Garden City puts brakes on data centers
Garden City, Georgia, has enacted a six-month moratorium on new data center applications. This pause will allow the city council to review the impacts of data centers, including demands on electrical grids, water consumption, and noise, and consider amendments to its zoning ordinance.
The Garden City Council in Chatham County, Georgia, unanimously voted to impose a six-month moratorium on all new data center applications. City Manager Rhonda Ferrell stated that this period would allow city staff, the planning commission, and the city council sufficient time to review the potential impacts of data centers and consider amendments to the existing zoning ordinance.
The resolution highlights that Garden City's current zoning ordinance lacks specific definitions for data centers and fails to adequately address their unique impacts, such as heavy electrical grid demands, substantial water usage for cooling, noise from HVAC units and backup generators, and limited job creation relative to their large physical footprint. Officials noted that research into data centers had already begun, making the six-month timeframe sufficient.
Garden City is not the first municipality in Coastal Georgia to address data center development. Port Wentworth passed zoning to allow data centers in specific areas despite citizen objections, while Rincon in Effingham County approved a zoning ordinance defining and restricting data centers to large industrial zones. Camden County also adopted a data center moratorium, and the city of Kingsland implemented a moratorium after receiving its first full data center application.
Jeff Beauvais of the advocacy group One Hundred Miles provided the sole public comment at the meeting, commending the council for its proactive stance. He warned that data centers are complex industrial land uses with significant impacts on natural resources and quality of life, and that developers are actively targeting the Coastal Georgia region.