On August 6, 2025, the Tucson City Council rejected an annexation that would have enabled an economic development proposal for a large-scale data center. Read more about the run-up to this historic vote here.

What’s next?

We can expect many more data center proposals in Pima County and neighboring counties and jurisdictions.

In the weeks and months ahead, the Coalition will be inputting on the development of new policies regarding large load water and energy users and responding to specific new proposals.

To best protect our landscape and its resources, we are focusing on the following:

Development of adequate policies. Most urgently, we need to support local jurisdictions with the development of adequate policies and ordinances regarding large load water and energy users (including but not limited to data centers — read this opinion piece on the resources used by local mining projects).

While we should encourage and demand transparency and public input, it is also imperative that we push through baseline protections — meaning things may happen faster than we’re normally used to.

• The Town of Marana pushed through changes to their code in December 2024.
• Pima County voted 4-1 on August 18, 2025, for a zoning code text amendment to require Conditional Use Permits for specific applicant types, including data centers. This means that, when the amendment is finalized, such applications will be subject to review by the Planning and Zoning Commission and Board of Supervisors. This follows votes that directed staff to work on policies on the appropriate use of NDAs and application of Environmental Impact Reports or EIRs for economic development proposals.
• The City of Tucson voted unanimously on August 19, 2025 to pass an ordinance that immediately places restrictions on large quantity water users. This is intended to help safeguard the city from similar proposals that would not require an annexation vote or similar. You can read our comment letter on this ordinance here. Staff have also been directed to work on further ordinances following Mayor Romero’s memo and successful motion on August 6, 2025. We expect the city’s Planning and Development Services department to pull together a technical advisory committee that will input on these ordinances, before they go through the Planning Commission and Mayor and Council.
• Pima County adopted two policies, both with 4-1 votes, on September 2nd, 2025 that will help increase transparency of natural resource use and the analysis of environmental impacts from all County economic developments, including data centers. One of these policies reforms the use of non-disclosure agreements, requiring a sunshine period of 90 days between the end of the NDA and any public vote and prevents items such as water and energy use from being included in the NDA. The second policy requires an Enhanced Due Diligence Process for all economic development projects, including robust environmental impacts reviews. The Coalition provided input on these policies, and we are glad that they passed!

Responding to new proposals. At the same time, we need to stay vigilant to new proposals. We know Project Blue was in the works since at least 2023, and we know other proposals are underway right now.

• On August 8, 2025, we submitted a comment letter in response to a requested major comprehensive plan amendment in Pinal County related to a substantial data center proposal that is adjacent to Ironwood Forest National Monument and in the middle of major regional wildlife linkage. We will continue to follow this process and further comment when the Pinal County Planning & Zoning Commission and Board of Supervisors considers this proposal this fall.