Residents in Newark, Heath and Granville are organizing charter amendment petitions to ban large data centers, potentially raising the number of Licking County municipalities voting on the issue in November to five and increasing the stakes for New Albany's $10 million annual data center revenue stream.

The Licking County Board of Elections certified the November ballot on Aug. 17, with data center ban measures from Pataskala and Sunbury already locked in. But elections staff expect more filings before the Sept. 4 charter amendment deadline, the Newark Advocate reported.

As we reported on Aug. 18, Pataskala and Sunbury voters will decide whether to ban hyperscale facilities that consume 25 megawatts of power per month. The Ohio Consumers' Counsel estimates a single facility at that scale requires the same electricity as 100,000 homes.

Now the movement is spreading. Organizers in Newark, Heath and Granville began circulating petitions as of Aug. 14, according to the Advocate. If those efforts succeed, five Licking County communities could have data center restrictions on the Nov. 3 ballot.

What it means for New Albany

New Albany itself is not subject to these charter amendments. But the city's data center empire stretches across the Licking County line into the New Albany International Business Park's 3,000-plus acres, and neighboring bans could limit where future facilities locate.

The financial exposure is real. New Albany collected $10 million in 2025 from a special assessment on its 68 data center buildings, which cover more than 14.5 million square feet, community development director Jennifer Chrysler told Bloomberg Tax. That revenue funded a police station expansion, a veterans' memorial and a natural space with walking trails and a playground.

"Long-term planning has helped us kind of be able to pivot if we need to pivot," Chrysler told Bloomberg Tax. "But it's helped us also establish some pretty awesome sources of revenue."

Tenants in the business park include Amazon Web Services, Meta, Google, Quality Technology Services, CyrusOne, EdgeConneX and Vantage Data Centers.

Residents push back on growth

Pataskala resident Leatrice Guttentag, who lives within a mile of a proposed data center, told NBC4 on Aug. 4 that the facilities don't belong near homes. Sunbury resident Trey Dockendorf told NBC4 the same day that he worried about noise, electricity consumption and water use in his community.

Sunbury has imposed a moratorium on data centers while voters weigh the permanent ban. In Pataskala, City Administrator Tim Hickin told NBC4 that a public hearing on a proposed data center remained scheduled for Aug. 25, noting the council still must address a development plan submitted before the ban was proposed.

What's next

Any municipality seeking to place a data center ban on the November ballot must file its charter amendment by Sept. 4. The data center measures are among 22 issues certified for the Nov. 3 Licking County ballot. New Albany officials have not publicly commented on the expanding ban movement.