Briefing 11/14/2025

Weekly updates on the political risks American data center projects

Nov 14, 2025

Data Center Watch Report Q2 2025

We are thrilled to announce the release of our Data Center Watch Report for Q2 2025.

Opposition to data centers is accelerating nationwide. In Q2 2025 alone, an estimated $98 billion in projects were blocked or delayed, more than the total for all previous quarters since 2023. As political resistance builds and local organizing becomes more coordinated, this is now a sustained and intensifying trend.

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This week’s round-up: In Pennsylvania, Archbald residents raised concerns about a data center zoning overlay and urged the council to consider a resident-drafted amendment. In Kansas, a protest petition by nearby landowners and a lawsuit challenging rezoning have paused Red Wolf’s proposed $12 billion hyperscale campus in Kansas City. And in Wisconsin, homeowners near Fredonia and Saukville formed a joint coalition to question new transmission routes serving a Vantage data center in Port Washington.

Residents in Archbald, Pennsylvania, push back on data center zoning and demand their own amendment

Archbald borough residents in Lackawanna County rallied outside and packed a borough council meeting to protest a proposed zoning overlay that would allow data centers in parts of the borough. The original data center zoning ordinance previously failed to receive a vote but remains in the council’s hands.

Opposing residents say they still aren’t getting clear answers about where and how data centers could be sited. Speakers urged the council to abandon the current overlay and adopt a resident-drafted amendment with stricter regulations on data centers. Council member Erin Owen questioned whether there is any real forward plan, while other council members emphasized the lengthy process required to restart or change the ordinance.

Why it matters:

Resident-drafted zoning as a constraint: Archbald shows how grassroots opposition is evolving from “stop the project” protests into writing alternative zoning language, which can narrow where future data centers are allowed—or effectively exclude them from residential-adjacent areas.
Process distrust and permitting risk: The perception that deals were done “behind closed doors” and that officials are “misleading” residents can push councils to slow-walk or restart ordinances, adding uncertainty and delay to enabling land-use rules that future data center developers in Pennsylvania may be counting on.

Lawsuit stalls a $12B Red Wolf hyperscale campus in Kansas City

A proposed $12 billion hyperscale data center campus by Red Wolf DCD Properties in western Kansas City, Kansas, is on hold after a protest petition and lawsuit challenged the project’s rezoning. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/KCK had approved rezoning in mid-2025 for a 400-acre, 1.8-million-sq-ft campus along Parallel Parkway, billed as the largest development in county history.

Residents and the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club raised concerns about transparency, the unknown end user, siting near farms and homes, and energy and water impacts. Protest petitions triggered a supermajority vote; the north tract failed that threshold, while the south tract advanced only after eight people withdrew their signatures.

Plaintiffs Neal Palmer and Haskell Farms LLC sued, alleging rezoning errors, a rushed review, and that Red Wolf and law firm Polsinelli helped engineer the signature withdrawals. On October 29, a Wyandotte County judge allowed the south-tract case to proceed and left the north-tract challenge open, keeping the campus in limbo. At the same time, Kansas regulators approved a Large Load Power Service tariff that forces new ≥75 MW users, including data centers, to sign long-term contracts, cover most of their contracted demand, post collateral, and pay directly for grid upgrades.

Litigation and petitions: The campus that helped justify SB98’s hyperscale tax incentives is now slowed by local opposition and a lawsuit, showing how even heavily subsidized projects can stall once neighbors and environmental groups focus on process and transparency.
Testbed for incentives plus strict cost rules: Kansas is offering big tax breaks for hyperscale data centers while also putting strict new power-tariff rules in place (LLPS).
- Red Wolf is an early test of whether a developer without a named tenant can handle the upfront grid costs and long-term contracts, and whether local residents are willing to accept a project built on heavy subsidies and complicated utility deals.

Residents of Fredonia and Saukville, Wisconsin, oppose transmission lines serving a Vantage data center

Residents in Fredonia and Saukville, Wisconsin, have formed a joint coalition to oppose new American Transmission Company (ATC) power-line routes that would serve a planned Vantage Data Center in Port Washington.

The “Responsible Energy Alliance,” working alongside the Protect Fredonia Coalition, says the proposed routes would cut through rural properties and threaten historic sites. The groups are pressing the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) to choose an alternative route that uses existing corridors. The PSC is expected to decide in spring 2026, with construction targeted to begin soon after and the project in service by late 2027.

Why it matters:

Grid infrastructure: Resistance is aimed at transmission lines, not just the data center itself, highlighting how power infrastructure for hyperscale projects can trigger backlash in rural communities.
Route decisions as de facto siting battles: The PSC’s choice between the proposed and alternative routes will effectively set a precedent for how much risk data center-linked grid upgrades pose to nearby landowners—and how much leverage organized residents have to push those upgrades elsewhere.

Check our report