Greenwood County SC Data Center Zoning & Moratorium

Greenwood County runs genuine countywide zoning under a joint city-county Planning Department -- but in 2026, that zoning framework became the center of a real, contested fight over whether and how to allow data centers here. Council denied the industry-friendly amendment and then froze the door with a one-year moratorium. Here's what actually happened and what it means for land near industrial and rural-development districts.

This page covers what's specific to Greenwood County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

A conditional-use amendment that would have opened the door -- and got voted down

Earlier in 2026, Greenwood County Council took up a proposed text amendment, Ordinance 2026-19, that would have formally added data centers as a conditional use in three specific zoning districts: I-1 (Light Industrial), I-2 (Heavy Industrial), and RDD (Rural Development District) -- notably including a rural-district category, not just the county's existing industrial zones. The amendment would have required any data center project to obtain a conditional-use permit and meet defined standards on noise, lighting, and buffers separating the facility from neighboring properties, a fairly conventional regulatory structure for a use the county's zoning code didn't previously address by name at all.

That amendment did not pass. Roughly 30 residents spoke against it during public comment, raising concerns about water consumption, electricity demand, noise, broader environmental impact, effects on property values, and whether the proposed noise/lighting/buffer standards actually offered meaningful protection to rural communities near an RDD-zoned tract. Council ultimately denied the text amendment -- meaning, as of this writing, data centers are not an explicitly defined conditional use anywhere in Greenwood County's zoning code, a materially different starting position than a county that has simply not yet updated its code to address the use at all.

A one-year moratorium followed almost immediately

In the same period Council was considering (and ultimately rejecting) the conditional-use amendment, it separately advanced Ordinance 2026-25, a temporary, countywide moratorium blocking all new data center approvals for one year. That ordinance passed its final, third reading on July 21, 2026, on a 4-3 vote -- a genuinely contested outcome, not a unanimous formality. Greenwood is not unique in this: a broader wave of South Carolina counties took similar action in the same mid-2026 window, including Chesterfield, Newberry, Spartanburg, Chester, and Laurens counties statewide, and Colleton County (covered on its own standalone page in this project) enacting its own six-month pause in July 2026. Read together, Greenwood's sequence -- denying the industry-friendly conditional-use framework, then freezing new approvals entirely -- reflects a county actively choosing caution over accommodation on this specific land use, at least for now.

Council members have said publicly that the county was not actively negotiating with any specific data-center developer, but that it had been approached by three companies offering an estimated $30 to $40 million a year in potential county revenue -- a real number worth knowing if you're trying to understand why this fight is happening in Greenwood specifically, and how much continued pressure to eventually allow the use is likely to persist even during the moratorium period.

What this means if you own or are buying land here

If you own or are considering industrial-zoned (I-1 or I-2) or RDD-zoned land in Greenwood County with an eye toward eventually leasing or selling to a data-center-scale user, the practical picture right now is: the use is not a defined conditional use anywhere in the code, and even if it were, no new approvals of any kind can move forward for the moratorium's one-year duration from its July 2026 enactment. That's a real, current constraint on that specific exit strategy -- not a permanent ban, since moratoriums by design are temporary and the county is using this window explicitly to work out a more considered ordinance, but a genuine, months-long pause rather than a quick path to approval.

If you're a nearby rural landowner concerned about a large-scale data center appearing next to RDD-zoned land, the county's public debate -- water use, power demand, noise, and property-value concerns voiced by roughly 30 residents -- gives you a concrete sense of what arguments already have traction locally, useful context if a similar proposal resurfaces once the moratorium period ends. Either way, this is an active, evolving 2026 policy fight, not a settled rule: confirm the moratorium's current status, its exact end date, and whether any replacement ordinance has since been adopted directly with Greenwood County Council or the joint Planning Department before relying on this page for a live transaction.

The 2026 Data Center Zoning Fight in Greenwood County

A conditional-use amendment that would have opened the door -- and got voted down

A one-year moratorium followed almost immediately

What this means if you own or are buying land here

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