New Orleans' City Planning Commission on Tuesday declined to send the City Council a set of rules that would have spelled out where, if anywhere, data centers could be built in the city. Instead, commissioners voted 5-2 to reject their staff's recommendations and urged the council to extend the citywide ban on new data centers for six more months. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
The vote leaves Louisiana's largest city without a zoning framework for the facilities just as the state's AI buildout, from Meta's Richland Parish campus to Hut 8's River Bend site, keeps pulling power and land-use questions into local politics. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026) Fox 8 WVUE / Thanh Truong, "Massive power needs of Meta data center in Richland Parish are 'absurd,' opponents say" (Oct. 13, 2026)
How New Orleans got here
The moratorium dates to January, when the City Council responded to a proposed data center in New Orleans East. On Jan. 28 the council approved one motion directing the Planning Commission to define data centers and decide whether they should be permitted or conditional uses, and a second placing a moratorium through a temporary Data Center Interim Zoning District that pauses licenses and approvals for data centers citywide for one year. New Orleans City Council, "New Orleans City Council Approves Motions to Study Data Center Zoning and Temporary Restrictions" (Jan. 28, 2026)
"Too often, the City of New Orleans is reacting to new technology when it's already in our neighborhoods, rather than anticipating potential problems," Council President JP Morrell said at the time. New Orleans City Council, "New Orleans City Council Approves Motions to Study Data Center Zoning and Temporary Restrictions" (Jan. 28, 2026)
The commission has deferred a final recommendation several times since then. Staff released their proposals in July, the commission asked for changes in August, and council members were unwilling to push the deadline back any further, Planning Commission Executive Director Robert Rivers told commissioners on Tuesday. The moratorium is due to expire in January. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
What staff proposed
Planning staff sorted data centers into size classes. Under their definitions, a small data center could be no larger than 20,000 square feet and use no more than 5 megawatts; a medium one could reach 100,000 square feet and 20 megawatts; anything bigger was classed as large or hyperscale. Staff recommended prohibiting the large and hyperscale categories and allowing small and medium facilities in certain parts of the city, with restrictions. WDSU / Ella Wales, "Planning commission weighs future of data centers in New Orleans" (Oct. 13, 2026)
Under that framework, centers of up to 100,000 square feet could have been permitted in industrial areas and in the Central Business District's Bio-Science District. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026) Planning Administrator Stephen Kroll said staff set the energy caps by estimating how much electricity a fully occupied office building already allowed under the existing code could use, noting that "a maxed-out building in the Central Business District could have far over 20 megawatts of energy usage." nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
Rivers stressed that staff had not recommended any particular project and that data centers would never be allowed by right. Every proposal would need a conditional use permit, a public process before both the commission and the council. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
The staff report also found that small data centers already exist in New Orleans, including at least four operating downtown, and identified water and power use as the biggest concerns with new ones. WDSU / Ella Wales, "Planning commission weighs future of data centers in New Orleans" (Oct. 13, 2026)
What commissioners want instead
An earlier motion to accept the staff recommendations with some tweaks failed for lack of a legal majority, which is why the commission did not formally back the staff's proposed ban on the largest facilities. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
Commissioners instead asked staff to tighten the definitions. They suggested shrinking a small data center from 20,000 to 10,000 square feet and from 5 to 3 megawatts, cutting the medium class from 100,000 to 50,000 square feet and from 20 to 15 megawatts, and doubling the buffer between data centers and homes from 500 feet to 1,000 feet. WDSU / Ella Wales, "Planning commission weighs future of data centers in New Orleans" (Oct. 13, 2026) Axios New Orleans / Chelsea Brasted, "New Orleans City Planning can't agree on data center regulations" (Oct. 15, 2026)
Commissioner Robert Steeg, who proposed the halved size limits, tied the 15-megawatt cap to what Entergy New Orleans says is the most it can serve without new transmission infrastructure. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026) Commissioners also said any data centers the city eventually allows should meet strict energy-efficiency and noise standards. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
Commissioner Nomita Joshi-Gupta went further. "I do understand a data center, for example, for City Hall or for a hospital to have its own personal data center. Those I am OK with," she said. "But anything other than that, I'm not sure I feel comfortable." nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
A room full of opposition
Fourteen members of the public spoke against any zoning change that would allow permitted data centers, according to nola.com, and every speaker opposed advancing a framework. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026) A small group, led by members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, demonstrated outside City Hall before the vote. WDSU / Ella Wales, "Planning commission weighs future of data centers in New Orleans" (Oct. 13, 2026)
Members of the Take the Power Back campaign also gathered at City Hall on Tuesday to protest the proposed zoning change, while keeping up their campaign against Meta's Richland Parish data center. Fox 8 reported that the 4,500 megawatts Entergy has described for that campus is about four times the 1,160-megawatt single-day record Entergy New Orleans customers set in June 2022. Fox 8 WVUE / Thanh Truong, "Massive power needs of Meta data center in Richland Parish are 'absurd,' opponents say" (Oct. 13, 2026)
Lauren Zander of the Union of Concerned Scientists told commissioners that "these investments must be carefully evaluated through transparent long-term planning that considers existing community needs, future demand and opportunities to expand access to affordable clean energy." nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
Kenya Smith, interim president of the East New Orleans Neighborhood Advisory Commission, welcomed the delay. "The commission's vote to give this more time is all we were really asking for in the first place," Smith said. "That we ask a fundamental question, 'What's the rush?'" WGNO / Alana Thompson, "City Planning Commission denies data center recommendation in 5-2 vote" (Oct. 13, 2026)
Why the grid argument lands in New Orleans
Many residents said they doubt the city's utilities could handle data centers' demand for water and electricity. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026) Two days after the vote, nearly 2,500 customers in Mid-City, Navarre and City Park lost power Thursday afternoon, Oct. 15. It was at least the third outage that week affecting more than 1,000 Entergy New Orleans customers, after earlier ones in Uptown, the Marigny, parts of the Bywater and the French Quarter. The cause was not immediately clear. WWL Louisiana, "More than 2,500 lose power in Mid-City on Thursday" (Oct. 15, 2026)
New Orleans is also unusual in who answers for those systems. Both the Sewerage and Water Board and Entergy New Orleans are regulated by the City Council, the same body that now has to decide what to do about data centers. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
What happens next
The commission's vote is advisory. The Planning Commission will ask the council for more time to develop and agree on its recommendations, and if recommendations do reach the council, members still decide how to adopt them, so a total ban remains on the table. Morrell has suggested the one-year moratorium was a first step toward one. Axios New Orleans / Chelsea Brasted, "New Orleans City Planning can't agree on data center regulations" (Oct. 15, 2026)
What to watch
- **Moratorium extension:** Whether the City Council grants the six-month extension planners requested before the ban expires in January. nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
- **Revised definitions:** Whether staff's next draft adopts the commission's smaller size and power caps and the 1,000-foot residential buffer. WDSU / Ella Wales, "Planning commission weighs future of data centers in New Orleans" (Oct. 13, 2026)
- **A ban vote:** Whether council members move toward an outright prohibition, which remains on the table regardless of what planners recommend. Axios New Orleans / Chelsea Brasted, "New Orleans City Planning can't agree on data center regulations" (Oct. 15, 2026)
- **Utility reliability:** Whether Entergy New Orleans explains this week's string of outages as the council weighs new large electricity users. WWL Louisiana, "More than 2,500 lose power in Mid-City on Thursday" (Oct. 15, 2026)
Evidence Used
- nola.com / Jonah Meadows, "New Orleans planners urge council to extend data center ban, while punting on firm rules" (Oct. 15, 2026)
- WDSU / Ella Wales, "Planning commission weighs future of data centers in New Orleans" (Oct. 13, 2026)
- Axios New Orleans / Chelsea Brasted, "New Orleans City Planning can't agree on data center regulations" (Oct. 15, 2026)
- WGNO / Alana Thompson, "City Planning Commission denies data center recommendation in 5-2 vote" (Oct. 13, 2026)
- Fox 8 WVUE / Thanh Truong, "Massive power needs of Meta data center in Richland Parish are 'absurd,' opponents say" (Oct. 13, 2026)
- WWL Louisiana, "More than 2,500 lose power in Mid-City on Thursday" (Oct. 15, 2026)
- New Orleans City Council, "New Orleans City Council Approves Motions to Study Data Center Zoning and Temporary Restrictions" (Jan. 28, 2026)