Latest update on when Columbus Council will begin debate over data center rules
The Columbus Consolidated Government’s proposed technology overlay district ordinance, which would create rules for building a hyperscale data center in Muscogee County, is planned to come before the Columbus Council on June 2, deputy city manager Pam Hodge told the Ledger-Enquirer.
The Columbus Planning Advisory Commission approved the technology overlay district in March, but the Columbus Council voted at an April 14 meeting to delay the first reading of the ordinance for up to 45 days.
“There are advertising requirements that prevented it from being on the April 14th agenda,” Hodge told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email last month.
At the time, Hodge anticipated that the ordinance would come before the council in mid-May, just ahead of the May 219 election, for the first reading. But the ordinance was not on the council’s agenda Tuesday.
“The overlay district was not on first reading because we didn’t have time to get it advertised in the paper,” Mayor Skip Henderson said during the public agenda portion of Tuesday’s meeting.
Although the technology overlay district wasn’t on the council’s agenda, the proposed data center remained a topic for residents who signed up for the public agenda.
Public agenda comments
Eight of the 15 residents who signed up for the public agenda spoke about the proposed data center, with all but one, Gregory Foster, expressing concerns or opposition to the project.
Foster encouraged the council to move forward with the data center, arguing that many of the concerns from those opposed to the facility come from misinformation.
John Van Doorn, who is running for the council’s citywide District 9 seat, was among those who spoke about the data center.
Van Doorn said the primary concerns he has heard from residents during his campaign changed from public safety and affordability to the data center after Project Ruby was announced in February.
“It was the No. 1 response,” Van Doorn said. “Of all those folks, I think I heard three people that were for the data center as proposed. That’s three out of thousands.”
Van Doorn challenged councilors to answer four questions before the May 19 election:
- Do they support the data center as proposed?
- Do they support the technology ordinance as written?
- Would they support a moratorium or pause throughout 2026, so an independent commission of subject-matter experts can be created?
- Would they recommend a referendum be added to the November elections to allow citizens to vote on the data center?
He said his answers to those questions would be “no, no, yes, yes.”
None of the councilors responded to Van Doorn’s questions during the meeting.
In the May 19 election, Columbus voters will elect councilors for Districts 1, 3, 5, 7 and the citywide District 9 seat. The mayoral election will also be held then. If a candidate does not win more than 50% of the vote, then that race will head to a runoff election June 16.
The winners of the special election for council Districts 1 and 9 will be sworn in after the election to serve for the remainder of 2026. The election results are scheduled to be certified May 26. If a runoff election is necessary for the citywide District 9 seat, then that election would be certified after the runoff, and the winner would be sworn in afterward.
