Westlake, Texas is the town at the center of the live Circle T data center dispute. On August 17, 2026, a Tarrant County judge intervened shortly before the Westlake Town Council was scheduled to consider the project’s development agreement.
The distinction matters because the current pause came from a court order, not from a Westlake moratorium. Keller, the neighboring city where many of the closest residents live, is pursuing a separate regulatory and legal response.
What actually happened in Westlake
Judge Kimberly Fitzpatrick of the 342nd State District Court in Fort Worth signed a temporary restraining order about an hour before the Westlake Town Council meeting. The operative order restrained Westlake from voting on, approving, adopting or taking action to implement Resolution 26-25, the resolution concerning the Circle T development agreement. After hearing from more than 30 speakers in opposition and meeting for roughly 20 minutes in executive session, council members voted unanimously to table the item.
The project is the Circle T Data Center, a roughly 88-acre site inside Westlake town limits at the northern edge of Keller. Reporting places the site about 500 feet from the backyards of several Keller residents in the Lakes at Marshall Ridge neighborhood. The homeowners association and two residents brought the court challenge.
The development agreement would have required PowerHouse Data Centers to meet standards covering noise, water, power and infrastructure. It also would have required the developer to pay Westlake $914,000 toward renovations of the town pump station next to the site.
At a follow-up hearing, plaintiffs’ attorney Jason Friedman argued that the site plan did not provide a 150-foot setback and landscaped buffer that the plaintiffs say Westlake’s zoning rules require between the data center and nearby single-family homes. The lawsuit also alleges that a December 2024 planning and zoning commission text amendment nearly doubled the permitted building height from 45 to 80 feet and that the agenda notice did not contain the words “data center.” CBS Texas reported those allegations. Westlake says it followed a careful process and remains confident in its actions.
After the August 26 hearing, the restraint was reported extended through September 8. If it is lifted, the development agreement can return to the Westlake Town Council.
Keller started a separate moratorium process
Keller’s role is different. Its City Council voted to begin the process for a proposed 90-day moratorium on data centers. That action started a process; it did not, by itself, create an immediate moratorium.
Keller is also evaluating legal options over the Westlake project. But Keller’s own description of the dispute acknowledges the jurisdictional limit: because the Circle T site is entirely inside Westlake, Keller cannot rezone the land, deny its permits or impose development conditions on it.
That is the awkward geometry at the center of the fight. The project and its tax base sit in Westlake, while some of the closest backyards sit across the municipal line in Keller.
Westlake says the economic upside is substantial. Its project information page says the data center would increase the town’s annual revenue by 14 percent, alongside longer-term commercial tax revenue.
Why the numbers and impacts need careful wording
The most consistently reported figures are the roughly 88-acre site footprint, the roughly 500-foot distance to the nearest Keller homes, the $914,000 pump-station contribution and Westlake’s 14 percent annual-revenue estimate.
Nearby residents have raised concerns about continuous cooling noise, lighting, heat, water demand and electricity demand. Those concerns are central to the dispute, but they are not the same as findings that Circle T will produce a particular level of neighborhood heat, noise or other harm.
The wider resource question is still developing at state level. The Texas Water Development Board presented a state water plan in August that did not yet include projections for water use from data centers, while state officials were working on new ways to estimate and audit demand.
North Texas is part of a much broader build-out. KERA’s regional tracking shows that many more data centers are being planned or built across suburbs and rural communities, alongside facilities that have already operated in the region for years.
What happens next
The immediate date is September 8. Contemporary reporting says Judge Fitzpatrick kept the restraint in place until a 10 a.m. September 8 hearing. The Circle T development agreement remains tabled and unapproved going into that hearing.
If the restraint is lifted, Westlake can return the agreement to the council. If additional injunctive relief is granted, action on the agreement could remain blocked while the underlying zoning and notice claims continue through court.
The land-use question is separate from that procedural fight. Westlake has maintained that data-center use on the property is allowable by right under its zoning. The current court order concerns action on the development agreement; it does not itself rezone the property.
For residents in the Lakes at Marshall Ridge, September 8 is the next hinge point. The judge considers whether the court restraint continues, the council vote remains tabled, and the dispute over what can be built across the municipal line remains unresolved.