City of Sanford, in Lee County, North Carolina, adopted a data-center zoning exclusion on April 22, 2026. Its status in this snapshot is enacted.
The record reads: "The Sanford City Council voted 6-1 (Chris Petty dissenting) on April 22, 2026, after a nearly five-hour meeting, to adopt data center zoning regulations modeled on ordinances from Loudoun County, VA, and Phoenix and Marana, AZ. Standards… (datacentertracker.org)."
Details
| Action | Class | Status | Date | MW threshold | Scope | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoning exclusion | restriction | enacted | April 22, 2026 | not county-wide | datacentertracker.org |
Jurisdiction type: municipality. County: Lee County. Dataset: datacentertracker. Snapshot August 15, 2026; documented actions, not a census.
Elsewhere in Lee County
North Carolina context
North Carolina has 49 documented local actions across 47 jurisdictions in this snapshot. There is no statewide restriction, incentive rollback, or large-load tariff on record for North Carolina in this snapshot.
A town that says no to a data center gives up local tax revenue, not jobs: one large campus pays $2M to $90M a year depending on the tax regime, against roughly 50 permanent jobs. The parent piece prices it and lists the conditions that beat a ban.