A data center developer is suing the city of Trenton in federal court, asking a judge to strike down the data center ban that Trenton voters overwhelmingly approved on Nov. 3, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. San Francisco-based Prologis filed the lawsuit Nov. 12 in federal court in Cincinnati, arguing the charter amendment is unconstitutional because it retroactively revokes approval the city had already granted its project.
Prologis says it had spent at least $42.3 million on its four-building data center project and had already started construction before the vote, after the city ‘expressly authorized’ the development, according to the lawsuit as reported by the Enquirer. Within days of the Nov. 3 vote, the company says, attorneys representing ‘taxpayers’ demanded the city revoke Prologis’s zoning certificate and threatened litigation in the city’s name if it did not act.
The ban Trenton voters passed prohibits construction of data centers that use more than 25 megawatts of electricity. Trenton was one of 18 Ohio municipalities to pass bans or other restrictions on data centers on Nov. 3, the Enquirer reported — part of a statewide wave of local pushback against the power-hungry facilities. The Prologis project is separate from a much larger proposed Amazon data center just outside Trenton’s city limits, which is being challenged in St. Clair Township.
Prologis is asking the court to declare the charter amendment ‘unlawful and unenforceable’ and to prohibit the city from stopping the project, according to the lawsuit. The case sets up a direct test of whether voters can use a charter amendment to halt a development a city has already approved and a developer has already spent tens of millions of dollars building.
The city of Trenton had not publicly answered the suit. The city administration and the city legal director did not respond to voicemails asking whether Trenton planned to challenge the lawsuit, the Enquirer reported.
What happens next is in federal court in Cincinnati, where the city will have to respond to Prologis’s complaint. However the case comes out, it is likely to be watched well beyond Butler County: with 18 Ohio communities having just voted on data center restrictions, the ruling could shape how far local bans can reach when a project is already underway.
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