May 11, 2026 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
The primary utility serving Ypsilanti has approved a one-year moratorium on providing water and sewage services to new data center developments. The decision was backed by both the Ypsilanti City Council and the Charter Township Board of Trustees, which voted in favor on March 3 and April 15, respectively. The Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority formally approved the moratorium request on April 22.
The YCUA emphasized “the necessity of rigorous, science-based due-diligence analyses, which are to be completed prior to the approval of high-demand, hyperscale data centers, mid-sized data centers, artificial intelligence computing facilities, and high-performance computational centers.”
The decision is expected to delay two planned data center developments in the region. One is a $1.2 billion project involving the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory, which was slated for a 124-acre site off Textile Road in Ypsilanti Township. The other is an 800-acre facility proposed by Thor Equities in Augusta Township, a location situated between Ann Arbor and Detroit but still within the service area of the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority.
