The Columbus City Council met on July 8, 2026, at 11:00 AM. The meeting included an invocation, Pledge of Allegiance, and a primary discussion on amending zoning regulations to reclassify communication service exchanges (including data centers and server farms) from a permitted use to a conditional use. The council voted unanimously to suspend the rules and pass the ordinance on first reading. Community reports and introductions concluded the session.
So long since we've been here. Well you are gone for your first week of June meeting, and it's the way it has everyone. I'm pretty sure that the wind is coming. Okay, so nobody's gonna be online. Obviously, people are not thinking so Elaine's coming. I know she is. I know she's coming. We have a full house, but we that's everybody. In the truck? In the truck. She's a minute later. I'm gonna see me. By the time you get through the CV radio or what? Yeah. Waiting for you. I just don't think we're careful. Grace. I know police. Okay. Hi, sorry. Now that we're all here. Yes, please continue. Sorry. We will go ahead and call this July 8th City Council meeting in order. First item on the agenda is indications followed by the clause of allegiance. Grace is going to um yeah. I'm gonna introduce Jen Riddle, who is with us this evening. She's the director of children, youth, and young adult ministries at First Presbyterian Church. So please rise up your April and we'll follow by the Pledge of Allegiance. Let us pray. Gracious God, as we gather today as neighbors and citizens of Columbus, grateful for this community we share, and for those who accepted the responsibility of public service. As our nation just celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding, remind us that the work of justice, compassion, and unity is never complete. Help us to continue building a community where every person is valued and every voice is heard. Please grant the members of this council wisdom and their decisions, courage to choose what is right, and humility as they serve the people of this city. Guide their work toward the common good and care for those who are most vulnerable with hope for generations yet to come. We ask that all that is said and done here today on our both our neighbors and you. Such a facility would likely include a telephone service exchange, data center, and server farm. So currently a communication service exchange is something that's permitted in all of our industrial zoning districts and all of our commercial zoning districts. So it's a permitted use. So understanding that currently they're permitted in a lot of our zoning districts, it just seems prudent that we with the scale of those potentially being a lot larger, that we move this into a category that's not permitted, but a conditional use. So what that allows is with the conditional use, those cases go before the Board of Zoning Appeals and are evaluated on a case by case basis. So they are able to look at the context of the area that they're going, they're able to look at the size of the of the facility that's being proposed and can kind of weigh those um those issues into the decision. So that's pretty much the the change that's being made is is making it permitted to a conditional use. That conditional use also does require a public hearing, so um the public surrounding property owners would be notified of any potential change there. And I can answer any questions. I do have a question, Melissa. Is there a reason why we wouldn't remove it from just a loud use? Is this the only thing that we can do is move it to conditional use? Um we felt like that was appropriate. Um, you know, there's a lot of information out there.