Local officials are seeing dollars without the problems
Citizen groups formed in Bartow, Floyd, and other Georgia counties over the past year to stop government approval of data center construction. Their efforts fail more than they succeed because county and city officials openly state that local governments love data centers.
The reason is money. Data centers will bring a lot of money to those counties and cities who allow them.
The data center proposed for the Barnsley Garden area was nixed but the massive site in Taylorsville known as Project Bunkhouse was approved. For more on those stories, click here and here.
Other data centers are already planned or in construction for Bartow County or its cities. The Switch KEEP 2.0 Atlanta North Campus project is in the City of Cartersville and the county recently approved rezoning for a smaller data center at Spring Place. The City of Adairsville approved a data center project.
The Bartow County Planning Commission has a Dec. 15 hearing planned for a proposed data center on Euharlee Road.
Floyd County has several large projects underway including a Microsoft data center on Huffaker Road, an Atlas Development campus next to Coosa High School, and others near the Battey Business Complex and on Georgia Highway 53.
Microsoft announced this week unveiled a new Atlanta data center that is paired with a Wisconsin site. The Wisconsin site is Fairwater and the Atlanta site, called Fairwater 2, was dubbed by Microsoft officials as the first “AI super factory.”
While citizens cite noise, farmland and wooded destruction, and electrical and water use as part of their opposition, local government officials see dollar signs for the tax base with few ill effects.
Former Bartow of Education board member Chuck Shiflett wrote a social media post that pointed to a quote from Bartow County Administrator Peter Olson published in the Oct. 21 2025 in the Columbus Daily-Ledger.
“We’re pro-data center here in Bartow,” Olson said. “If you’re against data centers, I can respect that, we’ll take them.”
Bartow County Commissioner Steve Taylor has made similar past statements. He said in an interview with the Georgia Media Group last summer that it didn’t matter that warehouses sat empty. The county still got the same property taxes but without the problems a busy center creates like traffic and infrastructure.
Taylor also said data centers are a worthwhile option because they require few employees, no public road improvements or other infrastructure requirements other developments like a housing development or commercial developments require. For the full interview, click here.
Shiflett referred to a Center Square article published Oct. 21 where Taylor testified at a Public Service Commission hearing.
“I’m personally not afraid of data centers,” Taylor said. “They’re not noisy. We’ve required a closed loop (water system). They are not using a lot of water at all.”
The county gets more tax revenue off of commercial properties than a residential property because revenue comes not just from property improvements but also from business equipment. It depreciates yearly until the tax rate reaches zero.
Data centers are different from other commercial properties when it comes to equipment and depreciation. Data center equipment from the computers to the cooling systems are more expensive than other types of commercial enterprises. Those owning data centers will replace it every few years, so it will never reach zero depreciation. That is more tax money.
A rough analysis shows Bartow County could collect between $52 to $56 million yearly under its current millage rate from the $19 billion Project Bunkhouse project off of Taff Road alone. That doesn’t include school revenue nor does it include taxes collected yearly from equipment. The county received $63.4 million in tax revenue in 2024 and $56.2 million in 2023 including all forms of taxes, but excluding school tax revenue.
Data center concerns fall into two areas of land use and utilities. The earlier data centers built in Virginia and in the Atlanta area are notorious for causing brown outs, low water pressure, and muddy water for nearby residents. Those in the Northwest Georgia area are troubled by the cost of infrastructure and aren’t willing to pay additionally to power companies like Georgia Power to supply additional electricity to data centers.
Residential power bills have gone up six times since 2023. Georgia PSC board members passed rules last January that data centers using more than 100 megawatts of power are required to pay for improved infrastructure upfront. That relieves residential customers from being burdened with the costs. Georgia Power rates are frozen to 2028, giving local officials another reason to approve data centers. For more on Georgia Power rates and the vote to freeze rates, click here.
Data center developers claim they are using closed loop systems where water use is minimum. A closed loop system is where water is recirculated and reused for heating and cooling without being discharged into nearby waterways and with almost no evaporation. A data center not on a closed loop system is estimated to use between 1 and 5 million gallons a day.
Counties and cities have noise and light ordinances that regulate data center sound and light emission, so local officials don’t see those as obstacles. The biggest considerations for approving data center rezoning now are location and how to spend the money generated from them and those decisions are where the public can make the most impact, according to Shiflett in his post.
Melody Dareing is a freelance writer for publications in the U.S, Canada, the UK and Germany. She is a former news director of Adelphia Channel 4 and WBHF Radio. She is on Facebook, X, YouTube, content on Substack, and has a podcast on Rumble.