enterprise zone property tax exemptions until 90 days after the 2027 session adjourns; projects already approved keep their breaks and the Strategic Investment Program is not affected. Sources give its start as June 5 or June 6, 2026. Hillsboro received 17 data center enterprise zone applications before the cutoff, which are now challenged in court. (Oregon State Legislature (OLIS), 2026; Oregon Capital Chronicle, March 2, 2026; Davis Wright Tremaine (law firm blog), June 12, 2026; City of Hillsboro, May 8, 2026; OPB, June 23, 2026) SB 1586 (2026), which would have added 373 rural acres just south of U.S. 26 to Hillsboro's urban growth boundary and allowed data centers as an accessory use, was not advanced by its sponsor, Sen. Janeen Sollman, after opposition; OLIS shows it left in the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee. State land-use staff say Hillsboro cannot expand onto the rural reserves designated in 2014. (Oregon State Legislature (OLIS), 2026; OPB, March 4, 2026; Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, June 11, 2026) Executive actions: Kotek convened a Data Center Advisory Committee in January 2026; on July 30, 2026 she had the state cancel a land sale to Verrus in Salem; on Sept. 8 she ordered agencies to pause all work on requests involving state land for data centers until July 1, 2027 unless statewide action directs otherwise, and called on the 2027 Legislature to pass a statewide moratorium; and in an Oct. 9 letter she asked the Department of Environmental Quality to stop handling and granting air and water permits for data centers being built or expanded until July 1, 2027. (Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, June 11, 2026; KATU, July 31, 2026; Willamette Week, Sept. 8, 2026; OPB, Sept. 10, 2026; KPTV (FOX 12), Oct. 13, 2026; Oregon Capital Chronicle (via Washington State Standard), Oct. 13, 2026) For the 2027 session, Sens. Jeff Golden and Courtney Neron Misslin and Reps. Lesly Muñoz and Farrah Chaichi proposed a three-year moratorium on new large data centers; no bill number or size threshold was given in the source reviewed. (Oregon Capital Chronicle (via Washington State Standard), Aug. 4, 2026) Land and water: state land-use staff counted 123 data center buildings in Oregon in 2025 (44% in the Umatilla Basin, counting Google's The Dalles sites, 40% in Hillsboro/Washington County and 12% in Central Oregon) and estimated about 9,100 acres of future data center land demand outside Hillsboro. No statewide water rule specific to data centers was found; Hillsboro reports its data centers used about 111 million gallons in 2025 (about 1.76% of city demand). (Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, June 11, 2026; City of Hillsboro, May 2026) Oregon data centers →