PAULDING COUNTY, Ga. — Residents in a Georgia county are preparing to push back on the expansion of data centers.
Channel 2’s Susan Hendricks was at the standing room only Paulding County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday night where concerned neighbors made their voices heard.
Many said they felt blindsided by the possibility of data centers being built near their homes because they had no idea that Technology Park Overlay Districts exist.
“Typically in a rezoning situation every bordering parcel, every resident gets a certified letter. The developer has to prove they sent the letter. But with an overlay, none of the residents knew,” neighbor Shannon Utz explained.
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Commissioner Sandy Kaecher says this has been in the works for a long time.
“We have started with data center information about a year and a half ago, so it’s not like what the people think, like this came up overnight; it did not,” she said.
Several pushed back and argued that the discussion was not transparent and information was buried deep and public meeting and public documents.
Many in the community say their concerns with a data center center around its demands on water resources and noise.
“It’s constant, it never ends. So if your home is close to one of those data centers, that noise is going to be forever there,” resident Steven Cochran said.
Residents told Hendricks they hope to start a petition and get enough signatures to get the issue put on a ballot and in voters’ hands.
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