A Seattle company found the zoning path that avoids the Google-style council fight — and now a massive data center is closer to landing in Decatur Township.

The Variance Path

Sabey Data Centers is advancing a 130-acre, 250-megawatt campus near Camby Road and Kentucky Avenue in Decatur Township. But instead of filing for a full rezoning, Sabey pursued variances of useon land already zoned for industrial use — a procedural route that does not automatically go to the City-County Council for a public vote via call-down.

That matters because of what happened last year. In September 2025, Google withdrew its Franklin Township data center proposal before a final Council vote after organized public opposition used the call-down mechanism to force the issue into elected officials’ hands. Sabey’s variance filing avoids that same political choke point.

Residents can still testify. They can still protest. The Metropolitan Development Commission still votes. But the narrower point is this: the zoning path Sabey chose sidesteps the Council-level fight that gave residents their strongest leverage against Google.

The MDC hearing examiner has already recommended approval. The Metropolitan Development Commission votes March 18, 2026.

What Sabey Claims vs. What Their Own Materials Show

The water figure is the most telling. “Virtually no water” and “one million gallons to start, plus 200,000 to 300,000 every year after” are not the same claim. Residents have no binding guarantee that the closed-loop commitment survives the final engineering phase — because facility designs are not yet finalized.

The Community Response

Hundreds of Decatur Township residents have packed hearings and flooded the City-County Building. At the March 2, 2026, City-County Council meeting, energy affordability and data center expansion dominated public comment. Residents argued that the variance process was chosen specifically to reduce their leverage — not because it was the only available path.

Community groups like Hoosier Actionhave organized “People’s Hearings” to demand stronger state regulation. They argue that the pace of development is stripping local governments of meaningful oversight and shutting residents out of the decision-making process entirely.

Despite the pressure, the 2026 Indiana legislative session ended with virtually no new oversight for data center land use, water consumption, or noise regulation.

The Bigger Pattern

Sabey is not the only data center project moving forward. On the east side, Metrobloks has proposed a $500 million facility at 2505 N. Sherman Drive in Martindale-Brightwood, where the MDC hearing examiner told residents “the public isn’t my boss” during a February hearing.

Governor Braun has taken an increasingly critical stance, proposing that data center developers pay 100 percentof the costs they impose on the electric grid — up from the 80 percent currently required by state law. Projects that don’t pay the full cost, he said, would not receive state tax credits.

But legislative action didn’t follow. The 2026 session closed without meaningful data center regulation.

March 18

The Sabey and Metrobloks proposals face their next critical votes on March 18, 2026. For Decatur Township, this is the last major procedural checkpoint before the project advances.

The question isn’t whether Indianapolis needs data centers. It’s whether a zoning workaround should allow a project of this scale to advance without the same kind of elected-official accountability that gave Franklin Township residents a fighting chance.

Google got dragged into a public vote. Sabey found a way around it. The MDC decides on March 18.