The Ohio Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the village of Lordstown is not required to consider a proposed data center site plan. The decision, released this week, states that village leaders were within their rights to halt the review process for a data center because, at the time, the village council had banned such facilities in the area.
The case involved Bristolville 25 Developer, a company that purchased property zoned for industrial use in Lordstown in February 2025 with the intention of building a data center. The company initiated the site-review process in October 2025, just two weeks before the village council officially adopted a ban on data centers.
Following the site-review request, Kellie Bordner, the village’s planning and zoning administrator, notified Bristolville 25 Developer via email that a data center ban had received a second reading before the council. Bordner stated that the planning and zoning office “would not be able to proceed until council makes a decision on the ban at the next council meeting,” according to court documents. Village Solicitor Matthew Ries also anticipated the project would likely be prohibited due to the new ban.
The initial ban ordinance did not apply to all data centers, with the Supreme Court noting that it was “explicitly inapplicable to any data-center facility already existing or under construction as of the ordinance’s effective date.”
After the Supreme Court received the case but before rendering its decision, the village council repealed the outright ban. Instead, it passed an ordinance establishing a “temporary moratorium on the issuing of any new permits, as well as the receipt and processing of applications for permits, for proposed data centers in Lordstown,” as stated in Supreme Court documents. In June, the village further extended this moratorium for 180 days. This action aligns with a trend across the state, with more than 100 data center moratoriums currently in place.
Bristolville 25 Developer had asked the state’s highest court to order the village to proceed with the site review process under the zoning laws that existed before the moratorium. The company argued that its review process began prior to the changes in zoning ordinances that prohibited such facilities.
The Supreme Court disagreed with the developer’s argument. The court determined that Bristolville 25 Developer did not demonstrate a clear legal right to have its plans reviewed based on outdated zoning ordinances. The court further clarified that the company “has not met the legislative requirements for obtaining a permit and therefore has no vested right to enforcement of any particular zoning ordinance.” Ultimately, the court concluded that, under the moratorium, the village is “under no legal duty to proceed with a site-plan review” of the project using pre-moratorium zoning rules.
