Washington County published a statement on September 30 explaining what its temporary data center moratorium actually does, and buried inside all the bureaucratic language is a pretty astonishing admission. The moratorium that County officials have repeatedly pointed to while trying to reassure residents about data center development does not apply inside any of Washington County’s nine incorporated municipalities. Hagerstown, Williamsport, Boonsboro, Smithsburg, Hancock, Clear Spring, Funkstown, Keedysville and Sharpsburg are all outside it.
According to the Maryland Department of Planning, approximately 58,000 people live in those nine municipalities, more than one-third of Washington County’s population. And according to the County’s own September 30 statement, each municipality “may still consider data center development without any input or approvals by the Commissioners,” except where Maryland’s restrictions on substantially different uses of newly annexed land apply.
That is a hell of an asterisk to put on something called the Washington County data center moratorium, especially after everything we have learned about the County’s role in courting this industry.
Washington County spent years helping attract the industry it suddenly needed a moratorium to study
Long before County officials began assuring residents that they were carefully studying data centers, Washington County was helping make Maryland and Washington County more attractive to them. In 2020, Washington County’s Department of Business Development supported Maryland legislation creating major sales and use tax exemptions for qualifying data centers. Washington County’s status as a Tier I county makes it particularly attractive under that law because qualifying projects face a lower investment threshold here than in most Maryland counties.
We have since found additional examples of the County supporting tax incentives that could benefit technology and data center development. As we reported earlier this month, the Commissioners backed a separate tax exemption for development at Mount Aetna Technology Park, where data center brokers had already been asking about land, zoning, utilities and power availability. The legislation expressly includes “computer systems and equipment” among the equipment eligible for the exemption, while the property’s existing ORI zoning permits “Computer and data processing services.”
The County’s involvement did not stop with supporting tax incentives. We have found Washington County economic development materials promoting local industrial land for data center development and directing prospective developers to County Business Development Director Jonathan Horowitz. Earlier this month, we discovered that Horowitz sits on the Data Center Alliance of Maryland Steering Committee, alongside representatives from Amazon, BGE, Constellation Energy, Rowan Digital Infrastructure, Turner Construction and others involved in Maryland’s data center industry.
That steering committee was announced in February 2026. So while County officials have spent the past several months talking about the need to learn about data centers and study “best practices,” their own Business Development Director already had a seat at the table with the industry.
Then there is Diversified Capital and the Martin Farm property.
The County signed NDAs with a developer tied to land marketed for a data center
Washington County Planning Commission records from June 2023 identify “a concept plan for Diversified Capital” involving a proposed one-million-square-foot warehouse at 12440 Burkholder Lane. The same property was subsequently advertised publicly as “Ideal for Data Center”, with its availability of utilities promoted as one of the property’s selling points.
In August 2025, Commissioner Commissioner Jeff Cline received a campaign contribution from a Diversified Capital CFO, Moshe Rubin. In December 2025, County officials attended a confidential presentation involving a project team that included Diversified Capital CFO Moshe Rubin. County Administrator Michelle Gordon and the Commissioners signed nondisclosure agreements associated with that meeting. We reconstructed the connections among the NDA meeting, Diversified Capital, Martin Farm, campaign contributions and the Burkholder property in our investigation, “Washington County Commissioners Signed NDAs to Keep a Development Project Secret. The Trail Leads to a Data Center at Martin Farm.”
Commissioner Jeff Cline returned the Diversified Capital campaign donation on June 12, 2026, almost ten months after receiving them and approximately six months after the confidential presentation. Four days later, Washington County quietly posted its draft data center moratorium. Are we really expected to believe that this was just coincidental timing? Then, on June 30, the County Commissioners voted for their sham moratorium in an effort to get ahead of the issue to try to minimize the fallout before the election.
Since then, Washington County Administrator, Michelle Gordon, has attempted to distract the public with carefully worded statements and pretend that the county has had nothing to do with their effort to bring data centers to Washington County. Earlier this month, Gordon issued a statement attempting to “correct the record” about local data centers. We went through the problems with that explanation in our September 20 investigation into Gordon’s statements and her own participation in the NDA meeting.
Now the County has given us another correction. This time it is finally explaining how little territory its moratorium actually controls, but not surprisingly, it does not mention that they have been trying to bring data centers to Washington County for years.
The County moratorium applies to zero of Washington County’s nine municipalities
The Commissioners adopted their twelve-month data center moratorium on June 30, 2026. The County’s ordinance records identify it as Ordinance 2026-12. Three months later, the County is now explaining exactly how limited that moratorium is.
Washington County says Maryland law gives incorporated municipalities with planning and zoning authority jurisdiction over land-use decisions inside their boundaries. As a result, the County acknowledges that its moratorium applies “only to the unincorporated areas of Washington County.” The statement specifically names Hagerstown, Boonsboro, Clear Spring, Funkstown, Hancock, Keedysville, Sharpsburg, Smithsburg and Williamsport before explaining that those municipalities may continue considering data center development.
Some county leaders have pointed to a limitation for newly annexed property, claiming that a municipality generally cannot authorize a substantially different land use for five years after annexation. But that is meaningless, because they conveniently do not cite the County Commissioners can make an exception. So, in other words, the same commissioners who announced a data center moratorium can approve an exception that allows a data center development to move forward on newly annexed property.
If the proposed Martin Farm project requires such approval, the commissioners could - and presumably would - authorize it rather than make the developer wait five years. The moratorium itself does not eliminate that authority, and is a total dog-and-pony-show in an attempt to paint the county as not the ones who have spent the past years lobbying for data centers in the county.
A property marketed for data centers is trying to move into Hagerstown
On June 30, the same day the Commissioners adopted the data center moratorium, an annexation petition was filed involving approximately 172 acres at 12440 Burkholder Lane and 12660 McDade Road. The petition seeks to bring the property into the City of Hagerstown, one of the nine municipalities the County just confirmed is outside its moratorium.
This property already had years of history behind it. Washington County Planning Commission minutes show Diversified Capital associated with a concept plan there in 2023. By June 2024, the property was being marketed publicly as “Ideal for Data Center.” The commercial listing promoted the availability of utilities and the enormous industrial development potential of the site.
The annexation was already one of the reasons we questioned the value of the County moratorium. In our original investigation into Martin Farm, we noted that annexation could move planning and zoning authority into Hagerstown. Days later, we found CBRE job listings for data center work in Hagerstown, raising another question we still have not been able to answer: are those jobs connected to Martin Farm, or is another data center project moving somewhere else in Hagerstown?
The County’s new statement makes the annexation issue much clearer. If the property enters Hagerstown, the County moratorium itself does not follow it.
Maryland’s five-year restriction on substantially different uses of newly annexed property still matters, particularly because the property is already zoned Planned Industrial and Hagerstown is considering Industrial Mixed Use zoning. We are continuing to investigate how that provision would apply to a data center on this particular property.
What no longer requires interpretation is the reach of the County moratorium. Washington County just told us where it ends.
The water problem makes this even worse
The County’s announcement is particularly infuriating because the same document explaining the limits of the moratorium also lays out a lengthy list of potential regulations that confirms many of the concerns residents have been raising about data centers.
County staff is recommending that data centers prepare water plans addressing recycling, drought conditions and alternative cooling technologies. Staff is considering a minimum 1,000-foot setback from residential homes, pre- and post-construction noise studies, a maximum noise level of 50 dBA at the property line, noise barriers, air-quality studies, environmental-impact studies and an excise tax or impact fee. The County is even considering restrictions on natural gas turbines and lithium-ion batteries used for backup power. Just for reference, this 1,000-foot setback from residential homes means a data center could be about three Washington Commanders or Baltimore Ravens football fields away from a house.
These are not minor zoning details. Washington County is considering them because data centers can put enormous demands on the infrastructure around them. The County is explicitly contemplating drought planning and water recycling while simultaneously telling us that the moratorium under which it is developing those protections does not apply inside any of its nine municipalities.
That distinction matters enormously for water because municipal boundaries do not create new water supplies. A large data center inside Hagerstown, Williamsport, or another municipality would still require water and infrastructure in the same county where residents, businesses and future development are competing for finite utility capacity. For instance, Clear Spring is a farming community where most of the residents are on well water. If a data center were to be put in or near this community, it would cause many - if not all - of the wells to dry up, forcing residents to pay for municipal water. That’s assuming the three active groundwater wells where the municipal water comes from are also not dried up from the data center.
The same problem exists with electricity. Washington County’s proposed regulations call for an energy plan using alternative self-generated power and returning power to the grid specifically to prevent “shifting costs onto everyday ratepayers.” That is an extraordinary acknowledgment from the County after residents have spent months raising concerns about what enormous new data center loads could mean for electric infrastructure and household bills.
Washington County apparently agrees that water availability, drought conditions, electric rates, noise, nearby homes and environmental impacts are serious enough to require special regulations. It just cannot apply its moratorium inside any of its nine municipalities.
Who exactly helped Washington County develop these recommendations?
The County says that from July through September, staff “researched best practices” and developed the recommendations that will now go to the Planning Commission. Considering Washington County’s existing relationship with the data center industry, the public deserves to know exactly what that research involved.
Horowitz was already serving on the Data Center Alliance of Maryland Steering Committee months before this research period began. County officials had already met confidentially with a developer connected to a property marketed for data centers. Washington County had already supported data center tax incentives and promoted local development opportunities. We have been documenting this history precisely because it is increasingly difficult to reconcile with the County’s presentation of the moratorium as the beginning of its serious examination of the industry.
The recommendation involving electricity is especially worth examining. County staff proposes an energy plan using alternative self-generation that would also “return power to the grid.” We want to know where that proposal came from, what research supports it and whether developers, utilities, consultants, the Data Center Alliance of Maryland or other industry representatives participated in developing any of these recommendations.
The County has now provided a useful timeframe for finding out. Its statement identifies July through September 2026 as the period during which staff conducted this research. The emails, presentations, reports, draft recommendations, meeting records and communications used during that process should tell residents considerably more about who has been helping Washington County decide how data centers should be regulated.
“No data center has been approved” is becoming a meaningless talking point
Washington County closes its latest statement by once again assuring residents that “The Board of County Commissioners have not approved a data center or data center construction in Washington County.”
The problem is that nobody investigating this issue has claimed that the Commissioners secretly held a vote and approved construction of a data center. The questions concern everything that happens before a project ever reaches that stage: who County officials have been meeting with, what developers have been considering, what economic development staff has been promoting, what officials agreed to keep confidential, what infrastructure has been discussed and whether projects can move into jurisdictions where the County moratorium does not apply.
The County’s September 30 statement makes those questions more important. Approximately 58,000 Washington County residents live inside the nine municipalities that are outside the moratorium. At the same time, a roughly 172-acre property that has been associated with Diversified Capital and publicly marketed as “Ideal for Data Center” is seeking annexation into Hagerstown. The annexation petition was filed on the same day the County moratorium was adopted.
Washington County officials spent years helping make this area attractive to the data center industry. They supported tax incentives. Their economic development director appeared in materials promoting local land for data centers and joined the Data Center Alliance of Maryland’s steering committee. County officials signed NDAs connected to a confidential meeting involving a developer associated with one of the properties we are investigating. We have now documented these connections across our investigation into the Martin Farm project, our reporting on the Mount Aetna tax break, our investigation into Horowitz’s Data Center Alliance role, and our examination of Michelle Gordon’s attempt to “correct the record”.
Now the County wants residents to take comfort in a moratorium while acknowledging that it does not apply in any of Washington County’s nine incorporated municipalities. Its own proposed regulations simultaneously acknowledge the potential consequences for water supplies, electric ratepayers, nearby homes and the environment.
Washington County spent years helping make this area attractive to the data center industry. County officials lobbied for tax breaks, promoted local land to the industry, met privately with a developer and signed NDAs, then handed residents a “moratorium” that does not apply in a single one of the County’s nine incorporated municipalities. They certainly did not go out of their way to highlight that little detail when they announced the moratorium on June 30. It is hard to believe they would be highlighting it now if we had not uncovered the connections between County officials, Diversified Capital and Martin Farm, a property marketed as “Ideal for Data Center” that just happens to be seeking annexation into Hagerstown. Now that we know the County spent years courting this industry, and now that we know its supposed moratorium leaves all nine municipalities outside its reach, the constant refrain that “no data center has been approved” is starting to look less like reassurance and more like an attempt to answer the one question nobody is asking. The public deserves to know what projects are being pursued, who County officials have been working with, what they agreed to keep secret, and why we keep learning the most important parts of this story only after digging them out ourselves.
Washington County Commissioners? Or Washington County Duplicity-Corps?
Follow the money. These officials are not trying to throw Washington County residents under the bus for the fun of it. Some persons are profiting and it is not the county residents.