diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index c1b0650332..16af4e7693 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@
    * FIXED: CostMatrix shapes for routes against trivial oneways [#4633](https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/pull/4633)
    * FIXED: unidirectional_astar.cc doesn't work for date_time type = 2 #4652(https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/issues/4652)
    * FIXED: a few fixes around the routing algorithms [#4626](https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/pull/4642)
+   * FIXED: no need to search for GDAL when building data [#4651](https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/pull/4651)
 * **Enhancement**
    * UPDATED: French translations, thanks to @xlqian [#4159](https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/pull/4159)
    * CHANGED: -j flag for multithreaded executables to override mjolnir.concurrency [#4168](https://github.com/valhalla/valhalla/pull/4168)
diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 209e06d3d0..3af4452a73 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -192,8 +192,9 @@ else()
 endif()
 
 # unless you said you didnt want gdal we try to turn it on, if we cant we tell you
+# we don't need it to build tiles (yet)
 set(GDAL_TARGET "")
-if (ENABLE_GDAL)
+if (ENABLE_GDAL AND (ENABLE_SERVICES OR ENABLE_TOOLS OR ENABLE_PYTHON_BINDINGS))
   find_package(GDAL QUIET)
   if (GDAL_FOUND)
     set(GDAL_TARGET GDAL::GDAL)