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Commission adopts data‑center ordinance language and sends it back to planning with new reporting, water and community‑benefit requirements
Summary
After lengthy public comment urging limits, the commission approved an ordinance reading on data centers and directed the planning commission to revise the draft to include seven specific requirements — energy reporting, closed‑loop water systems, prioritization rules during resource constraints, limits on size/clustering, community benefit agreements, decommissioning plans, and a modest setback change — then referred it back for a special‑use framework.
Athens‑Clarke County commissioners took a decisive step on data centers on April 7, voting to adopt ordinance language and immediately return the draft to the planning commission with directions to add stricter special‑use criteria.
Attorney Drake read a planning‑commission text amendment to regulate data centers as an industrial use. Dozens of residents and experts testified during a sustained public comment period, raising concerns about energy and water use, clustering in historically marginalized neighborhoods, health and noise impacts, and transparency clauses such as non‑disclosure agreements.
Commissioner Myers moved that the ordinance be accepted and referred back to planning with instructions to incorporate seven specific criteria into the data‑center special‑use review: an energy‑consumption plan with annual reporting and peak‑demand estimates; a water‑consumption sustainability plan that requires closed‑loop, low‑water cooling and vulnerability assessments; regulatory disclosure of how data centers will be prioritized during drought or outages; limits on size and clustering; mandatory community‑benefit agreements for nearby residents; a decommissioning and recycling plan for electronics and infrastructure; and consideration of a modest increase in mandatory setbacks (from 400 to 500 feet) in particular design standards.
Public speakers urged that requirement testing be stringent. "I would really like to see energy use reporting as a requirement for data centers in Georgia," said Olivia Asher, who asked the commission to require independent, annual energy reporting and to ban NDAs that hide operations from public review. Another commenter said, "No more data centers in our backyards," urging a moratorium on approvals until stronger rules are in place.
Commissioners also discussed legal boundaries: staff and the attorney flagged that some utilities and state‑regulated entities may be outside local land‑use control and that planning staff should craft language consistent with state law. The motion passed; the referral terminates a local moratorium that had been in place while the ordinance was under review, and sends planning back to draft the special‑use requirements commissionors requested.
What happens next: The planning commission will revise the text to incorporate the requested criteria and return a revised draft with a clear special‑use permitting pathway. If adopted after public hearings, it will create a permit framework requiring energy and water reporting, community benefits, and decommissioning plans before large data centers can be approved.
