OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to extend its existing moratorium on approvals for new large-scale data center projects through December 2027, continuing a pause that’s been in effect since April of this year.
The moratorium officially blocks planning, zoning, and expansion applications for any data center exceeding 75 megawatts of electrical load, effectively halting any new “hyperscale” data center projects while City officials continue examining questions of potential utility strain, environmental impact, and noise pollution.
“City staff will be researching best practices and working with a consultant and community stakeholders to update the zoning code, including the creation of a specific use unit for data centers,” Planning Director Geoff Butler said in a press statement. “Extending the temporary moratorium will give City Council time to evaluate the full scope of the potential impacts and determine appropriate regulations.”
Some exemptions, including newly approved hyperscale data center
The new extension comes hot on the heels of last month’s City Council approval of the city’s first hyperscale data center development, a 500 megawatt, multi-site mega-project planned by Beltline Energy on the far westerns edges of OKC, at NW 23rd St. and Frisco Rd., overlapping with parts of Yukon.
That project was specifically exempted from the moratorium, as it had already been approved by Planning Commission and had entered the development pipeline before April’s vote to pause further data center approvals.
The Beltline development was joined by two other projects that were retroactively exempted from the moratorium – the Scale Datacenters facility on the Expand Energy (formerly Chesapeake) campus, serving Cerebras AI, and the 7725 Connect development on W. Reno, housing the Rack59 Data Center.
Both of those data centers fall well below the 75 megawatt usage threshold for the moratorium, however, and with no official large-scale expansion plans outlined, it remains unclear as to why they were exempted by name.
Moratorium could be lifted with new Zoning Code
The moratorium could also be lifted before December 2027 if the City of OKC’s impending Zoning Code overhaul outlines firm new regulations for data center operations in the city limits.
“If there is a situation where we have a revised ordinance ready to accept applications, the moratorium could end earlier than the end of 2027,” Mayor David Holt clarified in discussion with City Manager Craig Freeman from the dais at Tuesday’s meeting. “But that’s not guaranteed.”
Holt explained that the moratorium could, in fact, continue even after the approval of a new Zoning Code, if the council and City consultants determine that more study is still needed.
“If we decided, as a policy matter, that even with the adoption, we still wanted to maintain this expectation,” he said, “we certainly could, in the new ordinance, say ‘this moratorium still lasts through 2027.’”
Brett Fieldcamp is the owner and Editor in Chief of Oklahoma City Free Press. He has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly two decades and served as Arts & Entertainment Editor before purchasing the company from founder Brett Dickerson in 2026.
He is also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
