Indianapolis has formed a $300K panel to rewrite its data center rules, even as three large data-center projects have already won approval.

Indianapolis officials are standing up a new city-county committee to study data centers and propose fresh regulations, even as three massive projects already approved by Marion County officials remain exempt from the citywide pause on new developments. The group will dig into everything from public health impacts to generator noise and electronic waste disposal before any new zoning rules take effect.

The committee, backed by a total budget of $300,000, will be led by planning firm MKSK, according to WFYI. MKSK previously consulted on the Leap Innovation District in Lebanon, home to a $10 billion data center campus, and the Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute will serve as the committee's primary research partner. The Metropolitan Development Commission's staff plans to consult outside experts and community members as the group builds its recommendations.

Marion County's moratorium on new data center developments, approved by the City-County Council on August 10 and enacted by the Metropolitan Development Commission on August 19, runs through the end of 2027. The City-County Council approved $150,000 to fund the committee on September 19, and the Metropolitan Development Commission added another $150,000 on October 7 to round out its budget, per the same station's report.

**Three Megaprojects Already Cleared the Pause**

The moratorium will not affect the DC BLOX, Metrobloks and Sabey projects, all of which Marion County officials had already approved before the freeze took hold. DC BLOX's campus sits in Warren Township, Metrobloks' development is located in Martindale-Brightwood, and Sabey's project is in Decatur Township, the station notes.

Sabey's $4.3 billion, 1.06-million-square-foot campus in Decatur Township received $240 million in tax breaks from the Metropolitan Development Commission, according to Indianapolis Business Journal. In exchange, Sabey must pay $29.8 million toward local roads and a new aquatic center, and the project is projected to become Marion County's second-highest taxpayer once its abatement periods expire.

DC BLOX's Warren Township campus, valued between $1.8 billion and $2 billion, was scaled back from three buildings to two and cut its planned backup diesel generators from 56 to 31 after strong public opposition over noise and the site's proximity to an elementary school, WTHR reported. The Metropolitan Development Commission approved a use variance for the project in July. Hoodline previously covered the east side power fight when the DC BLOX plan first surfaced.

**Martindale-Brightwood Fight Over Tax Incentives Continues**

Metrobloks' $500 million, 75-megawatt data center planned for 14 acres at the former Sherman Drive-In site met renewed neighborhood resistance this week over a proposed $56 million tax incentive package that would require $22.5 million in community amenities, Indianapolis Business Journal reports. Metrobloks received initial rezoning approval back in April. The project illustrates the kind of backlash playing out in historic urban neighborhoods over data center tax abatements even as the citywide committee gets underway.

Who will sit on that committee reflects the range of interests at stake. Community voice Pat Andrews, Citizens Action Coalition's Ben Inskeep, White River Alliance's Shannon Killion, the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health's Shandy Dearth, and Marion County Public Health Department's Jason Ravenscroft are all listed members. So are Central Indiana Building Trades Council's Jon Hooker, AES Indiana's Jim Staton, Citizens Energy Group's Bridget O'Connor, the Indy Chamber's Taylor Hughes, Indianapolis Economic Development, Inc.'s Andrea Richter-Garry, City-County Councilor John Barth, and technology expert Gundeep Singh.

**What the Committee Will Study**

The group's agenda spans public health impacts, resource management, fiscal impacts, size standards, maximum building height and footprint, sound levels, brownfield and other environmental concerns, generator testing plans, and electronic waste disposal plans. Any future zoning regulations that emerge would apply only to future data centers, not the projects already underway.

Data centers themselves range enormously in scale, from buildings the size of a warehouse to facilities spanning hundreds of acres, housing servers that store, process and transmit the digital information underpinning artificial intelligence, social media and business records. The committee hopes to shape public engagement around those tradeoffs, with members of the public encouraged to participate and allowed to submit written and oral testimony during public hearings. The city's Department of Metropolitan Development will share information about a kick-off event and other engagement opportunities as they're scheduled.

According to Trena Roudebush, the committee is anticipated to begin meeting by the end of 2026 or in early 2027, with a proposed zoning ordinance that could be introduced toward the end of summer 2027, several months before the moratorium is set to expire on December 31, 2027.

**Power and Water Fights Ripple Beyond Marion County**

The tension between neighborhood opposition and utility assurances extends well past Indianapolis's borders. The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission on October 7 approved an agreement for AES Indiana to supply power to Google's 390-megawatt data center in Morgan County, with Google funding 100% of the project's $1.3 billion infrastructure costs, according to Inside INdiana Business. AES Indiana projects the deal will save existing retail customers $770 million over 15 years.

Not everyone is convinced large-load data centers lower bills. State utility regulators scheduled a hearing for March 11, 2027, if the review is not settled; October dates were for filing testimony and exhibits, after the Citizens Action Coalition argued the original decision failed to account for both the Google project and the pending acquisition of AES's parent company by a BlackRock-backed group, WFYI reported separately. In its 2025 Integrated Resource Plan, AES Indiana, which serves more than 530,000 customers across Indianapolis and central Indiana, outlined plans to add up to 700 megawatts of natural gas generation and 820 megawatts of battery storage if large-load data center customers sign on in central Indiana.

Water concerns are also spreading regionally. Meta's $10 billion, 1-gigawatt data center campus in Lebanon's Leap Innovation District triggered environmental disputes after neighboring Zionsville enacted a one-year data center moratorium and formally opposed wastewater discharge plans into Eagle Creek tributaries, fearing treated effluent could affect the Eagle Creek Reservoir, per Indianapolis Business Journal.

Hyperscaler projects from Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are part of Indiana's data center landscape.

Data-center proposals have also drawn farmland concerns in Bartholomew County and resident opposition in Charlestown.