Decatur Township residents are fighting to stop a $4 billion data center from being built in their neighborhood — and they're not just fighting the project. They're fighting the way it was approved.

Seattle-based developer Sabey Corp. wants to build a massive 130-acre data center campus near Kentucky Avenue and Camby Road on Indianapolis' southwest side — right next to residential neighborhoods. Instead of going through the standard rezoning process, which would have required a full Indianapolis City-County Council vote, Sabey filed for a "variance of use." That legal workaround let the Metropolitan Development Commission approve the project on its own — cutting the full council out of the decision entirely.

This matters because that council oversight is exactly what stopped a similar data center proposed by Google in Franklin Township just months ago. The community had a voice then. Decatur Township residents deserve the same.

Pat Andrews, chair of the Decatur Township Civic Council's Land Use Committee, put it plainly after the commission's vote: "This was deliberate to deprive us of our rights," she said. Andrews, who has 30 years of experience in local land use, says she has never seen variances used this way — and warns that if Sabey succeeds, other developers will follow the same playbook across Indianapolis.

Residents have already raised serious concerns about noise, water use, energy demand, and the project's effect on home values. But at the heart of this fight is something even bigger: the right of a community to have its elected representatives weigh in on a decision that will reshape their neighborhood for decades.

Marion County Superior Court is now being asked to overturn the approval. But the Indianapolis City-County Council and Mayor Joe Hogsett must also act — by closing the zoning loophole that made this end-run possible and establishing a clear, public process for data center development in Indianapolis.

Sign this petition to demand that Indianapolis city leaders protect the democratic process and ensure that no developer can bypass community oversight again.