What local government did, 24–30 May

Two towns moved on data centers the same week. Hillsborough's board held a public hearing on a 60-day moratorium that would block new approvals for data centers, cryptocurrency mining and related processing facilities, and got a briefing on a state SecureNC partnership tied to the same question; the agenda does not record how the vote went. Cary's council went further upstream, voting to have staff study pausing approval of new large-scale data centers, AI facilities included, and pointed to Jordan Lake, the region's drinking water source, as the reason. Neither town had an application pending. The two votes land in the same week as a live regional fight that has already reached Chatham, Orange, Durham and several Wake towns.

Land use otherwise ran through rezonings and one large development deal. Cary's council took its first real look at a development agreement for Alston Yards, 46 acres the town co-owns with Heritage Capital; the developer wants financing certainty and asked the council for direction rather than a final vote. The same council heard two rezonings: an addition of 87 townhouses to the Sears Farm planned development on High House Road, opposed by the neighboring Searstone retirement community, and a 275-unit apartment and retail project on Weston Parkway that returned after nine months of revisions. Apex held five public hearings in one meeting, including a Holland Road rezoning and an Alterra Heights annexation on Jenks and Wimberly roads, and awarded contracts for a Town Hall renovation and two sidewalk projects. Garner previewed a rezoning that would bring up to 340 multifamily units to Auburn Knightdale Road and US 70, plus a text amendment letting funeral homes into the Neighborhood Mixed Use district while keeping crematoriums a separate use. Chapel Hill's design review commission liked the West Rosemary Hotel's updated look, with one dissent on brick color, and waved the Hillmont and Eastgate projects through on consent by unanimous vote. Knightdale's board of adjustment closed out a variance at 5845 Farmwell Road, and Garner's board of adjustment carried a zoning-violation appeal over Fayetteville Road property conditions to another meeting.

Budget season dominated the money side. Durham County held hearings on joining the state's C-PACE financing program for commercial energy upgrades and on its FY27 recommended budget, then moved to adopt a $100 million bond resolution against school and community-college authority voters approved in 2022; a separate work session three days later covered public health, social services, the opioid settlement fund, justice services and tax administration. Orange County's commissioners spent three hours working department by department through their own FY27 budget, then opened the formal public hearing two days later, built around five priorities that start with keeping the tax increase small. Cary's council spent one session weighing further cuts and new revenue options and another opening its first of two public budget hearings. Hillsborough held its second FY27 budget workshop the same night it took up the moratorium.

The advisory layer stayed busy without much drama. Orange County's board of equalization and review worked through thirteen property tax appeals, mostly over condition and data disputes, and its human relations commission took up a Blackwood Farms historical marker, the first of four planned sessions on it. Garner's nominations committee interviewed ten candidates across two meetings for unnamed board seats, and its veterans advisory committee heard about new standardization rules for town boards. Pittsboro's downtown committee reviewed a draft FY27 work plan, Cary's cultural arts committee toured Downtown Cary Park, and Chapel Hill's council received, without a vote, the county homelessness partnership's annual report. Apex's advisory boards and commissions met too, but no summary is available for what happened there.

28 boards met across 12 governments, with 192 agenda items on file.

Written when 23 of this week's meetings had posted an agenda; 29 have now. The counts below are current.