BEREA–City Council heard the first reading of an ordinance authorizing a year-long moratorium on data centers of any size from being developed in town.

Ordinance 16-2026 is intended to "allow sufficient time for the development of reasonable regulations." The measure is a response to community and Council feedback, according to Mayor Bruce Fraley.

“It's not a ban," he told The Edge in an interview after the meeting. "It’s simply a moratorium to give the Council more time to ... have our land management and development ordinance updated to the point where we could address that in a fair and equitable manner.”

As of yet, no data center developers have expressed direct interest in Berea, Fraley said in the interview. “From my perspective, I do not think that Berea is a good fit for data centers and I do not think that data centers are a good fit for our city,” he said. 

Public concerns around data centers include their outsized consumption of water and electricity, leading to higher utility costs, a burden often shouldered by other rate payers, as The Edge previously reported. Hyperscale data centers in particular are also known for their unremitting noise, a nuisance that has prompted lawsuits across the country.

Another concern is the tendency in the data center industry for officials to make secret deals with developers.

That is what happened in Mason County, where data center developer Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, required the local officials to sign nondisclosure agreements before striking a deal to receive $50 million in tax breaks, a figure set to jump to $70 million pending the state legislature's decision over whether Meta should qualify as a manufacturer. That decision is expected when the General Assembly reconvenes next year. This is on top of a statewide tax break on data center equipment passed by state legislators in 2024.

"[U]nder the deal that Meta struck with Mason County, one of the world’s richest corporations will contribute much less than it would owe under the laws applying to every other business and resident," a Ky Policy analysis of the deal opines. "That inequity will worsen if the state awards sales tax breaks to Meta and fails to close the loophole that would allow data centers to be treated as manufacturers."

Kentucky is attractive to data center developers due to lower industrial electricity rates, land availability, access to water resources, fiber infrastructure, and the PJM, the Eastern Seaboard's power grid, according to a report issued by the state's Energy Planning and Inventory Commission. Plus, in addition to tax breaks on data center equipment, there is the state’s commitment to supporting large economic development projects, reads the EPIC report.

Berea's moratorium is intended to give the City the time to draft community benefit and decommissioning requirements, according to the Ordinance. It would also allow the City to assess how data center construction would impact local infrastructure, water and electricity supply and demand, utility costs, farmland, wildlife, stormwater drainage systems, and traffic.

As of August 2026, 10 out of 54 Appalachian Kentucky counties have passed data center moratoriums. Lexington-Fayette County also passed a data center moratorium earlier this year. Woodford County has outright banned data centers.

In June, the Madison County Fiscal Court announced it would conduct a study on data center moratoriums. Judge Executive Reagan Taylor expressed concerns that without the study, the County would be exposed to lawsuits from developers if it enacted a moratorium. To date, the County has not taken any public action on the matter.

Fraley said Berea has not had any formal conversations with County officials about data centers, but that municipal data center best practices are being vetted by the Kentucky League of Cities, of which Fraley is the newly elected president. "We feel like the ordinance that we are presenting to Council for their consideration would uphold a legal challenge,” he said in the interview.

Berea's moratorium ordinance will have its second reading during the Council's next regularly scheduled meeting on November 3, at 6:30 pm. The measure is expected to pass.

City Council meetings are held at the City Building Annex at 304 Chestnut Street. You can watch regularly scheduled meetings on the City’s YouTube channel under the “Live” tab.