Plainfield trustees voted unanimously this month to extend the village's moratorium on data centers and certain warehouses for another 180 days, buying more time to finish rewriting the rules that would govern any future projects. The vote, taken Oct. 5, marks the second time this year the village has hit pause rather than let applications move forward.
The moratorium temporarily halts the receipt of applications, the processing and approval of those applications, and the issuance of permits for data centers and for warehouses primarily used to house computing infrastructure, according to Patch. The first version of the moratorium was adopted in April 2026 and was set to expire when trustees approved this second 180-day extension, as The Times Weekly reported.
Village officials say the delay comes down to unfinished homework. The UDO update is not completed, so an extension of the moratorium was necessary, Patch's report noted, referring to the Unified Development Ordinance the village is drafting to address land use, infrastructure and regulatory issues tied to data centers. The village is aiming for the updated ordinance to be ready in late winter or early spring, per the same report.
Mayor Points to Power Capacity Concerns
Plainfield Mayor John Argoudelis has been blunt about why the village isn't ready to say yes to data centers yet, citing a lack of power capacity and environmental concerns. He told Patch that what we didn't want to do was put a “forever ban” on data centers, signaling the pause is meant to be temporary even as it keeps getting renewed. Argoudelis predicted the moratorium would likely be extended more than once, and as far back as April, he doubted Plainfield would have the clarity it needed within just 180 days.
Argoudelis also said that ComEd does not have the power to supply half of the data centers already approved elsewhere, according to information he said he received directly from the utility — a claim attributed to him rather than independently confirmed by ComEd itself. He pointed to a wider regional pattern, saying there has been a mad rush for data centers in Joliet, Yorkville and Minooka, a dynamic The Times Weekly first detailed back in April. Developers have approached Plainfield about building data centers there as well, Argoudelis has said, even as the village continues to hold off.
Village Administrator Says Zoning Code Wasn't Built for This
Village Administrator Joshua Blakemore has acknowledged that current zoning rules simply weren't written with facilities like these in mind, since they don't account for data centers' land, power and infrastructure demands. He's said future data center development, if permitted, should align with community priorities and infrastructure capacity — language echoed in the village's own planning, according to the earlier Times Weekly report. Plainfield plans to continue monitoring state legislation affecting data-center regulation while it researches and proposes its own comprehensive land-use rules, per Shaw Local.
Not every resident is frustrated by the slow pace. Plainfield resident George Kimball said he welcomed the village taking more time before committing to large-scale data center development, reflecting at least one local voice in favor of caution over speed.
Neighboring Towns Show What's at Stake
Plainfield's hesitation comes as neighboring communities plow ahead. The Joliet City Council approved a controversial 795-acre data center by an 8-1 vote, a project known as the Joliet Technology Center and valued at a proposed $20 billion, with developers saying construction could begin as early as late 2026. At full use, the facility would draw 1.8 gigawatts of power, Shaw Local has reported.
That project is now tied up in court. Joliet Residents for Responsible Growth sued in May over the project's approval, asking a judge to declare it void, and arguing that a $1.44 billion Lake Michigan water pipeline was built to serve residents and businesses — not to cool data center equipment. Will County Judge Victoria Breslan heard arguments on motions to dismiss the case in September and said she would rule in October, though no ruling had been issued as of this reporting.
Yorkville, meanwhile, has approved its own large data center projects, including Project Cardinal, a roughly 1,000-acre campus the City Council cleared for annexation and rezoning in March, according to the Chicago Tribune. That plan calls for 14 data center buildings alongside two electrical substations, a utility switchyard and stormwater detention basins. Both Joliet and Yorkville approved their projects amid strong resident opposition, Shaw Local noted. Aurora adopted its own 180-day data center moratorium in September, and South Elgin's Village Board unanimously approved a 12-month moratorium of its own on the same day Plainfield extended its pause, with staff there evaluating the potential impact of such facilities, the Tribune reported. Elgin's Planning and Zoning Commission has separately voted 6-1 to recommend a similar 12-month moratorium.
Why the Power Grid Is Under Strain
The hesitation isn't just local politics — it reflects a broader strain on Illinois' electric grid. Data centers house servers, storage and networking equipment that power everything from online banking to artificial intelligence, and in doing so consume large amounts of electricity and, in many cases, water. ComEd has reported roughly 100 large-load projects in its developmental pipeline, most of them data centers, representing about 35,000 megawatts of demand — enough that if completed, they would more than double the utility's peak electricity demand over the next 15 years, according to the Chicago Tribune's reporting on Illinois Commerce Commission filings.
A Union of Concerned Scientists analysis found Illinois data centers could add up to $37 billion to electricity costs over the next 25 years, and that the facilities could account for 72% of the state's electricity-demand growth by 2030, per NPR Illinois. Public sentiment tracks that unease: a September poll from PBS, NPR and Marist found 65% of voters oppose data-center construction in their communities, with 43% strongly opposed. In response to the strain, the Illinois Commerce Commission has approved ComEd tariff changes requiring scaled-up application deposits starting at $1 million per data-center project.
State lawmakers have also taken notice. A bill listing with the Illinois General Assembly describes legislation that would establish environmental, water and energy regulations for hyperscale data centers, though it remains unclear whether that measure has advanced. Separately, the proposed POWER Act, as described by Capitol News Illinois, would require new data centers to cover their own energy and infrastructure costs, use renewable power, report water usage, secure state environmental water permits and strike community benefits agreements. Plainfield has said it will keep watching that legislation as it drafts its own rules, hoping to land somewhere between the rush seen in Joliet and Yorkville and an outright ban it says it never intended to impose.
