What the Sunbury Data Center Ballot Question Means for Big Walnut Home Values

Sunbury votes November 3 on whether to write a data center ban into its city charter. The measure would prohibit construction of any facility drawing more than 25 megawatts. The project in its path is a $2 billion Amazon Data Services campus in a business park of over 1,300 acres, carrying a 30 year property tax exemption of 87.5 percent for the first 15 years and 75 percent for the next 15.

If you own in Sunbury, Galena or anywhere in Big Walnut schools, this is the largest single variable sitting on your tax bill right now. So let me lay out what is actually on the ballot, what the documents say, and what is still unknown. I am not going to tell you how to vote.

One thing up front. I read the city's own agenda packet and the ordinance text rather than the coverage, and three details in circulation are wrong. That matters when you are making a decision about a house.

What Is Sunbury Actually Voting On?

A proposed amendment to the City Charter, Article XI Section 11.05, titled "Prohibition of Construction of a Data Center." The ballot question is: "Shall Article XI, Section 11.05 of the Charter of the City of Sunbury be adopted?"

The operative language is one sentence. "(A) The construction of a data center is hereby prohibited." The 25 megawatt figure lives in the definition, not the restriction. A data center under the amendment is a facility used primarily for digital information services that "has an aggregate monthly demand or peak load of greater than twenty-five (25) megawatts, however derived from any energy source, or a combination thereof." The amendment also states it is self executing.

Three corrections to what is circulating.

1. It is not a 25 megawatt cap. Several outlets called it a cap. A cap implies a permitted facility held to a limit. The text is a prohibition, and the title says so.
2. The signature threshold was 172, not 174. The City Manager's July 15 report states the Board of Elections certified 351 valid signatures and that 172 were required.
3. Construction dates of January 2028 and December 2034 have circulated. Those appear only in secondary coverage, and the city's own FAQ contradicts them, stating the company "has not yet submitted a site plan for city review" and that moving forward remains contingent on a development agreement.

Sunbury City Council passed Ordinance 2026.24 on July 15 directing the Clerk of Council to certify the amendment to the Delaware County Board of Elections for the November 3 ballot. As of September 18 the Board of Elections had not published an official issue number, so I am not going to print one.

Does the Amendment Stop the Amazon Project?

This is the question everyone wants answered and nobody has answered it.

What the documents establish, and nothing further. The amendment carries no grandfather clause, no effective date provision, and no exemption for approved projects, and it calls itself self executing. It prohibits construction, and no construction has begun. The city's published position before the measure was certified is that Amazon Data Services "has secured an entitlement right to develop a data center on its site subject to compliance with applicable laws and procedural requirements," and that the city's role "will be to ensure compliance rather than to deny the use outright." The parcel was rezoned to Limited Industrial in May 2024.

Vested rights against a later charter amendment is a real legal question with real case law behind it, and I am a real estate agent, not a lawyer. I could not find a city legal opinion, a petitioner legal analysis, or a court ruling that resolves it for Sunbury. Anyone telling you confidently which way it goes is guessing. If a lawsuit follows the vote, the uncertainty lasts well past November, and uncertainty is its own market condition.

How Does the Abatement Affect Big Walnut Schools?

The city offered a Community Reinvestment Area exemption at 87.5 percent for 15 years and 75 percent for the 15 after that. Ohio allows a 30 year term for certified megaprojects.

There is no separate check written to the school district. The compensation is structural. Per the city, the exemption leaves 12.5 percent of taxes on real property increases flowing through for the first 15 years and 25 percent for the next 15, with the full amount after year 30. The city's argument is that the district collects on land converting from agricultural to industrial valuation plus the non exempt share, without adding students. The same flow applies to the fire district, the library, Preservation Parks, the DD board and 9-1-1.

I could not find an official dollar figure for what that is worth to Big Walnut, and I am not going to invent one. The structure is published. The dollars are not.

What Are Sunbury Property Taxes Right Now?

Certified tax year 2025 figures for taxing district 00365, Sunbury Corp and Big Walnut LSD, from the Ohio DTE515 composite reduction factor report run through the Delaware County Auditor.

Millage	Gross mills	Effective residential and agricultural mills
Big Walnut Local School District alone	38.680	29.644849
Full district composite (all levies)	59.960	44.292152

Effective commercial and other is 46.000805 mills. Schools are roughly two thirds of the residential bill, which is why the abatement question lands where it lands.

Run your own number before you argue with anyone about it. Effective residential mills times 35 percent of market value, divided by 1,000, is the ballpark before credits and reductions. On a $500,000 house in that district, 44.292152 effective mills works out to roughly $7,751 a year. If your valuation is the part that looks wrong rather than the rate, that is a separate process and I wrote it up in how to appeal a Central Ohio property valuation.

What Are Both Sides Arguing?

Neutrally, from the record.

For the project, the city says the incentive was decisive, noting Amazon "considered sites in Indiana, Virginia, and Minnesota for this project before selecting Sunbury," and that the minimum capital investment is $2 billion with at least 50 full time jobs averaging $90,000 a year. The city's case is that taxing bodies collect on converted land and the non exempt share without any increase in student counts from the operation.

For the amendment, petition sponsor Trey Dockendorf has cited "noise pollution, water consumption, electricity" and said many residents "at least want to give the people the opportunity to vote on it." Resident Larry Thode said the site "would be about 200 to 300 yards from my home" and described "three years of construction, noise and diesel fuel for generators." At the July 15 council meeting, Alicia and Jeremy Dotz argued the Limited Industrial code requires a 250 foot setback from arterial roads but only 100 feet from residential and agricultural property, and that permitted heights of 85 to 95 feet do not fit the town.

Those are the arguments as made. Weigh them yourself.

What Does This Do to Home Values Around Sunbury?

Less than either side implies, and slower.

Large industrial neighbors affect value by proximity and by what a buyer perceives, not by headline. A house three miles away in Sunbury or over in Galena prices off schools, lot, condition and the same rate environment as everywhere else in Delaware County. A house 300 yards off a construction entrance is a different conversation, and it is a conversation about that specific parcel.

What I watch, and what I tell people who ask me:

1. Days on market inside Big Walnut boundaries against the rest of Delaware County, not against last spring.
2. Whether new construction pricing in the corridor moves. I track that in the Sunbury new construction versus resale breakdown.
3. The abatement's effect on future levy math. Thirty years of partial exemption changes what a district has to ask voters for, which shows up on your bill long after the news cycle ends.
4. Litigation. A contested outcome keeps the parcel unresolved, and unresolved is what actually sits on a buyer's offer.
5. Whether the parcel is even visible or audible from the house you are buying. Drive it at 7pm before you write anything.

I have watched this pattern play out on a smaller scale nearby, and the value effect concentrated tightly around the site rather than spreading across the district. I wrote about a comparable situation in Buckeye Lake.

If You Are Buying or Selling Near Sunbury This Fall

Three practical moves.

Buyers: pull the parcel and the zoning on anything within about a mile of the business park before you get attached. Ask what is entitled next door, not what is standing next door. Limited Industrial permits things a subdivision plat does not.

Sellers: if you are listing this fall in Big Walnut, the vote is going to come up at showings whether you raise it or not. Have the actual facts, not the version from a neighborhood group chat. A seller who can answer the question calmly loses less on price than one who looks caught out.

Everyone: your valuation and your rate are two different fights. Know which one you are having.

If you want to know what this does to your specific address, start with what your house is worth today so you have a baseline before November. And if you want the wider picture on who is moving into this corridor and why, that is here. If you want to know how I work in this market specifically, that is here.

Send me your address and I will pull the parcel, the taxing district, the current effective rate and anything entitled within a mile of you, and tell you plainly whether this vote touches your house or not. That is a real answer either way, and it takes me about fifteen minutes.

Thinking about buying or selling around Sunbury or Big Walnut? Let's talk. Contact Adam Geuy at Blacktree Realty, or book a call.