Local authorities in Harford County, Maryland, could impose a 90-day moratorium on data center development in response to a developer’s plans to build a data center at a local golf course.

Councilman Jacob Bennett, who proposed Bill 26-005, said on Facebook that this would give the government “plenty of time to research the issue and draft legislation to regulate and control this new industry before any developer attempts to bring it here to Harford County.”

Bills need to go through committee review and public hearings before an authority - in this case, the Harford County Council - can vote on it.

Another councilmember confirmed during yesterday’s Harford County Council meeting that an unidentified developer was looking to build a data center at Mountain Branch Golf Course, according to reporting by WMAR Baltimore.

But it does not seem like any formal planning application has been submitted yet.

Posts reshared by locals on Facebook claim that the developer is a US-based data center CloudHQ, but DCD was unable to independently verify this claim.

DCD has reached out to CloudHQ for comment.

Opposition to the proposed data center is fierce. At the time of writing, an anti-data center private Facebook group called “Our Land. Our Home. Our Harford” has amassed around 1,300 members, and a petition titled “Stop Data Centers in Harford County, MD” has been signed by more than 900 people.

Harford County is located in northern Maryland on its border with Pennsylvania. The area is not home to any data centers, according to Data Center Map. Most of Maryland’s data centers are clustered around Baltimore and Frederick.