Georgetown City Council District 2 town hall covers data centers, water, traffic

Georgetown City Council Member Doug Noble held a town hall on August 20 to update District 2 residents on key issues including water, traffic, data centers, homelessness, and upcoming state legislation. Noble, four months into his first term, highlighted the importance of direct community feedback over social media discussions to understand residents' actual concerns.

A significant portion of the discussion focused on the city's strategy regarding data center developments. Noble assured residents that data centers are typically located in industrial-zoned areas, away from residential neighborhoods, often with buffer zones. He also emphasized that data center developers pay impact fees for their water usage and reserve their own electricity rights, preventing these costs from falling on residents. Modern data centers, he noted, use closed-loop cooling systems, consuming less water than older facilities and often less than a small cluster of residential homes. He added that data centers contribute significantly to the local economy through capital investment, potentially ranging from $750,000 to $1 billion.

Noble also addressed homelessness, advocating for public-private partnerships, and discussed the Georgetown Police Department's new Crisis Intervention Team. Regarding water, he confirmed the doubling of the city's treatment capacity with the new South Lake Water Treatment Plant and plans to secure a new, more expensive water resource from East Texas. Finally, Noble and City Manager David Morgan urged residents to engage with the upcoming Texas legislative session, which may include bills aimed at limiting cities' control over impact fees, a crucial funding source for future growth in Georgetown.