The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that the village of Lordstown is not obligated to act on a data center site plan submitted by Bristolville 25 Developer, because village officials had adopted a prohibition on such facilities while the application was pending.
According to the decision, the developer filed its review request in October 2025, roughly two weeks before the village council adopted a data center ban. That February, the company had bought land zoned for industrial use in Lordstown with the stated purpose of building a data center.
Lordstown planning and zoning administrator Kellie Bordner emailed the company the following day, telling it the planning office could not move forward until council decided on the ban, which had received a second reading. Bordner and Village Solicitor Matthew Ries indicated drafts were being reviewed, and Ries anticipated the project probably would be barred.
The prohibition did not cover data centers already in existence or under construction on its effective date, the court noted. While the case was pending, council repealed the ban and substituted a temporary moratorium on accepting and processing new data center permit applications. In June the village extended that moratorium by 180 days; the source describes it as one of more than 100 such moratoriums in Ohio.
Bristolville asked the court to compel the village to continue the review under the zoning rules that preceded the changes, arguing its request came first. The court rejected that argument, finding no established right to a review under superseded zoning and saying the developer lacked a vested right because it had not satisfied permit requirements.