A packed meeting in Mercer County, Kentucky, broke into applause Monday after county officials unanimously rejected proposed zoning regulations that would have opened designated land near a coal-fired power plant to hyperscale data centers.
The vote came after months of community pushback over how large data centers could affect farmland, historic sites and nearby neighborhoods. But it wasn’t a permanent ban: the regulations now go back to the county’s planning and zoning commission for more work, while Mercer County’s temporary moratorium on data center construction remains in place.
