Oakville has put a one-year hold on new data centres, making it the first municipality in Ontario to take this action as local officials deal with issues related to the latest wave of facilities that support artificial intelligence.
Town councillors southwest of Toronto have asked staff to examine whether local regulations should be updated to tackle possible noise, vibration, and emissions from data centres, along with other land-use factors.
The approval for the moratorium in Oakville came on Tuesday as nearby Mississauga plans to vote next month on its own pause while other municipalities across Ontario are looking into what rules they can implement for these new developments.
Although Oakville representatives mention that there are no official data centre applications at this time, developer Hive Digital Technologies announced plans in May for a 320-megawatt AI facility in the Greater Toronto Area.
Land records show that a Hive subsidiary bought property in Oakville just days before making that announcement.
The company didn’t respond right away to a request for comments from The Canadian Press.
The moratorium was initiated by the councillor representing the area where the property is located.
Hamilton was the first city in Ontario to bring a proposed data centre moratorium to a vote, but it did not pass. Mississauga has instructed staff to create its own pause, with a decision expected next month.
Meanwhile, Waterloo Region voted on Tuesday to direct staff to explore data centre impacts and possibly push for a provincial framework outlining how proposed developments should be evaluated and managed. Toronto city council approved a similar motion last month.
The competition among major tech companies like Open AI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google has sparked an increase in demand for energy-intensive data centres filled with powerful chips designed for training and running complex AI models.
Canada currently has only a few large hyperscale data centres but many more are planned. In July, Meta revealed plans for a one-gigawatt data centre in Alberta that will be powered by a new gas plant.
This report by The Canadian Press was first Aug. 12, 2026.
Jordan Omstead, The Canadian Press
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