DECATUR, Ga. — The DeKalb County Commission, at its June 23 meeting, denied proposed land-use and zoning regulations for data centers. After an initial vote to defer Tuesday afternoon, a later motion to reconsider the ordinance was made and the commission shot down the proposal in a unanimous vote.
The regulations were originally deferred until Aug. 11 in a 5-2 vote.
The regulations had been up for consideration for about one year. The commission began discussing the regulations in July 2025, and a moratorium on data center construction applications has been in place since then. The commission voted last week to extend the moratorium for another 100 days, through Sept. 30.
DeKalb County has been working to put regulations in place that address land use and where data centers can or cannot be located. The current draft ordinance restricts facilities to industrial areas and requires a special land-use permit in most cases. The draft defines data centers of various sizes, up to a campus size.
An updated draft of the regulations, dated June 18, caps data center campuses at 1 million square feet of disturbed land and increases the buffer from residential properties to 750 feet. The buffer was previously 500 feet.
