A community organizing campaign led by Taylor Frazier McCollum, a Prince George's County resident with no prior organizing background, helped block a proposed $5 billion data center at the former Landover Mall site. Her petition gathered more than 25,000 signatures, and the campaign culminated in local moratoriums on data centers throughout the county, halting a project that had been set to break ground between 2026 and 2027.
WAMU's Jenny Abamu, whose reporting was carried by NPR and its affiliate stations, documented how the fight pushed Frazier McCollum to the forefront of local politics and made her a recognizable figure in the national debate over hyperscale data centers.
The Landover Data Center Project: A Community Confrontation
The proposed development would have occupied more than 80 acres of the nearly 90-acre site of the demolished Landover Mall, less than a mile from where Frazier McCollum lived. The mall closed in 2002, and the land has been mostly vacant since, its overgrown grass stretching across the empty parcel in Landover, Maryland.
Frazier McCollum learned about the proposed project while living in her grandfather's home, after financial hardship had forced her out of an apartment she described as the ideal life she had built for her family. Staci Hartwell, a longtime local environmental activist, told WAMU the issue had struggled to gain traction until Frazier McCollum took it on. "This is something that was happening in her neighborhood, and it was really like her awakening," Hartwell said.
Timeline of the Landover Data Center Campaign
The sequence below reconstructs how a single resident's response grew into a campaign that reached the Prince George's County Council. It shows how each action built on the one before it, moving from personal awareness to coalition building, formal political engagement, and finally legislative action. Readers can follow the same progression to see which tactics preceded which outcomes.
| Period | Activist action | Political and community response | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before the campaign | Frazier McCollum, living in her grandfather's home after job losses, learns of the proposed $5 billion project near her neighborhood | Longtime environmental activists had struggled for years to gain traction on the data center issue | A new, personally motivated activist enters the fight |
| Campaign buildup | Creates a petition gathering over 25,000 signatures; attends county meetings, testifies before Maryland legislators and endorses candidates | Widely attended protests; local media coverage; an unusual coalition forms of socialists, environmentalists, residents angry about electric bills and neighbors new to organizing | Opposition becomes visible and organized; Frazier McCollum is called "the Landover girl" in data center circles |
| June 29, 2026 | Campaign pressure continues at the county level | County Council Chair Oriadha announces and introduces legislation establishing a two-year moratorium on new data centers, including hyperscale facilities | CR-066-2026 is introduced |
| July 7, 2026 | Residents testify at a public hearing | After nearly an hour of public input, the Council adopts the resolution, which pauses acceptance, processing, review and approval of subdivision and site plans with qualified data center uses, effective the same day | The extension of earlier pauses blocks the $5 billion project that was set to break ground between 2026 and 2027 |
Taylor Frazier McCollum's Activist Playbook: Key Tactics
Her approach combined several tactics that communities elsewhere could adapt. She started with a digital petition that demonstrated the scale of opposition, then converted that demonstrated support into sustained pressure through widely attended protests. She showed up repeatedly in official venues, attending county meetings, testifying at the state capitol and endorsing political candidates.
She also built a deliberately broad coalition that spanned ideological lines: socialists, environmentalists, residents angry about their electric bills, and neighbors entirely new to organizing. That diversity gave the campaign multiple entry points, letting people join for different reasons. The commitment was personal as well as political; according to WAMU's reporting, she lost jobs because of time spent at county hearings and knocking on doors.
The Moratorium: A Decisive Victory
The county's formal action, Resolution CR-066-2026, established a two-year moratorium on the acceptance, processing, review and approval of applications for preliminary plans of subdivision and detailed site plans that include qualified data center uses. The county's own background text says the pause exists while the Council considers comprehensive legislation on the zoning, siting and construction of new data centers.
Reporting by WTOP News, published through Maryland Matters, described the adopted moratorium as an extension of previous, similar council actions. The resolution grew from the work of a county Qualified Data Center Task Force formed after the Landover Mall proposal drew resident protests, according to reporting by Aman Azha of Inside Climate News published by Spotlight PA. The moratorium blocked the project, though the reporting also notes that some in the county worry about declining tax revenue with data centers paused.
Broader Context: Maryland and National Data Center Opposition
The Landover fight unfolded against a statewide backdrop. Maryland Matters reported in April 2026 that a bill passed on the final day of the legislative session would require data centers to pay for the grid upgrades they need, and would expand which data centers qualify as a "large load customer" subject to stricter regulation. Governor Wes Moore, saying "data centers are done dictating what rules they will follow," has said he would support projects that hire local workers and support their own power needs.
Nationally, the NAACP says it has been working with communities facing AI data center impacts through policy, courts and advocacy, and offers guidance and templates for negotiating enforceable Community Benefits Agreements, which it notes do not constitute legal advice. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network hosted a "People Over Data Centers" Maryland Action Summit in Baltimore on November 7, 2026, featuring panels on water pollution, electricity rate hikes and local moratorium victories, and maintains that data center moratoriums are appearing across the United States.
Lessons for Local Organizers
The Landover case study suggests a repeatable sequence: identify a personally resonant local threat, quantify opposition with a petition, translate numbers into visible protest, engage every level of government directly, and widen the coalition until it includes groups that do not normally work together. Frazier McCollum's own view, as she told WAMU, is that many people are depending on the fight's success to "set precedence" for others battling hyperscale data centers, a fight that has connected her to communities in Atlanta, Memphis and Zambia.
This remains a single case, not a universal guide, and it does not constitute legal advice. It also reflects the activist campaign's perspective; the developer's position and the project's economic arguments were not detailed in the reporting gathered here.
Empowering Local Action Against Large-Scale Development
Local communities can effectively challenge and halt large-scale development projects through organized grassroots activism, direct political engagement and strategic coalition building, as the Landover campaign demonstrated. The next measurable indicators to watch are the continued enforcement of the two-year moratorium in Prince George's County, which runs through July 2028, the comprehensive zoning legislation the Council plans to draft while it is in effect, and whether similar activist campaigns and moratoriums emerge in other jurisdictions, as the NAACP and Chesapeake Climate Action Network work to spread the model nationwide.
Sources
- An unexpected activist emerged to help block a $5 billion data center in Maryland — NPR
- Chair Oriadha Announces Two-Year Moratorium to Prevent New Data Centers from Operating in the County — Pgccouncil
- Despite her own hard times, a Maryland woman became a leading data center activist — NPR
- Prince George's County Council - Reference No. CR-066-2026 — Princegeorgescountymd
- Despite her own hard times, a Maryland woman became a leading data center activist — Capradio
- Prince George’s County extends pause on hyperscale data centers - Maryland Matters
- Battles over data centers intensify in the State House and communities - Maryland Matters
- Stop Dirty Data Centers — NAACP
- People Over Data Centers Maryland Action Summit - Chesapeake Climate Action Network
