BOARDMAN — Under pressure from residents, Hubbard city officials on Monday agreed to draft legislation for a moratorium on data centers in the community.

Mahoning County’s largest urban township also recently took steps to prohibit the facilities, and one official explained why.

“We don’t want someone to shoehorn something in and then suddenly somebody has a data center in their backyard, making noise, sucking up energy, elevating water and electrical costs,” said Boardman Township Trustee Matt Gambrel. “It’s not good for Boardman.”

Gambrel said he can’t see where in the township such a building might fit, but that did not stop the board from approving a one-year moratorium on them at its April meeting.

“So nobody can construct one within township limits,” Gambrel said. “To be clear, no one has applied for a permit. We’re just trying to be proactive. You see these situations where they just show up and you can’t stop them. We’re going to be spending the next year looking at zoning options to regulate this kind of stuff and keep it from places we don’t want it.”

That, frankly, includes everywhere in Boardman, he said.

“We don’t want it anywhere, and I don’t think they could put it anywhere. We don’t have any real undeveloped portion of Boardman to stick one,” he said.

Gambrel said the buildings do not create jobs beyond their initial construction and can usually operate with as few as six employees.

“They’re not creating jobs, they’re not adding to our tax base at all. And I’ve heard they have a fairly short shelf life, so when they leave what will they do? Just leave it there?”

Opponents of data centers have expressed concerns about environmental pollution from chemicals and heavy metals used in operating and maintaining processing units; utility consumption, especially water; constant loud noise from the 24-hour operation; and multiple other complaints.

But advocates disagree with them and with Gambrel, arguing that data centers are becoming a major part of the national infrastructure landscape now, are known to attract tech investment, and increase internet and cloud accessibility, which can contribute long term to the tax base.

Those arguments do not impress the roughly 200 Hubbard residents who showed up to this week’s city council meeting, hoping to convince council to keep data centers out.

Council’s actions this week did not impose the one-year moratorium, but instructed its law director to draft the legislation, which council will vote on at its June 1 meeting.

Residents’ concerns were almost equally focused on the process around a proposed data center in the city as they were about the idea of having one built.

Hubbard Mayor Ben Kyle stated last week that his administration and council have been engaged in Project Milo through Lake to River, one of the city’s regional economic development partners, for about two years.

He said in November that the project was still in the site selection and utility research phases, which the unidentified company was doing in five other communities across Ohio.

Kyle also acknowledged signing a nondisclosure agreement in December 2024 with the intent of allowing the city to gather the “technical and utility” information necessary to see whether the city could accommodate something of that scale.

Kyle said last week that the city is not cutting corners, and legal procedures are being followed at every step. He said the city has received no proposals regarding Project Milo, adding that he would bring it to the city council’s attention if one reached his desk.

Other communities that have placed moratoriums on data centers, or are in the process of doing so, are Lordstown, Niles, Weathersfield, Hubbard Township, Vienna and Bazetta.