- When residents of an Atlanta suburb heard a data center may be coming to town, they pushed back.
- Fayetteville, Georgia, no longer allows new data center construction following local pushback.
- Here's how Jesse Brooks and his neighbors stopped a data center development.
This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Jesse Brooks, a 35-year-old videographer who lives in Fayetteville, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb. It has been edited for length and clarity.
The Atlanta area is one of several hot spots for data center development, and the town is home to a hyperscale data center under construction by Blackstone portfolio company QTS since 2022. Earlier this year, Crow Holdings put forward a plan to build another large data center in Fayetteville. After residents raised concerns at a planning and zoning meeting, the data center application was denied. The city also passed a moratorium on new data center applications, and data centers are no longer approved land uses in the city.
I first heard about the new proposed data center on one of my town's four general-purpose Facebook groups, where people usually post about roadwork or lost dogs.
At the beginning of the year, someone in the group flagged a letter from the city inviting residents to a late January planning and zoning meeting for a proposed project near their home.
I looked at the agenda and realized there was also a project proposed by CHI/Acquisitions LP, a subsidiary of developer Crow Holdings. Since Crow Holdings was working on other data centers, like one in Texas, and the project was labeled "DC," we realized this was likely another one.
We got our first hyperscale data center in 2022, at the beginning of the boom, but it wasn't until the impact of construction, such as an influx of workers causing traffic, that more residents took notice.
Without any central organization, other Facebook group members and I spent January trying to rally neighbors to show up to the meeting. I even posted on Reddit.
Before the meeting, I also reached out to our local newspapers to make sure they showed up.
I had no clue who would actually show up to our town hall. When I arrived, there were about 100 of us. Nearly every chair in the room was filled.
These meetings are typically an hour long, with the commission going over every project on the docket. The data center discussion began with someone from the city walking through the initial plans, followed by a presentation from a Crow Holdings representative about the project's benefits.
Then came public comment, with each person allotted three minutes. About half the room came up to speak.
People who lived near the proposed development asked questions about what it would do to their property prices. Others asked why the city was approving this when there's so much potential volatility over AI — if the industry experiences a downturn, the center may not be able to sustain clients, and we'll have a massive warehouse doing nothing on the north side of town.
It was at least half an hour of people voicing their concerns and pressing the city to deny an application. A couple of people, including myself, asked the city to place a moratorium on data center development and approvals.
Crow's representative had a chance to rebut our concerns, but the planning commission voted to deny the application.
After the meeting, I spoke to one of the local papers, The Citizen, and told them I was glad the city had voted this way, but that I wanted to make sure that the developers didn't push forward. "I'm hoping that they felt the enormous hostility in the room and chose to take this data center and shove it somewhere else," I told The Citizen.
Data Center Moratorium
Crow appealed the decision in a letter, which it also posted in the city newspapers. They must have seen me as an organizer and instigator, because they quoted me on the first page of their letter. The commission's ruling, in their opinion, was based on "the rule of man instead of the rule of law."
They wrote that while I was the "self-appointed champion of the community," I was not technically a city resident. (Editor's note: The author lives just outside city limits in an unincorporated area, meaning he is a county resident and not formally within the city's jurisdiction.)
We're a very large city, and I live less than half a mile from the city limits, even though I have a Fayetteville address. Their point was that my opinion shouldn't influence the city's business decisions. I'd argue that even without living within city limits, I still do business within there, use city services, and my kid goes to school here.
We were planning to show up at the next meeting, but the day before, they withdrew their appeal.
Since the original hearing, the city enacted a moratorium on new data center applications while it was reviewing its zoning rules. Our city manager was quoted in the local paper about the moratorium, saying that they've heard from the public that we don't want more data centers in our city.
A few weeks after the moratorium was passed, a zoning law amendment completely removed data centers as an approved use of land within the city limits.
Meet your local government
The biggest takeaway for me is how much agency you have in your local government.
Previously, I would see what happened, what got built where, and how it affected me, and then just complain after the fact. I didn't have an understanding of who was responsible for what or how business worked in my city.
Now, I've learned a lot more and seen what getting involved can do, alongside my neighbors.
Everyone should develop the skill of taking advantage of the public information your city and county offer, like making records requests, looking at property maps to see who owns what land, how much they paid for it, and what land they might annex in the future.
It's a very valuable resource, and you do have access to it. You just have to ask.
I haven't gotten involved with any local organizations working on other data center organizing in the area, but I have continued to speak to the people in my life about data centers. I have a cousin who lives near Newnan, the site of the $17 billion Project Sail, who has been talking to me about the development, as well as some friends who live in south Georgia whose cities are quite happy to bring in data centers.
If this is something that interests you as a resident of your city, now is an important time to start thinking about how you can make your voice heard.
