Blue Future technology park (Eisenach-Stockhausen) data center, Eisenach, Thuringia

Eisenach's city council, in Thuringia, Germany, voted 19 to 16 against the Blue Future technology park, a planned data center site of about 80 hectares of farmland near Stockhausen, at its July 1, 2026 session, backing a residents' petition to keep the land as farmland. The Leipzig developer FAB had wanted to prepare the site and sell it to a data center investor; after the vote, Mayor Christoph Ihling withdrew his own proposal for the next planning steps.

The city had proposed designating 86 hectares between Stockhausen and Hotzelsroda as an industrial area next to an electrical substation, for one large or several smaller data center buildings up to 22 meters tall, though no investor or operator had been named and the land still had to be bought from its owners. The city said up to 150 jobs could be created; FAB claimed wider effects of up to 360 jobs.

The residents' petition, with 432 valid signatures, opposed both the zoning plan and a change to the city's land-use plan, and SPD council member Jonny Kraft cited the large area to be sealed, the blocked fresh-air flow to the city, and the data center's water and power use. Hotzelsroda's mayor, Sabine Heep, said the benefits would go to international corporations while the burdens stayed local, and about 60 supporters of the petition protested on the market square before the vote.

Ihling had argued the zoning plan would only test whether the land was suitable, not decide on construction; petition organizer Steffi Wiegand said she expects him to bring the proposal back and that the initiative will prepare for it. Whether a new zoning plan is drawn up and a development contract signed with FAB is for the Eisenach city council to decide.