Bartow County Planning Commission at its Aug. 24 meeting unanimously recommended denial of a proposed data center on Brown Farm Road.
The meeting was held in Courtroom D at the Frank Moore Administration and Judicial Center to accommodate a very large crowd, which packed the courtroom to capacity. Nearly all of them were in opposition.
Akin & Tate P.C., on behalf of Oakley Real Estate Partners, asked the BCPC to approve the rezoning of about 111.4 acres off of Brown Farm Road from A-1, or agricultural, to BPD, or business park district. It also asked for the land use map designation to be changed from low density residential to industrial. The land in question is at the west end of Brown Farm Road.
According to information Oakley presented at a July 15 public meeting, the company is pitching two buildings, totaling about 374,000 square feet, as well as a power substation and a single access drive. The data center has closed-loop cooling.
At the beginning of the public hearing, board member Richard Fox said District 15 Rep. Matthew Gambill had submitted a letter opposing the data center, which drew cheers from the crowd.
Attorney Lester Tate was the first to speak on behalf of the data center. He said the proposal met all of the legal requirements, and also aligned with a county policy statement about data centers.
“In this policy statement, [County Administrator Peter Olson] said these facilities produce little traffic, generate few calls for police and fire response, add no students to the school system and require no expansion of residential infrastructure,” Tate said. “The result is a ratio of revenue to service calls that exceeds that of nearly every other alternative use.”
The project will be surrounded “on almost all sides” by industrial properties, Tate said.
“There’s a railroad track that runs on one side,” Tate said. “You have a Georgia Power substation. You have Aquafil. You have Advanced Metal and Welding, and you have the Southeastern Freight Lines project that’s yet to be built. That’s going to be tractor-trailer trucks coming in on a 24/7 basis.”
Tate addressed public pushback, which he called “the elephant in the room.”
“Data centers have attracted widespread opposition for a number of reasons, few of which are factually based or specific to this project,” Tate said. “… Some folks quite frankly just don’t like data centers, or they’re mad about [Artificial Intelligence], or they’re mad about Flock cameras, or they watched ‘Terminator’ or ‘Terminator 2.’ They are good movies, but they don’t relate to this data center.”
Tate told the commission it had a responsibility to make hard decisions.
“If the rule of law means anything, it means it applies to the rich and to the poor, to the popular and to folks who are despised,” Tate said. “If data centers are popular or unpopular, they all stand on level ground before the law and before this commission and before Commissioner [Steve] Taylor. We ask you to apply the law because we meet the requirements under law.”
Howard Smith spoke in favor of the data center. He said he lived about 150 feet away from the site.
“I’ve heard the opposition say many times ‘we don’t want our land taken for a data center,’ but it’s not their land,” Smith said. “It’s the Browns’ property. They made the choice to sell it for this use. This is not public property being taken from public use for a data center.”
Smith said he thought it was a great location because it was bounded by industrial uses.
“Who wants to live between a trucking business and a railroad?” Smith asked. “What’s the alternative use for the property?”
Board member David Lanham asked if Georgia Power — whose Plant Bowen facility is right across the river from the property — had committed to provide power.
“We have spoken to multiple utility companies that all want to serve the project, but given the letters of credit that have to be placed to secure power of this size we are unable to do that until we have the entitlements on the property,” said Oakley Principal Reid Hanner.
Board member Matt Laughridge asked if there was an end user lined up.
Hanner said there was not.
OPPOSITION
Eight residents spoke in opposition — with many more signed up to speak. One of them was architect James Macht.
“My opinions aren’t based on what movies I’ve watched,” Macht said. “They’re from an architect’s point of view. … I’m looking at what the site has, and the things around the site.”
Industrial use is very nearby, Macht conceded.
“But that’s not this site, and I don’t feel this site is appropriate for the use that they propose,” Macht said. “… They’re on the river. That’s of no benefit to them. There’s a railroad that goes by. That’s no benefit to them. Then we have the historic value, which will be destroyed.”
Marty Knight took up the issue of both history and the natural world. She described the Etowah River as “a globally significant biological treasure” and noted that it was home to “dozens of different species of fish, mussels, snails and crayfishes that are only found in the Etowah River.”
“The Cherokee Darter fish is a federally-listed threatened freshwater fish native exclusively to the Etowah River,” Knight said. “The Cherokee Darter was listed under the Endangered Species Act since 1994.”
The river is also “abundant in historic and archaeological significance,” Knight said, and portions are on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Outside groups are going to keep coming in here with big money-making schemes,” Knight said. “Outsiders do not know how rare and unique Bartow County is, and they do not care.”
Graham Holden also asked about electricity.
“It looks like power concerns have been addressed up to the issue of generation,” Holden said. “The facility is not self-generating. It’s only chewing up 130 or 140 megawatts. That’s a lot of power, but in the scope of Plant Bowen it may not be a big deal. But it is still power, and it’s still taking power away from the ratepayers that paid for the cost of constructing that facility.”
“[Plant Bowen] belongs to Georgia Power, not Bartow County,” said BCPC Chairman Boyd Morris. “Laws that were passed make data centers pay their own way. We’re currently building two more gas turbines at [Plant Bowen] and that’s being funded almost exclusively by data center revenue. … That doesn’t mean that Georgia Power doesn’t figure out some way to pass the rates along to citizens.”
REBUTTAL AND REFUSAL
Hanner, during the rebuttal period, tried to alleviate some of the concerns about the Etowah River.
“We have made some changes to the site plan compared to the one that was shown earlier,” Hanner said. “This was directly resulting from our [July 15] community meeting. The river is a concern of the residents, and so we pushed all the buildings as far to the east of the site as we can in order to be up against the industrial uses. From the river bank to the substation is 400 feet, and from the riverbank to Building 1 is 400 feet.”
Tate told the commission he thought the concerns being raised were beyond the scope of a zoning hearing.
“I appreciate the concerns, and these are friends and neighbors,” Tate said. “We’d be remiss if I didn’t bring our attention back to the fact that what we’re dealing with tonight is a zoning issue. A lot of the concerns being raised are much broader than what the issue is here tonight. … People are saying ‘our land, our choice,’ but it’s not public land. It doesn’t involve public funding.”
Tate said there wouldn’t be a problem getting the power.
“The power for industrial stuff, you have to pick their provider,” Tate said. “I think what they’re saying here is they’ve got a lot of people that can provide power. But you’re not going to go and make the commitment to get the power … until you have the zoning with the conditions. That’s putting the cart before the horse with that. I don’t think there’s any question they can get the power.”
Board member Greg Bowen didn’t buy that argument.
“I don’t mean to seem argumentative, but we’ve stirred that end of the county up,” Bowen said. “If there’s a cart before the horse, this is it. I don’t see anything to vote on here, and I don’t think we should have stirred up the whole bee’s nest with all these people.”
“I’m not trying to sound argumentative, either, but I will note that the power concern is not part of the zoning ordinance,” Tate said. “Already having a contract for power was not one of those requirements.”
Both sides were allocated 30 minutes to make their cases. Both exhausted their time, and the commission declined to make a motion to add more. Instead, Morris called for a vote on Oakley’s requests.
Both the rezoning request and the request to change the land use map failed 6-0.
The Planning Commission’s recommendations for denial will go to Commissioner Steve Taylor, who will make the final decision at the Sept. 2 public meeting. It is held in the commissioner’s conference room at 135 W. Cherokee Ave. and begins at 10 a.m.
