Clearfield's City Council voted unanimously Sept. 8 to freeze all data center development in the city for the next 180 days, even though no such project has actually been proposed there. The move came as Mayor Mark Shepherd pointed to the “grandiose scale” of the Stratos data center campus taking shape in Box Elder County during discussion of the issue.
The 4-0 vote prohibits new data center development in Clearfield for six months while officials figure out how to regulate an industry the city's own code doesn't even define. Clearfield city staff proposed the moratorium specifically to study land-use and infrastructure issues tied to data centers before any developer comes knocking, according to the same report. City planner Tyson Stoddard said the temporary rule buys Clearfield time to study those characteristics before writing permanent regulations, KSL reported.
No Project, But No Rulebook Either
Clearfield currently has no data center proposal in development, and the moratorium itself is not a determination that data centers are incompatible with the city's zoning districts, per KSL's reporting. The problem is more basic: Clearfield's city code doesn't establish a definition or zoning classification for a data center at all, leaving the roughly 35,000-resident Davis County suburb near Hill Air Force Base without land-use standards for larger, resource-intensive server farms.
The city's ordinance flags the same concerns that have dogged data center proposals statewide — electrical demand, water consumption, noise, and other factors — and the council will now study whether special guidelines are needed for how these facilities get built and operated, per KSL. Critics elsewhere have raised similar worries about noise, wastewater, backup power generation, and fire protection and emergency response demands tied to data center campuses.
The Stratos Shadow Over Box Elder County
Mayor Shepherd has spoken about the Stratos project, according to KSL. That project, spearheaded by Kevin O'Leary, calls for a complex of data centers in Hansel Valley covering 20,000 acres with up to 9 gigawatts of power-generating capacity, and it includes natural-gas-fired power plants that critics say could pollute the area and drive up power rates for residents.
Stratos participants have said the project would use a closed-loop cooling system to minimize water use, though critics counter that the proposal would still need excessive quantities of water for cooling. In May 2026, more than 3,700 community members filed formal protests with the Utah Division of Water Rights over an application to transfer agricultural water rights for industrial use at the site, according to the Sierra Club Utah Chapter, which noted the campus sits within the fragile Great Salt Lake basin. Box Elder County residents have also pressed for the project to appear on the November ballot, and the referendum issue is now the subject of a pending lawsuit, per KSL.
Box Elder County commissioners themselves passed a similar data center moratorium in June, though that measure exempted the controversial Stratos project itself, KSL reported. Shepherd has said Box Elder County residents' wishes should be respected if the referendum to halt the project proceeds. Supporters maintain the Stratos plan would deliver a major economic boost and matters to national security, while critics continue to worry about the broader environmental impact of concentrating so much computing infrastructure in one basin.
A Statewide Pattern of Pre-Emptive Pauses
Clearfield's freeze is one of several recent land-use decisions involving data centers in Northern Utah, according to the Standard-Examiner. Logan adopted its own 180-day moratorium on data center and power plant development on June 30, a step Hoodline covered in Logan's data center freeze. Iron County commissioners passed their own moratorium back on May 26, well before Clearfield acted.
The pattern unfolds alongside the role of the Military Installation Development Authority, or MIDA, which greenlit the 40,000-acre Stratos project area in April 2026 — a super-district created by the legislature in 2007 with independent land-use, bonding, and tax-increment authority near military installations, according to the Utah News Dispatch. Clearfield and Logan have each taken local action concerning data-center development.
State Lawmakers and the Governor Weigh In
The article also examines the state's highest office in the broader debate over MIDA and data centers. Stuart Adams, who sat on MIDA's board during the April approval, is also mentioned in coverage of the controversy.
Lawmakers have also considered the regulatory front. Data-center regulation remains part of the broader debate amid persistent concerns about energy infrastructure and water use.
The discussion also considers Utah's data-center growth. Six Utah organizations have called for a pause on data-center development. For now, the broader debate over data-center regulation continues, while Clearfield's council studies whether it needs guidelines of its own.
