In first, California city overwhelmingly votes to permanently ban datacenters

Key points

• Residents in Monterey Park, California, became the first in the US to vote on a permanent ban on datacenters on Tuesday, and early results indicate a resounding victory for the prohibition.
• While many cities and counties have already passed temporary or indefinite moratoriums via their local governments, Monterey Park would be the first to do so through a ballot initiative.
• The ballot measure needs a majority vote – at least 51% – to win.
• As of 2am Pacific Time, 86.3% of the more than 7,000 votes counted so far were in favor of banning datacenters.
• While it can take days to finalize election results, the stark gap was enough evidence for Jose Sanchez, a city councilmember, to claim a “landslide victory” for residents who don’t want to live near datacenters.