The Metropolitan Development Commission voted 6-1 Wednesday to approve a use variance for a DC Blox data center campus on the city’s east side, one day after City-County Councilor Jesse Brown publicly demanded the commission impose an immediate moratorium on new data center approvals at that same meeting.
The vote was the final local approval the Georgia-based developer needed. Because DC Blox sought a variance of use rather than a rezoning, the City-County Council had no role in the decision.
Brown, a District 13 Democrat, sent an open letter July 14 to all city-county councilors, Mayor Joe Hogsett and the MDC calling on the commission to enact a moratorium at its July 15 meeting. He argued that waiting until the full Council votes in August would allow developers to file applications in the interim and avoid the pause — the “gold rush” that Councilors Michael-Paul Hart and Derek Cahill had described at a committee hearing the night before.
“A moratorium must be enacted immediately,” Brown wrote. He said he would attend the July 15 meeting and invited other councilors and the mayor to join him in making the demand in person.
The commission did not take up a moratorium. It approved the DC Blox variance instead.
The Department of Metropolitan Development pushed back on Brown’s letter the morning of the meeting. In a statement attributable to the department, Director Megan Vukusich said DMD had emailed Brown asking for legal citations supporting the claims in his letter. The statement does not indicate that he provided any.
Vukusich’s statement laid out the procedural track for the pending zoning amendment, 2026-AO-001. The MDC certified the proposal July 1. The Council introduced it July 6. The Metropolitan and Economic Development Committee voted on it July 13. The full Council is expected to vote August 10.
The statement quoted Article II, Section 7 of the MDC’s Rules of Procedure, which provides that the Council may adopt, reject or amend a certified proposal at its first regular meeting after certification — or at any subsequent meeting within 90 days — by a three-fifths vote of its full membership.
The implication is that the commission’s role on the amendment ended at certification.
The committee vote Brown referenced came Monday, when MEDC voted 10-3 to recommend a moratorium on new data center approvals through Dec. 31, 2027. The pause was offered as an amendment by Council President Maggie Lewis to Proposal 238, DMD’s ordinance creating a special-use zoning district for data centers. All 10 votes in favor were Democrats; all three opposed were Republicans. Hart and Cahill, who voted against, said the amendment lacked a specific definition of a data center.
Hogsett announced his support in a social media post during the public hearing. DMD staff also told councilors they welcomed the moratorium.
Brown voted for the amendment but said it should have come sooner, referring to Google’s withdrawal of a Franklin Township rezoning proposal in 2025. “But it’s better late than never, right?” he said after the meeting.
The pause would expire Dec. 31, 2027 — less than two months after the November 2027 municipal election, when the mayor’s office and all 25 council seats are on the ballot. No sitting councilor would have to cast a vote on lifting or extending it before facing voters, and the question would land with whoever is seated in January 2028.
If the full Council approves the moratorium August 10, it returns to the MDC for codification. The pause would apply only to new projects. It would not reach DC Blox, and it would not reach the Metrobloks data center approved for the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood — a rezoning the MDC approved 6-2 on April 1 and the Council approved May 4 over sustained community opposition.
Brown attempted to pull the Metrobloks rezoning from the Council’s May agenda, which would have forced a public hearing. Only the councilor representing the affected district may make that request. That is Ron Gibson, a Democrat who supported the project.
Councilor Andy Nielsen, whose District 14 includes part of the DC Blox site, said he was disappointed by Wednesday’s vote. “I feel really deeply for my community who showed up and didn’t leave anything on the table,” he said.
The Council meets August 10.
