Dublin City Council banned data centers from the entire West Innovation District on July 1. Six weeks later, nearby Jerome Township's attempt to pause data center growth has unraveled, underscoring the concerns Ballantrae-area residents raised about noise, traffic and industrial encroachment during 16 months of public debate.

Council voted 6-1 to approve Ordinance 33-26, eliminating data centers as a permitted or conditional use throughout the roughly 2,250-acre West Innovation District and creating a new ID-6 Research Transition District for the 370 acres closest to homes along Cosgray Road. Previously, data centers had been downgraded from permitted to conditional uses in the ID-2 and ID-3 districts; the July 1 vote removed them entirely.

The same night, Council voted 5-2 to rezone those 370 acres, about 144 of which front Cosgray Road adjacent to the Ballantrae subdivision. The new ID-6 district caps building heights at 45 feet (down from 68), requires a 200-foot setback from Cosgray Road with dense landscaping and 14-foot mounds, bans stand-alone warehousing and requires all operations to occur entirely within buildings.

What happened in Jerome Township

Jerome Township, located northwest of Dublin in Union County, voted in September 2025 for a nine-month moratorium on data center zoning applications after residents complained about noise, infrastructure strain and limited economic return from existing Amazon facilities. An April 2025 fire at one of those facilities reportedly kept firefighters on scene for about 30 hours and caused an estimated $50 million in damage, according to Dublin Ohio Daily.

The moratorium didn't hold. Four data center projects received zoning certificates despite the pause, two of them filed after the moratorium took effect, Dublin Ohio Daily reported. More than 50 Ohio local governments have enacted data center moratoriums, according to a Statehouse News Bureau analysis cited by ABC 6.

Dublin took a different path. Rather than a temporary moratorium, Council wrote data centers out of the zoning code entirely for the WID. Data centers remain a permitted use in Dublin's Tech Flex zoning district, though city planning staff told the Planning and Zoning Commission on May 21 that most Tech Flex sites are small and already developed.

A long road to the vote

The rezoning process began in March 2025. Council tabled the original ordinance that August after sustained pushback from Ballantrae and Cramer's Crossing residents, who organized through a website and Facebook group to oppose industrial development near their homes. Their concerns included traffic on Cosgray Road, noise, light pollution, emissions and hazardous materials.

Council Member Wendy Johnson told residents at the Jan. 5 organizational meeting to "keep showing up because it matters," noting that nothing had been codified and that opportunity remained to work together for outcomes benefiting both residents and the city's economic development plans.

Staff spent months developing the ID-6 framework through public meetings, HOA board sessions and Planning and Zoning Commission hearings before the commission recommended approval on May 21.

What's still unresolved

Council voted 7-0 on July 1 to direct staff to review the ID-2 and ID-3 portions of the WID code using lessons from the ID-6 process. Council directed the city manager to present a process and timeline after summer recess. A Cosgray Road Alignment Study, launched in April, is also underway to assess key intersections and determine whether road widening can shift west to minimize impacts on nearby homes.

The next Dublin City Council meeting is Aug. 24, at 7 p.m. in the Council Chamber at 5555 Perimeter Drive.