COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — For Ansley Brown, her childhood home will always hold a special place in her heart.
“This is where I grew up. This is everything I ever knew as a child,” Brown said.
She told Channel 2’s Michael Doudna that the family planned to pass the property down to her young daughter.
However, everything changed when they got a letter a few months ago. A letter from Georgia Power informed them that their land was needed for a massive energy expansion.
“That letter changed our lives forever. It made us overnight lawyers,” Brown said.
The power company plans to build more than 1,000 miles of transmission lines to meet the rising demand from a growing population and data centers.
“Whatever we have to, our goal is always to minimize disruption and to impact the least number of homeowners and property owners we can,” Georgia Power Communications Director Jacob Hawkins said.
Hawkins said when the company needs an easement or property for a project, they have a third-party appraise it before making their initial offer.
“We start now at 125% of fair market value. That’s based on an appraiser; when we go up from there,” Hawkins said.
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However, some Coweta County families believe the appraisals are too low and do not provide them enough to get into a similar home, in a similar environment.
“They don’t want to look into the pain and suffering that this causes people to have to uproot their entire life,” Brown said.
“When we look at what it would take, like-for-like, to get back what they’re taking from us in whole, they’re not offering enough,” said Cynthia Van Epps.
Van Epps originally bought her home more than a decade ago.
Since then, she said her family has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into making the property what it is today.
She said there is a wide gap between what the company is offering and what the family said it needs.
“I’m not disillusioned into thinking that we’re going to stop this. I’m not ignorant, but we shouldn’t be paying the price,” Van Epps said.
Georgia Power said there has to be a limit to what they pay.
“What we pay for property acquisitions through this process ultimately impacts everybody’s power bills and power rates,” Hawkins said.
If they cannot come to an agreement, Georgia law allows Georgia Power to use eminent domain to take the home. Hawkins said that it is incredibly rare.
“More than 99% of properties that we have to acquire -- easements, et cetera, every year --we’re able to do on a voluntary basis and compensate homeowners for their properties,” Hawkins said.
The company said more than 20 of the 29 homes needed for the project near Van Epps and Brown have reached agreements.
Hawkins also said they accepted the terms of Brown’s family last week.
However, the family told Channel 2 Action News that they decided to decline the offer after a TikTok from Ansley Brown went viral to help raise awareness of the issue. that
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