By Rhiannon Redinger

In response to two failed data center bills in the 2026 legislative session, local communities across Colorado are turning to their city and county governments to implement data center regulations and pause project approvals until these new regulations are in place. While not all local governments have seen success, there are a number of Colorado cities and counties that have enacted moratoria on data center development to allow time for elected officials to evaluate and determine appropriate regulations. In many cases, these moratoria are the result of pushback from local communities against the data center and artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Most notably, officials in Denver voted unanimously in May to approve a 1-year moratorium on project approvals after receiving public backlash for the CoreSite facility in northeast Denver’s Globesville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhood.

Outside of Denver, several other cities and counties have enacted data center moratoria across the state. The earliest adopter was in Larimer County, where county commissioners voted in February 2026 to approve a 1-year moratorium. After the 2026 legislative session, Boulder County and Jefferson County joined Larimer and Denver County by voting in favor of moratoria lasting 6 months and 10 months, respectively. Elected officials in Broomfield, Lochbuie, Monument, and Woodland Park passed moratoria of varying durations in July, including the longest moratorium in the state at 5 years for Lochbuie, Colorado. This fall, eight additional cities voted to approve moratoria, including Berthoud, Loveland, Commerce City, Thornton, Arvada, Brighton, Fort Collins, and Lafayette.

In addition to those already enacted, cities like Littleton, Colorado are expected to vote on a moratorium in the near future. Littleton will hold a public hearing for the moratorium at their regular city council meeting on November 3rd, 2026 at 6:30pm MT. To sign up for public comment on agenda item number 10(b), use the Agenda Item Comment Form on the locality’s website.

Even in localities where moratoria have not yet been established and project approvals continue to move forward, grassroots movements are mounting pressure on elected officials to take action. For example, the Colorado Springs planning commission struck down five citizen appeals for Project Taurus, but a new ballot initiative petition is circulating to force a vote on a 4-year moratorium on new projects in the city. The moratorium would apply to all data center projects planning to draw greater than 10 MW of power or greater than 200,000 gallons of water daily. The petition requires 24,861 signatures to appear on the ballot during the city’s 2027 municipal election. For more information, visit Democracy Over Developers to see the moratorium language, help gather signatures, or sign the petition as a Colorado Springs resident.

In Weld County, residents are taking a different approach with two petitions aimed at reversing the county’s recent approval of the massive Global AI facility in Windsor and requiring all future projects to be put to a vote. The citizen initiative petition for referendum will address the Global AI project specifically and if certified, will require county officials to either reverse their decision or subject the project to voter approval. The ballot initiative petition, if certified, will require a special election where voters will decide whether or not all future projects will require voter approval before permits are secured. Both petitions have obtained well over the required signatures and are in the process of being approved for referendum and special election, respectively. For more information, visit the website for Protect Our Water and Energy Resources, the grassroots group leading efforts in Weld County.

The movement is not yet over, but communities are making significant progress in lieu of statewide action. In cases where government has failed to enact meaningful regulations or restrictions, citizen and ballot initiatives are the next step for tackling the data center issue in Colorado. These successes can be leveraged in neighboring communities who are yet to act but may see data center project proposals in the future. Community members and local advocates must continue to speak with their local elected officials about the impacts of hyperscale data center developments, including their contributions to ongoing fossil fuel reliance and the climate crisis.

If you’d like more guidance for giving public comment or writing to your elected officials about data centers, check out our Data Center Comment Toolkit. 

For more information about the moratoria mentioned above, please see the below table with links to local governments’ actions on data centers.

 

City/County	Date Passed	Duration
Larimer County	February 2026	12 months
City and County of Denver	May 2026	12 months
Jefferson County	May 2026	10 months
Boulder County	June 2026	6 months
Longmont, CO	June 2026	Permanent
City and County of Broomfield	July 2026	18 months
Lochbuie, CO	July 2026	5 years
Monument, CO	July 2026	6 months
Woodland Park, CO	July 2026	18 months
Berthoud, CO	September 2026	12 months
Commerce City, CO	September 2026	6 months
Loveland, CO	September 2026	12 months
Thornton, CO	September 2026	12 months
Arvada, CO	October 2026	18 months
Brighton, CO	October 2026	12 months
Fort Collins, CO	October 2026	6 months
Lafayette, CO	October 2026	18 months
Littleton, CO	Pending	6 months