Black Mountain Power Fort Worth data center, Tarrant County, Texas

The Fort Worth City Council voted 7-4 on August 25, 2026 to approve an amended site plan for 187 acres of Black Mountain Energy's planned $10 billion data center campus in southeast Fort Worth, in Tarrant County, Texas, over months of objections from nearby residents. The approved plan adds an electrical substation, raises the maximum building height to 70 feet, and, at the request of council members Michael Crain and Chris Nettles, sets 300 feet between homes and the data center instead of the 150 feet in the docket. The vote came after the council had twice tabled the site plan, in May and June.

Black Mountain, a Fort Worth energy company founded in 2007 and focused mostly on oil and gas, first filed in January 2025 to rezone 141 acres at the southeast corner of Lon Stephenson Road and Forest Hill Drive for data center use. It has since obtained and rezoned more than 450 acres from agricultural land to light industrial, stretching from just south of Esco Drive to Anglin Circle, between Forest Hill and Kennedale. The approved site plan places four buildings of just over a million square feet south of Lon Stephenson Road, east of Forest Hill Drive and west of Anglin Drive, down from a first draft of 18 buildings and 3 million square feet. A proposed 980-megawatt electrical substation on the site would power the data center only. CEO Rhett Bennett has told residents the campus would not use a gas-fired power plant and would rely solely on the grid, with a closed-loop cooling system; he said the company was conducting a water study to find out how much water the campus would need. No end user has been named, and at the April zoning hearing Jackson Weston, whose family runs Weston Gardens, said residents had never heard from the data center's operating partner despite promises from Black Mountain: “This has not happened yet.”

Weston Gardens, a historic garden and wedding venue, sits roughly 100 yards from Black Mountain's land. "What's it going to do to the birds? Am I going to lose revenue from the weddings and things that we've developed over the years to pay for a lot of the improvements to keep up the walls?" its owner, Sue Weston, told CBS News Texas, adding that vibrations from the cooling systems would crack the rocks. “Last September 30th, y’all told me you would find a way to protect the gardens, and I am going to hold you to that,” Weston told the council in August. Nettles, who represents the district, supports the project: "We don't believe that it's going to affect the garden," he said.

At a Black Mountain town hall in March, Forest Hill residents said they had only just learned of the project. “I know we do not own the land. I know Fort Worth controls that, but somehow Forest Hill is going to be connected,” said Brigette Mathis, who lives near Lon Stephenson Road. “People did not know that you were putting something down that street.” Letitia Wilbourn, an activist in the Echo Heights neighborhood, told zoning commissioners the campus adds to pollution next to a city landfill. “This should have never been approved at any level to begin with,” she said. Other residents raised power, water, noise, traffic and the loss of farmland, and residents have organized as DFW Communities Over Data Centers and the 2871 Community Coalition. Before the August vote, activist Ambika Sharma asked the council to wait for the city's new Data Center and Infrastructure Commission to write its rules, while local business owner Emerald Khan backed the revised plan. Council member Mia Hall, who supports a moratorium, said: “This is about a site plan. … I can’t stop a data center from being there.”

On August 11 the council voted unanimously to begin a 90-day moratorium on new data center rezonings and permits, but city officials say it will not apply to projects whose zoning applications were already submitted or approved, which includes Black Mountain. Under the city's timeline, the Data Center and Infrastructure Committee reports on November 3, public hearings follow on November 10 and January 5, and adoption by a council supermajority is set for February 16, 2027. The council also required new data center applications to show approval from the Public Utility Commission of Texas and ERCOT for their grid connection, in line with Gov. Greg Abbott's directive.

Black Mountain and Edged Data Centers, which plans a $1 billion facility on 186 acres in Veale Ranch in southwest Fort Worth, have drawn the most opposition among seven data centers planned for the city. Elsewhere in Tarrant County, a planned data center in Westlake near Keller faces opposition from Keller's mayor and council, and residents have pushed back on projects in North Richland Hills. A company called Fort Worth Power Core LLC, sharing Black Mountain's mailing address, holds state air permits for power generation in ten counties including Tarrant, Parker, Somervell and Jack.

What remains is Black Mountain's request to rezone another 80 acres from agricultural to industrial, which would bring its land to about 530 acres; the council tabled it in February and it was pushed to a December meeting at the company's request. The project also needs permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, including on air quality. On September 21, 2026, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing new permits for data centers until the state's grid operator, ERCOT, and the Texas Water Development Board finish their audits of the industry. The Fort Worth City Council decides the rezoning; reporting in September 2026 said the city's moratorium will not reach it.