Pima County moves toward data center moratorium, tighter transparency

They also asked county staff to create a resolution that, if approved, would put a 120-day moratorium on data centers to give the county time to finalize zoning laws specific to data centers. 

At the Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday night, after going into executive session to discuss the moratorium item with county attorneys, the board voted 3-2 to direct County Administrator Jan Lesher and county attorneys to draft the moratorium resolution and bring it back to the board for approval. Supervisors Steve Christy, of District 4, and Rex Scott, of District 1, voted against the measure. While voting, Scott said his vote was “based on the advice of legal counsel,” but could not elaborate on that advice. 

Then the supervisors voted 4-1 to direct the county administrator and attorneys to revise the two transparency and accountability policies. Christy voted against the measure. 

The two policies — enhanced due diligence process for economic development projects and use of non-disclosure agreements in economic development projects — were created almost a year ago in response to the backlash of the Project Blue data center land sale. In June 2025, the board of supervisors voted 3-2 to sell unincorporated Pima County land near the fairgrounds southeast of Tucson to Beale Infrastructure, for construction of the Project Blue data center.

Supervisor Jennifer Allen, of District 3, said the county wants its data center zoning code to align with the city of Tucson’s code. She said she expects the county to pick up momentum on finalizing its code after the city passed new land use code for data centers last week.  

Allen said she revisited the county’s due diligence and NDA policies after seeing that data center developers rushed to apply for tax breaks before a moratorium went into place. 

On June 13, Governor Katie Hobbs signed into law a three-year moratorium on tax breaks for data centers in June. With the new law going into effect June 30, 113 applications for tax breaks were filed in the two week period. 

This raised alarms for Allen, who said she wanted to make sure the county’s policies were strong enough to handle a possible influx of data center project proposals. 

The due diligence policy requires the county to request and analyze information from proposed economic development projects regarding environmental and climate impacts. Allen suggested that the due diligence policy should be broadened to include many other ways in which a development is proposed. Currently, the policy lists four specific ways in which a project proposal would activate the due diligence process. 

Allen also suggested the policy should be expanded to include all large water and energy users, and asked county staff to define what qualifies as one. 

“I think we can be more specific about the types of projects that warrant the sort of robust analysis that our due diligence policy outlines,” Allen said. 

The county’s NDA policy established a consistent and transparent policy regarding when the county uses the agreements in economic development projects. Allen asked county staff to go back to existing NDAs and ask the other parties who signed onto those agreements before the new policy was created and ask if they’re willing to comply with the new policy. 

“It's clearly optional for people who have signed NDAs, but the ask should be there,” Allen said. 

Both the moratorium resolution and the proposed policy changes are expected to go back to the board for approval on or before Sept. 8. 

This article first appeared on AZ Luminaria and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.