Monterey Park Measure NDC vote — permanent data center ban (June 2026)

On 2 June 2026, residents of Monterey Park, California, voted to permanently ban data centers citywide, making Monterey Park the first city in the United States to do so by public vote. Measure NDC passed with 88.34% in favor — 10,321 votes to 1,362. State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, who represents the district, described the outcome as the first citizen-approved ban on data centers anywhere in the country.

The trigger and city council timeline

The vote grew out of a proposed 218,400-square-foot data center at 1977 Saturn Avenue, planned by Australian investment firm HMC StratCap through its DigiCo platform to support large-scale AI computing workloads. Community opposition mobilized against the project on grounds of power demand, water use, air quality, and impacts on public health and utility rates. In January 2026, the Monterey Park City Council unanimously adopted a 45-day moratorium on new data center applications; in March 2026, it unanimously voted to place a permanent prohibition before voters. Measure NDC's ballot text presented the ban as a protective measure for air quality, drinking water, and public health.

Organizers

The primary coalition behind Measure NDC included No Data Center Monterey Park, co-founded by Steven Kung; SGV Progressive Action, co-founded by Amy J. Wong; the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association, led by Edson Chao; and Viva la Causa, represented by Ashley Vega. City Councilmember Jose Sanchez joined the coalition's post-vote press conference. Amy Wong framed the vote as a precedent for community authority over land-use decisions: "communities have the right to decide whether to allow data center development and land-use decisions should prioritize residents."

Movement context

The Monterey Park vote came ten days before the Stop Data Centers Coalition formally launched (June 12, 2026) with 520+ organizations across 48 states demanding a nationwide moratorium — the vote was widely cited in coalition communications as evidence that communities could win. CalMatters reported that Monterey Park inspired adjacent San Gabriel Valley cities and that hundreds of cities nationally had considered or passed data center bans by mid-2026. The Kairos Fellowship / MediaJustice Fight Data Centers campaign — which had been building US community-organizing infrastructure on data center resistance since 2024, including organizer toolkits and a site-fight guide — framed the Monterey Park outcome as part of the same national movement it had seeded.