On Monday, August 10th, 2026, the METROPOLITAN HOUSING COALITION (MHC) published a new report entitled “Protecting Communities in the Age of Data Centers: Understanding the Consequences for Louisville’s Housing and Utility Landscape“.

For more than 30 years, the Metropolitan Housing Coalition (MHC) has been committed to advocating for safe, fair, and affordable housing, and access to the energy and water it takes to live and thrive in those homes. Over the decades, MHC has worked to address the deep-rooted challenges surrounding utility affordability. The launch of MHC’s EveryHome program two years ago has allowed us to build capacity and take another major leap forward. This initiative has provided education for over 11,000 Louisvillians since it launched and strives to build bridges between affordable housing and affordable utilities through advocacy and education efforts. These efforts have intensified as the potential for data center development in the region has grown.

Data center development has recently become a topic of growing concern, across Louisville and communities across the United States. As the demand for technological advancement increases with expansion into cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), remote work, and storage, many communities, like our own, are being asked to evaluate how “hyperscale” data centers fit into their housing, economic, environmental, and long-term planning goals. This is a pivotal moment for Louisville – while data centers claim to bring tax revenue and jobs to the city, they also raise important questions regarding land use, power and water consumption, public safety, and environmental impacts. The Metropolitan Housing Coalition (MHC) believes that data centers put a strain on housing and utility costs, strain water resources and the electrical grid, pose environmental health and safety risks, and inhabit space that could be used to combat the housing needs of the community. If they materialize, we need to ensure that regulations are in place to protect Louisvillians and the greater community. This policy paper seeks to provide a clear overview of the effect of data center development on affordability and health in our community, implications of increased cost and usage, and community priorities. Additionally, this paper provides focused policy recommendations to ensure communities are protected in this new age of data center development.

MHC Executive Director Tony Curtis states, “The accessibility and affordability of energy and water are critical pillars of a stable household. The data center discussions occurring in Louisville and across the Commonwealth of Kentucky are central to this conversation and MHC has been engaged on these issues for decades with a coalition of partners. People must be protected from threats to housing safety, increased utility costs, health and safety issues, clean water, and much more. This report digs into these critical issues and makes focused policy recommendations on how we should move forward if hyperscale data centers are built in and around our community and those across the Commonwealth.”