Holly Springs (NC) Halts New Data Center Applications While Studying Water, Power, and Infrastructure Impacts
Town leaders say the pause will give Holly Springs time to evaluate water use, electricity demand, noise, and other community impacts before considering future projects.
Holly Springs, NC, Jun. 18, 2026 — Holly Springs will temporarily stop accepting new data center development applications after town leaders unanimously approved a moratorium intended to give officials time to study the industry’s potential impacts on water supplies, electricity demand, infrastructure, and nearby neighborhoods.
The June 16th vote pauses the acceptance, processing, and approval of applications for data centers, cryptocurrency mining operations, data processing facilities, and related uses within both the town limits and its extraterritorial jurisdiction. The moratorium took effect June 17th and will remain in place through June 16th, 2027, unless the town adopts updated regulations sooner.
Notably, the action was not tied to a specific development proposal, and no data center project is currently under review by the town. Instead, town officials described the move as a proactive effort to address an industry that has changed significantly since Holly Springs first adopted data center regulations more than a decade ago.
Development Services’ Planning Division Manager, Sean Ryan, told council that the town’s current definition of a data center was originally added to the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) in 2011 and later refined during the 2020-21 UDO update process. While those regulations addressed data centers at the time, Ryan said modern facilities often have far different operational demands, particularly regarding electricity and water consumption.
Town staff said the study will focus on water consumption, electricity demand, backup power generation, noise, transportation impacts, and compatibility with nearby neighborhoods. Officials will also review how other communities regulate data centers.
Residents who spoke during the public hearing largely supported the moratorium and urged the town to take a cautious approach before allowing future data center development. Speakers raised concerns about water usage, electricity demand, noise impacts, infrastructure capacity, and potential effects on nearby neighborhoods. Several residents also questioned whether the economic benefits often associated with data centers would outweigh the demands such facilities could place on local resources.
Council members from across the board voiced support for the temporary pause, emphasizing that the moratorium is intended to create time for research rather than serve as a permanent policy position.
Mayor Mike Kondratick described the action as a deliberate effort to gather information before making long-term decisions.
“We’re pressing pause,” Kondratick said during the council discussion. “We’re taking a moment to assess and evaluate the impact on our residents and the impact on our resources and make sure we have the right policies in place.”
Under the process outlined by staff, the town’s Land Use Advisory Committee will help review research findings, gather stakeholder and community input, and develop recommendations for potential changes to the UDO. Staff expects the research and engagement phase to take roughly eight to nine months, with additional time needed to complete the formal ordinance amendment process.
While the moratorium allows up to 12 months for that work, town officials noted it could be lifted earlier if updated regulations are completed before the June 2027 expiration date.
For now, the vote signals that Holly Springs intends to take a closer look at how data centers fit into the community before opening the door to future proposals.
What’s Next
The moratorium took effect on June 17th, 2026. Over the coming months, town staff and the Land Use Advisory Committee will study data center impacts, review approaches used in other communities, gather public input, and develop recommendations for potential changes to Holly Springs’ development regulations. Those recommendations will ultimately return to the Town Council for consideration.
I hope that during this moratorium, they ask the questions they listed and get honest answers. I hope they also include Fujifilm, Sequris, Amgen, and the potential tenants and owners of the Yield and the two empty warehouses on the Catalyst Biocampus a few questions. Like "How important is data processing to your missions?" and "What are you typical data processing needs as a business?" and "If you had the choice of a local, available data center protecting your IP vice a Foreign data center at a lower cost where you know their laws allow complete IP theft, which would you choose?" Or you can ask Cancer and virology researchers at Duke and UNC. Or EPA researchers who use a massive, outdated data center in the Triangle to track NC poluution and erosion if they need improvements.
I think we have an opportunity to meet the data needs for real work here, and a chance to build it properly. And this moratorium should guide that. But if we follow the outright "NO!" propaganda that's playing so well in the US right now, we miss an opportunity.
Because we need data processing. This is no longer Salk's investigative world. Discovery of all sorts of wonderful drugs and treatments and other things is data processing at a large scale. And we need to keep that here in the US, and specifically in Holly Springs. For safety. For jobs, and not just data center jobs.
There are plenty of unscrupulous manufacturers in this world that are happy to steal our universities and businesses discovery, and deliver to the market untested solutions to a demanding consumer. Even if it kills that consumer. Why give them the tools and the data? Build it right, right here. This is our modern industrial revolution, and we should lead it, not fear it.