Written by Tanya Terry
At a June 8, 2026, Flint City Council meeting, the council voted 7-1 to approve a resolution which imposes a temporary 12-month moratorium on data center development in Flint.
Although 4th Ward Councilwoman Judy Priestley voted no on the resolution, no permit applications related to data centers will be accepted during the moratorium period. Site plans and construction of data centers is also being restricted for 12 months.
Zoning codes and ordinances will be reviewed by the City’s Planning & Development Department and its Legal Department.
The council may choose to extend the moratorium after the 12-month period.
Many city residents expressed concern about a data center operating locally.
JanMarie Arbor, a local resident, stated the following regarding a 200-acre data center proposal.
“First I want to say, AI data centers are targeting rural and disadvantaged communities. Flint is clearly a disadvantaged community, making us both valuable to them, but also vulnerable to them.
And to gain inroads into these desirable locations, these data center corporate advocates indicate that they’ll bring good paying jobs, and they’ll provide much needed tax revenues to revitalize suppressed and depressed economies. Some even will pull at your heartstrings as Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI did in Saline Township by saying: ‘Your AI data center may be the very one to find a cure for cancer. How low can you go?”
Arbor noted legal and technological publication have documented that government representatives have been required by these corporations have been NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) and to avoid holding meetings for residents to question what is going on as data centers are developed.
Flint Resident Rich Jones also spoke, saying:
“They ain’t go’ng bring no 3,000 jobs…I just feel it’s time for y’all to stand with the people…The people don’t want the data center.
“The big people that’s calling and pressing you, they may want it…
“But the residents of Flint, who are going to be victimized by the recontamination of that plant that we’re now cleaning up.
“And it’s also not going to bring those jobs to our city.
“That Buick City work site must put something on there that’s going to give at least 2,000 Flint residents a job out of the 3,000…You cannot put nothing up there that’s just not going to help our city.”
Darell Brown, Flint 7th Ward City Council candidate, stated: “No, no data center. This really shouldn’t be a conversation, except for the ones who are like misinformed. People have to do research to find out what should and what should not be. And everything that I see about the data center is horrible. It’s its own monster.
“So, high water consumption. We already got rates going up. What more do they want from Flint? They want to do everything that they can to Flint…
“We can stand against anything together.
“They want to increase demands for a local electrical grid. What does that mean? Electricity goes up, too. Consumers is already going up. Now we’ve got water, and then there’s going to be electricity. Those two things right now are killing people’s pockets.
“We’re not even talking about the environment yet because it gets worse.”
Brown said he looked up testimonies from individuals living where AI data centers have already been built.
“They’re saying the soil isn’t good where it’s built. It’s horrible. If you want to plant something there, nothing is going to grow. It’s inhabitable. The land breaks down.”
Brown said if there is a lake nearby, it gets tainted.
“Y’all would never have to worry about me voting for something so evil. Y’all would never have to worry about these things happening to us. They’re not going to play with us anymore. These people on the outside, that don’t live here, that want to do these things to us are going to learn: ‘Don’t mess with Flint…
“…You might try to pick off one, two three. But when we all come together, we’re a fist, and we make a mighty blow.”
Council President Candice Mushatt successfully pushed for an independent review of the potential pros and cons of the data center during the temporary halt on activities related to data centers.
