All Georgia data center ordinances — from most to least restrictive
Since last October, the list of counties and cities in Georgia creating a data center ordinance has grown threefold. Now, one in five counties in Georgia has a data center ordinance or is drafting an ordinance for data centers as the state experiences a land rush to develop server processing centers for cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Thirty-two counties and 21 cities are part of a wave of moratoriums, drafted ordinances or are drafting ordinances in Georgia as of June 1.
Part of this phenomenon is the data center development companies’ speed and the size and scale of new projects coming online.
According to Cleanview, an infrastructure project tracker, 17 data centers are operating and 83 are planned in Georgia. The four largest operating data centers range in the 50 to 350 megawatt energy requirement, while the largest proposed projects range from 600 to 1,250 MW.
With these facilities comes challenges like higher ambient noise levels, millions of gallons of water use, thousands of megawatts of energy use, thousands of acres transformed from agrarian or forest land to industry, and millions of dollars in tax abatements for the municipalities from the developer.
The ordinances are on a wide spectrum from invitational to prohibitive. Two cities have banned data centers, some counties list just a few sentences defining what a data center is with little regulation in their ordinance, and others going into pages of detail about developer requirements. One county and a city in the county have the “best and worse outcome” in the state right now.
Bans and lengthy ordinance fights
Fayetteville joined Atlanta in prohibiting data centers in March.
The QTS data center on 615 acres in Fayetteville was the first hyperscale data center campus to break ground in Georgia in 2023, which has had a “negative attitude” by constituents since then, according to Jesse Brooks, a Fayette County resident. After a moratorium in February, a domino effect of development changes happened.
“We had 100 people in the room during the planning and zoning meeting,” Brooks said. “Our neighboring counties were creating moratoriums.”
Fayetteville changed the unified development ordinance (UDO) to remove data centers in the business center district, which was effectively a “permanent ban on data center projects within city limits,” Brooks said.
One of the reasons Brooks and the other activists in his group were able to persuade the council is because at the time Clayton County and Coweta County had moratoriums.
But Coweta County, which created its ordinance in December, has four data centers proposed. On May 5, a group of Coweta County residents filed a lawsuit to overturn the county’s approval of Project Sail, citing the zoning and environmental review.
Cyndie Roberson, a crypto mining data center activist from northern Georgia who helped ban crypto mines in Gilmer County, called the situation in Coweta “a cautionary tale.”
Crypto mines are a type of data center that are also a hotbed in Georgia.
“A protective ordinance can function like a ban,” Roberson said. “Requiring hours of operation to just be open Monday through Friday from 9 to 5, or a requirement of using waste heat, application fees that are non-refundable, all huge buffers.”
Citizens of DeKalb County have been working with the DeKalb County Commissioners for 365 days to create requirements in their data center text amendments. There have been four drafts, with just minor changes between the first and second, according to Gina Mangham, an attorney and data center activist.
Mangham has been at every data center text amendment commissioner meeting for the past year with the countywide DeKalb Coalition and Renew DeKalb.
“We had crowds down there in September, November, December and January, and I think they were just hoping the support would wane, and it hasn’t, and in fact we picked up more support,” she said. “We organized, we did a petition, sent lots of emails.”
Mangham said Commissioner Ted Terry submitted an amendment to get rid of the word “campus” and not allow a data center larger than 500,000 square feet. DeKalb Coalition proposed their set of rules by the third draft.
Mangham said they want a ban, but if that doesn’t happen, at least limit the size and impact. She has learned to find a legal argument.
“The water issue in DeKalb could put our whole water system in jeopardy,” she said, referring to a 2011 federal consent decree on the decaying county water system.
Best and worst outcomes
In southwest Georgia, Troup County and the City of LaGrange passed a data center ordinance within a week of each other in April. But the ordinances are night and day or “best and worse,” according to the leading Troup County anti-data center coalition advocate, Cyndie Hutchings.
Hutchings has been working with city councilors and county commissioners for more than eight months to create protections and dissuade data center development after she fled the data center transmission infrastructure issue in Fayette County.
After months of work, LaGrange drafted a two-page ordinance, which Hutchings called “pretty disappointing.”
But the Troup County ordinance is a 17-page, text amendment requiring restrictions such as a 1,500-foot setback, the developer to use Tier 4 diesel generators (rather than Tier 2), developer must use public sewer and structure for solar panels to be built on the roof. She said this is enough for developers to balk.
Whenever people are curious about data center ordinances, Hutchings said, she suggests seeing Fayetteville’s industrial-scale development in an area that wasn’t industrial — and the fact that the city now banned new data centers.
Tools at Georgians disposal
A Georgia-focused ordinance resource was developed in March.
With the increased attention set toward data center ordinances, the Georgia Tech Energy Policy and Innovation Center created an interactive tool for communities to navigate the landscape. At the Georgia Tech Data Center Hub, researcher Yang You created a moratorium and ordinance guide.
“We realized that there’s not a lot of information, like a one-stop shop (for) information showing all the ordinance, like how they talk about how to build data center what kind of requirement or things like that being proposed at the city or county level,” he said. “It’s meant to help local leaders to develop and plan data center in the region. It’s a one stop shop with all the information in it.”
Is the city using all of its resources? That’s what Roberson wants to know.
Roberson said outside counsel should be used during the ordinance drafting period.
“A doctor is not a specialist in everything, neither are lawyers,” she said. “Getting someone who is really an expert at land use and environmental law often requires outside counsel. Almost every county I’ve encountered has a fund or budget line item for outside counsel. That happened in Murray and Gilmer County.”
Columbus is among the Georgia municipalities drafting its data center ordinance. Originally announced in February, the 650 MW Project Ruby hyperscale data center tucked in the northeast corner of Muscogee County on nearly 900-acres of land caused an uproar among neighboring residents. Rather than zoning the area as industrial to incorporate a proposed $5.18 billion project, Choose Columbus and the Columbus Consolidated Government have been working to develop a zoning ordinance called “technology overlay.” The first reading of the technology overlay ordinance is scheduled for the June 2 Columbus Council meeting.
Brooks emphasized with the Ledger-Enquirer that this land-rush issue isn’t going away.
“If there’s one thing I would want counties and cities to realize, it’s that there’s kind of a land rush going on with these developers “ Brooks said, “because they all want to be first to market because it’s such a competitive industry and a volatile industry. If you’re not first, you’re last, basically.”
