Normal Town Council extends suspension on data centers
Written by Bella Marello on September 22, 2026
Image by Bella Marello
NORMAL, Ill. – The Normal Town Council extended the moratorium on data centers through May 31, 2027.
This legal suspension means the Town of Normal will not accept any data center applications or land use until the moratorium expires.
Council member Kathleen Lorenz said the previous moratorium was intended to learn more, gather data, talk with Bloomington and hold public sessions. She asked what the town learned from that first moratorium time frame.
City Manager Pamela Reece said the town took the time to gather information.
“We clearly reviewed the other municipal ordinances that we think could be relevant and that we could pull some information from,” Reece said. “We visited Aurora and a few other communities that have data centers, and then we participated in the recent community meeting that was about three weeks ago or so.”
“[We] continued to have conversations with the city of Bloomington on what they might be looking at for data center regulations,” Reece said.
According to Reece, the town has not landed on a recommendation but does recognize there may be interest from the state government.
Assistant City Manager Brian Day said that this time frame is intended to give the Illinois General Assembly time to come up with their regulations.
“So at this point, we don’t want to go in and craft a bunch of regulations and deal with a bunch of issues, and then three months from now, the general assembly comes in with something entirely different, which puts us back to square one,” Day said.
Mayor Chris Koos said that Normal has the “strong” desire to match the City of Bloomington’s data center regulations.
Council member Karyn Smith emphasized her hesitancy with early stages of new technology.
“There’s every likelihood that in the future, it will get smaller, it will get more efficient, and this is one of those areas where I’d rather not be on the leading edge of something that we would look to in the future to be addressing a lot of the concerns that citizens are raising,” Smith said.
“We don’t want to be first. We want to be best,” Koos said.
This ordinance was approved by all council members except Andy Byars.
The Normal Town Council meets on the first and third Mondays of each month. Its next meeting is scheduled for April 20 at 7 p.m. at Normal City Hall.
