The Cartersville City Council is planning on a first reading for annexing and rezoning around 85 acres of land for the Switch project after the city planning commission approved recommending the measure at its Nov. 12 meeting. The council is meeting Thursday, Nov. 20. The request will be up for a vote by the city council after a second reading in a Dec. 4 meeting.
The additional land, which included portions of several tracts bought from the Wilson family, is at 82 Bates Road. It will be used as a buffer between adjacent land and the data center, according to Switch officials. The request is to rezone it from agricultural to technology zoning as the rest of the data center campus is rezoning.
There was no strong opposition to the request although one speaker, Bates Road resident Michelle Danial expressed concern in an Oct. 29 planning commission meeting about the amount of electricity Switch will use. None of the city departments expressed any concerns or objections to the rezoning request.
This is the second time the city is considering adding property to the Switch campus. It approved another similar request in its July meeting after a positive recommendation from the planning commission in June. That request was for two parcels, one 28.86 acres and another 36.71 acres bought by Switch LTD to be added to the data center campus and rezoning from agricultural to technology.
Calculating those in, Switch LTD has approximately 196 acres off Bates Road, before the latest request.
In the latest rezoning request, the planning commission added another condition to the nine already listed for Switch rezoning requests. It states that no access, except emergency access, shall be allowed to or from Etowah Ridge Trail, including access for construction activities.
Other conditions involve the 100 feet of distance required for buffers and setbacks, setting the public entrance to Old Alabama Road, that Bates Road access is limited to emergency access and governmental authorities, limiting construction access to 60 days after the Georgia Department of Transportation construction on Old Alabama Road is finished, and working with landlocked property owners and flood control officials. They also mandate that future development phases be shared with the Paulding County Community Development office and the use of the property is limited to data processing, hosting, storage and related services like security.
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.