Indianapolis Council Pauses New Data Centers 23-1 Through 2027, Exempting Three Already-Approved Projects

The Indianapolis City-County Council voted 23-1 on August 10, 2026 to pause new data center construction in Marion County through the end of 2027, while officials develop regulations on campus size, building height, sound levels, and environmental impacts. The Metropolitan Development Commission confirmed it 6-0 on August 19. Councilor Michael-Paul Hart cast the sole dissenting vote.

Three already-approved projects are exempt: DC Blox, Metrobloks, and Sabey.

That exemption is the entry’s substance. A moratorium is prospective by construction — it governs applications not yet filed, and the projects already through the approval gate proceed regardless. So the pause does not reduce what Marion County will host in the near term; it changes only the terms on which additional capacity is considered. A county that adopts a freeze after three approvals has locked in those three and bought time to price the fourth.

This is the largest jurisdiction in this lane so far — a consolidated city-county government of roughly a million people, not a rural board — and the margin is near-unanimous across two bodies. The reporting frames the purpose as regulatory fine-tuning rather than opposition: capturing tax revenue while managing infrastructure strain. That is a different posture from Pinal County’s outright rejection or Bulloch County’s ban vote. Indianapolis is not deciding whether to host data centers; it is deciding what to charge and require.

Indiana now has two in this timeline. Elkhart’s city council paused data centers and battery storage 9-0 seventeen days later, through December 2027 — a smaller jurisdiction, a longer pause, and no pending projects to exempt.

Sourcing note. The 23-1 council vote, the August 10 date, the through-2027 term, the four regulatory subjects, the August 19 MDC 6-0 confirmation, the three exempt projects, and Hart as sole dissenter are carried across WFYI, Mirror Indy, and Axios Indianapolis — three independent local outlets, all tier-2; no tier-1 source covers this. The ordinance text was not obtained, so the exemptions’ exact scope and the moratorium’s precise expiry date are as characterized by the reporting. No reason is recorded for Hart’s dissent — the sources note the vote, not the rationale. The capture’s framing that the pause reflects “local budget arithmetic” is the reporting’s characterization of councilors’ stated purpose and is presented here as such, not as a finding about motive.