A group of Trenton neighbors is trying to ban large data centers by getting a city charter amendment on the November ballot.
Members of the Woodsdale and Trenton Environmental Resistance group gathered signatures for a petition to change the city charter to prohibit the construction of data centers over 25 megawatts. They submitted the petition to the city Wednesday.
The group’s campaign comes after people spent months pushing back on a planned 250-megawatt data center being built on former farmland in the city’s industrial park, raising concerns from noise pollution to water usage to environment impacts.
Barry Blankenship lives a half mile from the planned development.
“I want to ban data centers because of its location, not about what it is,” he told WVXU. “The location is close to a school, is close to a lot of neighborhoods, is close to a metropark — it's close to a lot of things that, when you look at it and add it all up, it's not safe.”
Blankenship says while other communities in Butler County have enacted moratoriums on data center developments, Trenton has not.
“Those that we elect seem to be ignoring those safety nets that we've asked for, so that's what this is all about,” Blankenship said.
He says the group needed 128 signatures; they gathered more than 450.
Trenton and the Butler County Board of Elections will review the petition now. If enough signatures are validated, the proposed charter amendment will appear on the ballot in November.
Blankenship says the proposed amendment wouldn’t stop the data center that’s being constructed in the industrial park, but it could prevent more of these warehouse-like facilities from being built in the future.
A statewide grassroots group is trying to get a constitutional ban on data centers that consume more than 25 megawatts of power monthly before Ohio voters. They are now hoping to make the 2027 ballot.
Read more: