Residents Of Monterey Park, CA Vote To Permanently Ban Data Centers - By A Margin Of More Than 85% [View all]

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. “[This] shows unequivocally that residents in Monterey Park do not want datacenters in their community,” Sanchez said. “We hope that other communities will use the model set by residents here in Monterey Park as inspiration to stop datacenters from encroaching in their backyard.”

Monterey Park’s city council had already passed an indefinite moratorium on datacenters in April, after growing anger towards HMC StratCap, an investment company that was pushing to put one in the city, located in the Los Angeles region. (Developers have since withdrawn the application; the project would have covered nearly 250,000 sq ft.)

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Councilmember Jose Sanchez says city council members in Monterey Park pursued a ballot measure to “make the ban on datacenters a lot more permanent” and that it would hold more weight in court, as HMC Stratcap had threatened to sue over a potential extension of the moratorium and the ballot measure. (Developers have since indicated they won’t be pursuing legal action.)

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/03/california-monterey-park-datacenters-ban