photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Residents pack the Lawrence City Commission meeting room with signs expressing their opposition to data centers on Tuesday, June 9, 2026.

In response to concerns from the public, Lawrence city leaders are interested in exploring a moratorium on data center development, and they could consider one as early as next month.

Near the end of its meeting on Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission asked city staff to bring back such a proposal for consideration within the next 30 days. They made that request after a crowd packed City Hall’s meeting room on Tuesday to urge commissioners to consider restricting data centers in the city’s Land Development Code.

As the Journal-World reported, the Land Development Code already lists data centers as a permitted use in industrial zoning districts. That means that as long as they meet the standards for those districts, data centers could be allowed there by right – no vote from the City Commission required.

The meeting room was standing-room only for the general public comment period at the City Commission’s meeting on Tuesday, which had been moved to the beginning of the agenda as part of the commission’s new meeting order. Many people held signs expressing their opposition to AI data center development, and although only seven people spoke to the commission about this topic, commenter Holly Krebs said dozens more had submitted written comments online.

“Fifty-four people have written to the commission in just the last few days,” she said.

Krebs said she and other concerned residents had created their own proposal for a moratorium that would “pause all current data center applications and disallow new ones” for three years in Lawrence. She and the others who spoke said they were concerned about the potential impacts of data centers, such as their water use, noise pollution and electrical brownouts.

What Vice Mayor Mike Courtney proposed toward the end of the meeting wasn’t a specific time limit, but rather a “data center moratorium concurrent with the planning department’s technical analysis of data centers.” The idea was that the planning department would have time to review data centers and make recommendations about what restrictions might be warranted.

Beyond directing staff, the commission did not take any vote or other action on the issue on Tuesday.