Monterey Park CA / Measure NDC / 88.34% voter approval / first permanent voter-enacted ban / Jun 3

Plain-English framing. Monterey Park is a city of ~60,000 in Los Angeles County (San Gabriel Valley). 'Measure NDC' was put on a special-election ballot after a January 2026 city council 45-day moratorium and a March 2026 10-month extension — the moratoriums bought time for the ballot measure to qualify. The vote margin (88.34%) is among the highest for any local land-use measure in California in the past five years. Why a voter-enacted ban is structurally different from a council-enacted ban. A city council ordinance can be repealed by a subsequent city council vote, which is reversible at any future election. A voter-enacted General Plan amendment can only be reversed by a subsequent ballot measure — meaning the ban survives changes in city council composition and persists for years even if political winds shift. The legal challenge surface is also narrower: pre-emption arguments and statutory authority challenges face higher bars when the policy comes from voters directly via General Plan amendment. What's covered. The Measure NDC text bans 'data centers' as a permitted use citywide. Notably it does not separately address 'edge compute' facilities, small server rooms in commercial buildings, or telecom hotels — meaning the actual scope of 'data center' is left to subsequent zoning interpretation. The Monterey Park city attorney will need to issue guidance, which itself becomes a precedent for every other city considering a Monterey Park-style ban.

Primary source · ABC7 Los Angeles / Fox Business / Planetizen / Data Center Knowledge / Monterey Park City Council ↗