Commissioners in Coweta County have voted to pause data center-related development for nearly six months. The move is meant to give the commission time to sort out zoning ordinances for the warehouse-esque facilities.
However, in April, the board approved a conditional land rezoning for an eight-building data center campus known as Project Peach.
The massive development will span over two million square feet in an unincorporated part of Coweta.
Residents within the county, specifically those in Palmetto, Georgia, have been protesting the project. Project Peach’s proposed location is less than a mile from the city’s downtown.
“There’s a long-standing view that Palmetto is sort of this lost town,” said Jennifer Taylor, a Palmetto resident concerned about the potential data center campus.
“Coweta commissioners are like, ‘well, it’s just Palmetto. Either they won’t fight it, or they won’t care,” she added.
Data Centers are a significant and growing business in Georgia. Some local communities have welcomed this development boom. But there are also concerns. The WABE Newsroom series “Server South” will explain why data center companies are flocking here and why some residents are pushing back.
It’s unclear whether the recent pause directly impacts this project. Still, some residents say they felt left out of the conversations about the rezoning proposal.
And city officials like Palmetto councilwoman Jess Wilbanks agreed.
“There have been other zoning meetings that we weren’t aware of … like two weeks before we were notified that there was going to be this key decision made for our city, without any input from the city,” Wilbanks said.
Project Peach would sit on land initially zoned for rural conservation, or land intended for agricultural use, and low-density single-family residential space. The area is also considered wetlands as it’s “proximate to both the Flint River and Chattahoochee watershed.”
Yet county documents state that the county’s Comprehensive Plan “does not lend support” to the rezoning. The county says data centers were “just beginning to be part of the conversation” when the plan was adopted.
Still, the April vote approved rezoning the Palmetto-bordering area to a light industrial district.
The change came with conditions. According to county documents, developers have to meet about 21 requirements, including monetary contributions, traffic mitigations, and stormwater management.
Opposition was very clear during the meeting; however, Commissioner John Reidelbach had a different view.
“In my eyes, this would be an industrial area. That’s just my opinion. It’s an industrial area because of everything that surrounds the current developments that are there right now,” Reidelbach said.
Commissioner Jeff Fisher noted that he’s on board with the project even if it could potentially be in his backyard.
Palmetto Mayor Tersea Thomas-Smith also disagreed with the rezoning vote. She believes some of the decisions behind Project Peach lack transparency.
“The one or two meetings I’ve been in with them … it was almost as if I was invisible. They weren’t ready for me to even speak, and when I did, I think everybody was still taken aback,” Thomas-Smith said. “I got questions and I need them answered.”
WABE reached out to the Coweta County Board of Commissioners and has not yet received a comment.
Documents from the Developments of Regional Impact, or DRI, say the data center campus would be built in phases over about ten years.
Representatives of the data center company heading the pending development, CyrusOne, say they’re unsure about what data will be stored once the facility is completed.
Officials with Palmetto hope to meet with the Coweta Commissioners to express concerns from residents; however, Wilbanks said tackling this issue has slowed the city’s revitalization.
“Honestly … a lot of things have stopped. Our momentum kind of came to a stop because now we’re trying to like put all this energy towards Project Peach.”
