Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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Hi. I'm gonna come out here and say this to y'all instead of saying back here. So, um, so good evening and welcome to the December 11th, 2025 meeting of the Athens County Planning Commission. You're watching on YouTube, you'll find the meeting agenda at accccclgov.com/planning. For those of you here in person, there's a sign-in sheet by the door, copies of tonight's agenda. Um, so here's the process for the items on the agenda. First, staff will make a presentation. Then, we move to public comment. Who is in support of the application? We allow 10 minutes for the applicant to address the commission followed by members of the public speaking in favor who receives three minutes each. After comments in support of the application, we move to comments in opposition. All speakers receive three minutes, but if you're here representing a specific interest group such as a homeowners association, please let us know so we may allocate the appropriate amount of time. When addressing the commission, please provide your name, address, and the nature of your interest in the project. After public comment, the applicant or their representative may request a two-minute response. Please note the timer. It will display a yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and a red light when your time has expired. Once we have heard have heard from members of the public, the planning commission will discuss the item. We will not receive additional public comments unless there is a specific question to be addressed. Exhibits may be displayed by the applicants or public at the podium. Written correspondence received by noon yesterday has been forwarded to the commission and is part of the public record. Uh any additional written material to be placed into the record must be read during the public comment period. Please direct your comments to the planning commission and not to the applicants. And please refrain from applauding or jering any of the speakers. Finally, please note that this meeting is broadcast live and our microphones are sensitive. Please silence your cell phones. And I did want to make um one note. So we have two items on the agenda. The second item says text amendment regarding data centers. We do not have an actual text

amendment. What it is is an opportunity to get feedback and discuss the idea of what a text amendment would look like. So I'm saying this for anybody who might be here to comment on that item. We will not be voting on it, but for any opinions, thoughts, ideas, we're we're happy to take those as we talk about the larger idea. So, yes, there was a mention of of I guess you guys receiving a three-page com uh information on the background such is there is that on the website or something for us to be able to look at question. It was to be posted on the website. We were going to have a handful of copies sitting on the table. I can make some.

Okay. Then, okay. Yeah, we we will have hard copies out here in just this minute. Right. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. All right. So, who wants to introduce staff reports and documents into the record? I will move to do so. All right. Have a second. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Great. Um, approval of the minutes.

Okay. A second. All right. Any comments, changes? Otherwise, all those in favor say I. I. Um, May courts review and public comments. We have no new Makeourts information to present. Okay. Anybody here to talk about May courts? All right. So, we have no old business. So, new business number one, 293 Hoy Street. All right. Good evening, planning commissioners.

Um, we're I'm here to present zoning case zone 2205 11-2301. And so here we have a request to reszone a portion of a parcel from park to commercial downtown. We also have a request for the future land use to change from government to downtown. Um when a parcel gets changed to downtown, there are design areas for each of the downtown parcels. Um so the applicant has not suggested anything. However, I will go into this in a little bit more detail. staff is suggesting that if this does get reszoned to commercial downtown that it go within the Dory Street uh design overlay area. No concept plan has been submitted for this project. Um however, there has been a lot of news about this and I think people are mostly aware that there is intention for this to become a mixeduse multif family development. Um that is all currently in the hands of the mayor and commission right now. So we have the larger parcel here. You can see this is a portion of the larger government zoned parcel here. Uh we have the lay park recreation facility and the Lynen House Art Center. Um right here on uh Hoy Street actually continues on through as a private street. This is the portion you'll see it on the aerial that has the parking area for the lay park recreation center and a small playground with a little bit of open space. Um, so they're proposing to take just that portion of the larger government piece um to change it to commercial downtown and then eventually they would like to fold it into this new sort of triangular block shape here. Um, additionally, so our future land use has it as park, the whole larger piece. They're trying they're asking to change that as well to commercial downtown.

So here's the design area overlay. You can see all the overlays pretty much here in downtown. Since this is not currently zone CD, the Dory Street boundary cuts kind of this way and up here. Um, so if it becomes CD, it does need to go into one of the design areas. We are recommending Dory Street for that. The other possibility would be north downtown. This is our newest design area that was created with the renovation of the housing um just behind the building here that that and the dory street are pretty similar in what they are are required to do in terms of maximum setbacks and fenestration which is windows and doors that face streets. The one difference is that the north downtown allows ground floor residential. it has a bit of a restriction when that is along College Avenue which would not apply. However, with the rest of this block being um Dary Street, we would recommend uh that the mayor and commission and that's a vote at the mayor and commission level. I believe we do want a recommendation from this body. Um but we believe that block would fit in better. So, you know, this green line would cut here and then come down as opposed to it sort of just being a finger sticking off of the north tab. Um we can get into a little bit more detail on that. um it's a little bit unique. There are some standards that apply when we go through a plan review if when a project comes through and then there's a secondary phase if they are not able to follow some standard current standards called alternative compliance that this body has seen a few cases for. Um, in that case, uh, there's a little bit more description about how that design area should feel and interact with its neighboring parcels, setbacks, um, appropriateness of certain uses and and building forms. Um, so we think it fits in quite well with Dory Street there. So, here is the aerial. You can see um the park recreation center, the ball

field behind the Lynen House Arts Center. We have Hoy Street coming in here. This is our firehouse number one right here adjacent and as you can see the parking area if you have all visited lay park um you can see the parking area there in front currently the small playground that exists um right in front of that uh parking area. The rest of that block is made up of an Athens clar county owned uh surface parking lot. We have the abacus hotel formerly the graduate hotel. We have the historical foundry complex here which has the event center uh coffee shop and a little bit of office space. And then the hotel actually has a few additional um sort of townhouse style units there in the back. Uh so this would you know these parcels right here are currently CD. Uh this area is the park zone. So they're looking to take this from park to commercial downtown. And so we are here kind of on the north side of downtown um not too far away from where we're all standing and sitting right now. So in terms of the comprehensive plan, staff sees some compatibility with this to encourage the development of downtown as a vibrant, diverse center where everyone feels welcome to live, visit, and do business. Um that comprehensive plan also talks about infill and redevelopment opportunities to prioritize those over green field expansion. So, this is really an opportunity to continue that growth of downtown. We've had quite a bit of growth since the 2000 reszone. Um, quite a bit of residential has come to downtown. A lot of that, um, is in support of the University of Georgia and the student population. Uh, but we also have all sorts of transportation options. We've got variety in our businesses. We've got job creation. So, this fits in well, um, this parcel fits in well with all that surrounding area. and could continue to complement. And then if the parcel were to proceed and be developed out, the people who would

live or work there would then have the opportunities to recreate at the facilities of the park right there adjacent to it. So staff also sees this as compatible with the surrounding future land use and zoning. Uh we are recommending approval of the reszone, approval of the future land use change to downtown, and as stated before, we are recommending the change for the downtown design area to become Dury Street. So with that, I will conclude the staff report. Thank you. Thank you. Now we'll hear from the applicants.

Good evening. My name is Ed Lane with SPQ Planners and Engineers located at 1725 Electric Avenue. And I'm speaking uh tonight on behalf of the downtown development board and authority um on their request to reszone a portion of this larger partial parcel from government or park. That's all two different designations uh to commercial downtown. And the the ADDA uh believe strongly believes that reszoning this parcel to CD is in the best interest of not only downtown but of Athens uh as a whole. And so I want to talk about some of those those benefits that it could bring. Um in many ways as as Bruce mentioned the the reason for you is pretty straightforward. Um, it uh there's a there's a lot of things that make sense from a land planning perspective. It um I'll pull a few of these up. It's compatible with the 2023 comp plan. It is compatible with the future land use map. It's compatible with the zoning map. Um it is consistent with the greenway network plan. Its potential development could help contribute to this tax allocation district which we want to see. It's compatible with Athens in motion and it would allow the fulfillment of some of the downtown master plan to to occur. Um, and I think it strongly meets the 13 zoning criteria questions as well. So, I believe for for these reasons and other staff uh has recommended approval. At the same time, I um you know, I know y'all don't this body doesn't deliberate in a complete vacuum. there's some context that y'all need to to everything that y'all have to deliberate on. And here of course the important context already mentioned is that it is a a part

of this larger more complicated potential project with uh that the commission has been working with spaces on. But beyond that, the Downtown Development Authority believes that this stands on its own merits as in the best interest of of the city. And and I'll I'll speak more to that um in a minute, but I did want to mention um because of this uh well, the the parcel there has currently the portion of the parcel a parking lot and the playground. And so if this is reszoned from park to CD, there have been some that have voiced concerns what could happen to that um especially as it relates to Thomas Lay um park. And so uh to that I just want to mention to these concerns the the city negotiating the protection of that. Um there are provisions to to still provide parking to the park. Um, and same with the playground to uh build a new playground on Lake Park. Uh, because it if it were to be developed it, at least during construction, it would definitely be obstructed. And so even to prevent that from happening, there would be a new park built and then kind of during and following completion of the project, there would be a new park almost in the exact same location accessible to the public. Um and so in that way th those two items that are assets right now uh for the city would would there would be a continuation of that. Um and then of course the the third sorry mention about that is just access for the drop offs to the community center making sure that that is protected during construction. There are provisions to make sure that is taken care of. Um so now beyond that it's so the reason stands makes a lot of sense

uh in many ways. It also opens up the potential if this larger project were to happen mayor and commission vote in favor. It does uh open up other potential benefits to the community that are substantial. I have a few of these listed here. Uh there would be $2.6 6 million in sewer upgrades uh done offsite for the sewer basin. Uh $7.8 million uh for a payment in LO for affordable housing as part of the inclusionary housing um ordinance. Um in total, it's roughly around $14 million in the benefit of the city in a one-time uh um uh benefit and then a net an annual net benefit of about 3 uh 2.4 4 million in tax revenue, the new public parking deck that I alluded to, the new playground in lay park, protection of the foundry, preservation of the Hoy house, an easement for the artwalk, um, and additional housing. So again, just to be crystal clear, this is not what's on the table to be voted on, but uh, it it interest the downtown development authority that these things would now be a possibility if this property were to be reszoned. Um, and so resoning this has possible direct financial benefits, operational benefits with the parking, cultural benefits, historical preservation benefits. There's a lot there. Um, but uh, we we ask you to consider those. But really, as this stands on its own merits, I want to preemptively kind of just ask two ask and answer two questions. Um, one is what happens if this reszone is successful but the core uh the the larger project does not pass. Um, in short, not much. Nothing happens.

The other kind of triangular lot at the at the corner in North Jackson uh is also governmentowned. It's also zone CD and it also has a parking lot and it I think is zoned appropriately. And so this would kind of be in that similar situation. It would still be exactly as it is but just zoned in a way that makes more sense. The second question is what happens if the this reszone is not successful. Um and the core spaces project is also not approved by mayor and commission. Um of course on the site nothing happens. However, all of those potential benefits that were listed are now that I listed are now off the table and the adjacent properties that are zone CD um you know can be developed by right with none of these the protections or provisions to accommodate the uh um protect the the playground that is right there and the parking that is right there and all of that. So for these reasons, downtown board uh strongly believes to reszone this is in their best interest and best interest of the city. And I ask you all to consider that. There's a lot of different parts here. And so I just want to uh mention that with me here to help answer questions are several people. David Ellison, uh you know, local land use attorney. Um Andy Seavoi representing core spaces. Um I think I believe I saw Andrew Andrew Saunders um with the manager's office and we are just here in full transparency to answer any more questions you may have. So appreciate y'all's time. Thank you.

Is there anyone here to speak in support of the

Yes. David Ellison 2500 A Georgia. Uh I represent core uh which is the developer of all of this project. Just basically would ask that you uh recommend approval of this reszone request. Uh we believe it's compatible with comprehensive plan compatible with the future land use map and compatible with the surrounding CD zones. Uh I'm here mainly tonight to answer any questions you all may have about this project and the timing the mechanics of the development agreement. Uh in June of this year, uh the mayor commission entered into a intergovernmental agreement with the downtown development authority that authorized the authority to negotiate this development agreement uh with my client. Since that time, we've been working with the unified government's attorneys and staff uh to create a comprehensive development agreement uh that's appeared before the mayor commission a few times. We actually had a work session this past Tuesday to discuss it. Uh we're here tonight to make sure that you have any all the information you need to make a decision tonight. Uh we are scheduled to appear before uh the mayor commission on January 6th uh to vote on that envelopment agreement. We would also vote on this resone as well. Uh so again, we'd ask that you please uh recommend approval, but above all, we ask for a decision tonight and we're happy to answer any questions y'all may have. Thank you all. Dale is here to speak. Favor.

Hey there. Good evening. My name is Andy Seavoy. I am with the developer core spaces who is a party to this development agreement. Our office is at 1400 Kingsbury in Chicago, Illinois. I'm here to echo a lot of what David Ellison just said. I'm here to answer any questions you have. There's a lot of information up there that could make you raise an eyebrow. So, I just want to let you know that I am here to answer those questions if you feel like that is uh something you want. Thank you. Yeah. Anyone else here to speak in support of the proposal? Okay. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition to the proposal?

Good evening. My name is Helen Kirkandall and I live at 505 Woodlon Avenue in Athens. And um I a few years ago I was a part of the um Athens Arts Commission and as part of as a commissioner I volunteered to prepare a concept plan for the Jackson Street Art Walk. And that art walk goes right along this this this area that y'all are talking about. dead ends right there at um at the linen house. And part of that concept um for developing a um public art kind of center for Athens, a place that would really celebrate the arts in Athens. This is what the art walk was all about all about. And it was also um part of the master plan for Athens. And um I am just kind of curious why we would take a parcel of land that is currently zoned park and reszone it as land to be developed by any private developer. Part of the Jackson Street Art Wall Walk was to integrate the children's playground into this development as a as an artistic, fun, and creative playground that would that would be compatible with the art wall. And um and we would have you know the purpose I mean in the concept anyway that playground would have been where the existing playground is and it made an sort of ideal um connection between a playground and the artwalk. So, um

I don't know what the plans are for the for the development that may come forward, but regardless, I don't think I I think converting the park into developable land would really limit the ability and the flexibility for us to develop a meaningful art walk along Jackson Street. I mean, it's supposed to be a public recreation parklike facility, and we're just we're just trying to narrow it into a smaller and smaller corridor, really limiting our ability to fully flesh out and see the the full potential of of an art walk there. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else here to speak in opposition? proposal.

Um, Valerie Aldridge, 475 Circle. Um, I just want to hear more about it. Um, because I too have used this parking to access the Lynen house. I've used the park there with my children, my grandchildren now. Um, I'm just curious what kind of housing is it? Um, is this student housing? Is it another project? Um, because I really like that open space. Also, you have open view through there. I have concerns about a a taller building that would obstruct view because downtown could be real iffy in that area at night late. So, I'm just curious more about that part of the plan.

Anyone else to speak in opposition?

I I have a question. My name is Hunter Tyson. I also live at 475. And I see two things of question. The county city government owns this property outright right now. How much equity is the developer putting into this project? And will the ownership transfer to the equity developer? And when you say is that what is the first one for the sewer upgrade?

2.6 million. 2.6. How many gallons of sewage will be produced by the housing units? There's no study that I've seen on that. So, is the equity developer an owner with the government or live with the government? Thank you. Yes. Any other comments? All right. I wanted to come up and address any of the um the questions that were in.

Yes, sure. So, uh from the first for the concerns about the artwalk, very valid concern and this has been part of the negotiation for some time with the city. So, there uh the developer is part of the crafted development agreement. There would be a permanent public easement for that art as well as the playground that would be built in the exact same place. going to be a new playground allocated, I believe, $275,000 for that. Um, it'll also have a public easement. So, these are still will be public uh amenities, not to the to the private developer. Um, and uh, regarding the the housing, you know, that is just by right commercial downtown that is being zoned to. So, this is not a a particular project. It's not a PD. No waiverss are being asked for. It's just commercial downtown zoned uh land and anything that could be built on that uh zone. Um second, I uh well, let me address the sewer and then I'm going to ask De and Allison to address the land swap because it's a little more complicated and I I don't want to have to get something wrong there. But regarding the sewer, to be clear, the $2.6 $6 million contribution is not actually to serve this project, this basin. It their their basin has improvements going on that they would tie into. Um, but then there's another entire sewer basin for north downtown that the developer would be helping to fix. Um, and so I know that's not super super intuitive, but to the question, if we could have a little more time to answer the question, the land swap in and deal with David.

Yes. What what questions y'all have about the land swap? Um, I think he asked about the value.

So, basically what's going to happen is under Georgia law there has to be contemporaneous exchange of value. And so, what we have appraisals as part of the development agreement. And so at closing, uh, the developer is going to put the difference of the two appraisals. I think it's $4.6 million. So at closing, there's an equal swap between, uh, what the government currently owns and the parcel that we're dividing out at closing. Later on, the parcel that the developer currently owns, it's going to be uh, authority property would come back to y'all later on because that will become zone G. But that's not for y'all. But there will be a contemporaneous exchange of value at the time of this closing. If there any other questions, happy to answer them.

And I I think it might be worth mentioning too that this is not a vote on the project itself. This is simply reszoning a piece of property. So in a sense, what we call, right? So regardless of who might be developing it, we're just looking at is this an appropriate zoning for a property in downtown. So So with that, um I wanted to maybe we could discuss the future land use idea first. anybody had a um a burning thing that you really wanted to get off your chest right now. But I thought maybe we could talk about future land use if anybody had any comments about that. Otherwise, we can talk about the zoning. We just go straight into the zoning. I don't have a problem with a future land use change. Seems reasonable to me. and um everything around it except for the other government parcel is already downtown. So I don't really see a problem with that.

I just had a question for for Bruce. Did I understand correctly that um the proposed change to the future land use from government to downtown wouldn't preclude its continued uh use, you know, as a playground. um as it is used right now. If the project that's been proposed, which hasn't been approved, um were not to go through for any reason, um the city still owns this land. It would be reszoned for commercial downtown. City would be the owner. It has a playground on it. The city could continue to operate it as a playground adjunct to the adjacent park. Is that accurate? That's that's correct. The status quo could remain with this future land use change and with the zoning change. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Based on that, I think I agree with Sarah. Problem with it. Um, any comments about the zoning?

Yeah. Or a motion. I'll make a comment just about the zoning. I um I think the questions that folks who came here are I hope that that is being talked about more at the mayor commission level where it probably needs to be talked about. Um I was on the splash committee 2020 when we approved the pro the artwalk and so that is actually you know the splash projects my view are a promise made to the voters and um anyway I think it's really important sounds like you all are already thinking about that so um that's important to me I'm not really sure if I understand but again I don't know if it's really relevant in the context of what we're doing right now um so maybe this is a question for the filer Is is there a plan to build um build a playground elsewhere? Like will there be another playground eventually?

So the plan is uh there's we're going to grant a we're going to construct a new playground at the approximate same location as the current playground and we're going to be granting a permanent playground easement to the unified government. Okay. will run with the land. So, there'll always be a playground for the unified for the public at that location. At the same time, the developer is going to be um writing a check to the unified government for I think $250,0005 27 275,000 so that uh uh the unified government can construct another playground uh on lay park itself. So, we're trying to cover that playground.

Okay. Thanks. And as you're saying that, I realized you did say that. But I was just thinking about 40 other things at the same time. So great. Thanks. Yeah.

No, I agree. I appreciate you saying that because I remember the art walk as part of the downtown master plan, too. And it was something I thought was really awesome and to should be part of that. I mean, I guess just talking through worst case scenarios just to be sure that I'm thinking of this correctly. If we reszone this, the property conveys and is sold. However, it's never developed and the the applicant can resell it to someone else. Those easements would still ensure that the artwork and our walk and the playground are forever protected to the public and for the public use.

So, the development agreement, which is still yet to be approved, anticipates those questions. And so, there are assurances built into that agreement to to address those if then statements. Um, but yeah, That's kind of beyond the scope of this reason, but they're good questions. Yeah, it the development agreement does dig into those issues for sure. I have no problem with this. I'll make a motion if you're ready for that. I move that we um recommend approval with the um what's the word I'm looking for?

So, we would vote on future land use. that first. I'll make I'll move approved the future land use request. I'll second that. Okay. All right. We'll do um you want to go around with the vote. Sure. Um Paul, yes. Mclofflin, yes. Sams, yes. Sanders, yes. Barisman, yes. Pass, yes. Lease, yes. The motion passes unanimous. I

have to make another motion like and I don't know what the right wording is, but the recommendation for the Doerty Street design district. Does that need to be part of the Yeah. So, I'll move that we approve the um zoning change with the recommendation that parcel be placed in the uh DHY Street design overlay. I'll second that. Okay. Paul, wait. I'm sorry. Just one second then. Oh, sorry. Uh, yes. Yes. S. Yes. Sandy. Yes. Yes.

Pass. Lee. Motion passes. And now our second item for tonight. Um, a discussion of the idea of a text amendment about data section

before I get started. the copies that we mentioned before, they're on the table if you'd like one. Um, so help yourself.

All right. Thank you. We're looking forward to the opportunity to talk about this particular use. Um, something that's been in the news plenty. Um, certainly, uh, captured attention of a lot of folks um, around the state. Georgia is a hotbed for data center development and and Athens has had interest in that kind of development. So what we want to do tonight is talk about data centers as a topic and then we want to talk about how we've been regulating them and then dig into what next steps we we are recommending and and for developing regulations that are specific to data centers and then it open up for public comment and allow for folks to come and and speak and ask their questions as you said Chris at the top the meeting and then turn it in with the planning commission to have that same type of conversation. So there we go. So currently data centers as a use do not appear in the use tables in our zoning code. Um we have been reading these more as heavy manufacturing by the definition of he heavy manufacturing that we already have in the zoning code. There's a number of use types that fit under that umbrella term. um and data centers when uh certainly didn't exist in this format when we wrote that definition. But over time, especially in the mid2010s when we started seeing data centers, server rooms that were becoming server buildings and the notion that those servers were doing more than just on-site computing. They wereworked into larger scale operations. Data centers began to evolve. And I think the very first development that we saw that called itself a data center was one that was proposed on at 320 Old Hall

Road. But when that came in, we had to have a discussion and we listened to that discussion in kind of a concept level format. It's all verbal. Um but they did describe to us what the use was. And doing research and going back to that definition, the determination was made that data centers would be interpreted as heavy manufacturing largely because there was in the design of that center in particular that we were talking about a large amount of water usage for cooling, really large amount. Um there was a certain amount of trip generation that we were starting to get a handle on because there was ongoing maintenance and there was fuel truck trips and it did rise to the level of needing that definition to to kind of make it work. Um then we had a handful of other things that we came to realize like fuel storage and um the the unique circumstances that come with fire suppression. And so it did slot as heavy manufacturing In that instance, what that meant was particularly for the water usage for the cooling, it was going to be a special use. And so the applicant decided not to make application and they went away. That site was zoned eye. It would have been permitted, but we would have had to go through the special use process because that's how our industrial category is set up in our zoning code. And it hasn't changed since that discussion. Um, few years ago, we had a proposal of 1233 Boils Road. This particular development came in, the property is zoned EI. We had the same conversation and advised the applicant that industrial zoning is what you need. You can seek a reason um but we need more details about your development. When they came back and made application, the application actually came in with the sponsorship of and named as an applicant was Georgia Power and Atlantic Gas Light.

And we were advised as part of that application process that those are regulated by the public service commission. What does that mean? Well, it means they're not subject to local zoning. They're subject to engineering standards and performance standards with life safety, but the zoning code did not apply. And so that presently is the standalone data center that we have in town. We have no others. Now, this body has heard of the submitt that came in for zero old Elbertton Road. When that first came in, there were passing references in the documentation about data center. Um, their ask for that was to go from AR, agricultural residential to EI, and we had that same discussion with them. Light industrial is not where heavy manufacturing is possible, so a data center can't go there. um do you want to continue with your EI reszone request or do you want to shift to an I reszone request? Their determination was to stay with EI and they removed the references to data centers. So yet another data center that kind of dropped the table as far as discussion goes. Um most recently there's been some discussion about 900 Athena Drive being converted to a data center. That has not been submitted for permit. That's been submitted for a concept review. Um, and so that's what we have as far as background to get to the last couple months. So, local governments across the country in our state are all wrestling with challenges that come with data centers. And one of the very first things you have to do with this kind of use, especially if it starts to evolve, is have definitions for it. So understanding that there's a variety of data center facilities and those data centers that variety is based off of the various functions that they serve. And so I've read far more about data centers in the last month than I thought I ever would. And what I've come to realize is

that in and of itself is its own umbrella term. Data center is not one thing. Um and there's a variety of industry standards for categorizing them. There's a variety of local government standards for categorizing them. What we're working on is trying to merge those industry categories with something that can fit a regulatory scheme for Athens. But and and we have some images that'll show you some functional classifications for those data centers that we've come across that we think are helpful. Um so we need to do that. That's a challenge. The second challenge is thinking about the infrastructure demands that change with each one of those varieties. So, some data centers are small, but they still use a lot of power. They still need cooling, but not every cooling systems the same. Some use evaporation, which is using water. Some don't. Some use a closed system that's still water that has to be charged. Some use a closed system that's coolant that's not water at all. Um, that's just the cooling system. So as you look at the varieties of data centers, there are ways to design them to serve the purposes for their intended use. Data centers aren't just for storing data. They're not just a cloud function of letting stuff land and then be moved. More and more data centers are places where processing is occurring. And so there's a bunch of terms to describe those. Edge centers. Um there's a handful of things that that talk about that. hyper centers are that kind of center that functions that way. They have their own realities for how they function that have to be recognized and and they are different than those data storage facilities. Um the other thing that we're recognizing like all technology is there are really two trend lines. One of those trend lines is the technology is showing it can go smaller that a data center some of the things I've read can be the size of a

refrigerator and can have significant power draw but those types of data centers tend to be called an enterprise data center for example where they're serving a master for lack of a better way to put it. There's an industry there's a research and development use there's a lab that is using that data center for computing for their purposes. It's not for something larger. it's notworked necessarily in the same way. Um there are data centers that you see on TV that are quite large, several hundred acres, many million square feet. And so there's everything in between. Um so we have these two trend lines of the larger data centers where somebody's making a large investment and these are functioning to serve kind of a a purpose that's larger just than that site or that community that's part of a network system. And then you have these smaller ones that are a little more focused um often part of a campus of some other type of use. Um that one of the challenges too is to recognize that there are times where the data center is going to be super helpful perhaps for an existing manufacturing um partner that you have in your community that just needs to upgrade. That's how they're functioning. That's how they stay competitive. There are research facilities that may be ancillary to the University of Georgia that would benefit from an appropriately scaled data center and it's different than something else that may have a very large impact on public resources. And so the challenge for local government as you're writing these regulations is not to overreach and overregulate. At the same time, you don't want to fall asleep at the wheel and create a situation where you have a buy ride opportunity that then puts a big dent in um a resource that you're trying to manage and and have for the future. Um and then another thing that we've picked up on community benefit agreements. When you have some of these

larger um data centers that come to town, there will sometimes be offers of community benefit agreements to help provide mitigating benefits to that community. Um those aren't bad things. The key with those is to make sure that what's being offered is actually helping mitigate whatever situation that data center is creating so that you're not approving some benefit that really doesn't help fix say a water demand issue or um some other issue related to uh the function of that facility. So, um, there are times where those things kind of don't meet kind of that nexus that you're looking for that this benefit is helping fix this problem. They're in two pots. Um, so we want to be just aware of what we're talking about whenever there's a community benefit agreement. So, the timeline that's in front of us, uh, last Tuesday, the mayor commission adopted a moratorium on data center development. That data center, uh, moratorum really covers field for us to not have to entertain an application while we're developing these new standards that as worded right now that would time out March 6th. Marin commission has the opportunity to end it earlier should we adopt some standards or some other circumstance come along where they want to end it earlier or they can extend it with cause. But right now March 6th is what they've said and that's what we're working with. Um we have tonight on the timeline. Tonight's an important moment. We want to talk about the things that we found. We want to hear from people, but then we're going to go draft a set of text amendments that we're going to bring back to the planning commission on January 8th. Those text amendments will be available to you and to the public prior to that meeting. So, different from this memo that was a discussion item, we'll actually have those things out a week in advance. So, the public has a chance to have them. They'll be

posted. you'll have a chance to read them and digest them and um do your own homework as you come to that meeting on January 20th. Should the planning commission recommend that to move forward, January 20th would be the first opportunity for the mayor and the commission to have a public meeting about the text amendments. So staff would make a presentation, there'd be public comment, and that would keep us on a timeline to go February 3rd for a vote. Um March 6th would give us a month of wiggle room should there be any step along the way where somebody or some body decides that we need more time for further development. Okay. So some basics about these and this is in the handout but as I mentioned before these are facilities that do a bunch of things. They can house the IT infrastructure for building, running, computing, delivering, transmitting, all kinds of things that we all rely on day-to-day or that industries rely on for their specialized um services. Um there are storing and managing of data associated with those apps and services. And there's supporting infrastructure that goes along with these and this is where we're focusing. Um I don't think anybody questions the need for data center function. um where we've got to focus from a regulator regulatory standpoint is how are these facilities set up. What do they need to operate and can we provide it? Um so there's cooling equipment, there is uninterruptible power supply systems, there's a need for these data centers to continually be operating. So they have to have backup should something happen to the grid. They have to be able to independently respond and stay running. That's a key factor with this type of use. Um, there are standby generators and there's associated fuel storage that goes along with that and we'll talk about that in a minute. Um, broadly speaking, these facilities, we're familiar with them as stationary fixed buildings, but they can

be mobile. Um, the size can vary as I mentioned and there's a bunch of terms that are used to describe these enterprise, collocation, hypers scale, edge data centers. We wanted a definition that is that umbrella that can pick up all these things and we're not getting hung up on the idiosyncrasies of a type of function. Um, also you can kind of get lost in those details a little bit. They're important from an engineering standpoint. They're not necessarily important from a regulatory standpoint. Okay. So, here's some of the information we found about these tiers of data centers. And this is really hard to read, so we'll uh maybe post this. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Um but coming from the Uptime Institute, which is a group that works with data centers as um a facility type and and tries to help categorize and explain these. Um we have four tiers of use and tier one and tier two are very similar in size. Um small, medium size. What what we're really talking about there is something that has the ability to have relatively long in the industry periods of downtime each year. 22 hours in the case of a tier 2, 28, 29 in the case of a tier one. Redundancy is not as important because the purpose of these is really to do some processing that doesn't have to be constantly in motion um to be able to serve its master. Um, when you get into tier three and tier four, you're looking at things now that rely on being constantly in motion. They can't afford to go down. And so tier three and tier four type data center facilities have a different buildout. They look different. They have more generators on site. They have the things that go along with making those generators work because

they have to have that redundancy in case there's failure. um those tiers don't necessarily represent the size of the building. However, once you've started making an investment with a tier three or a tier four data center, you don't tend to have a very small one. You tend to build larger because that's that's what you're trying to accomplish is larger amounts of processing. So, the power that these draw, we don't regulate that. Athens, clar county has no utility for electricity. So our regulations are not going to make a decision yay or nay based on how much power you use. However, how much power is used is a determinant for the type of function at the facility. So it is part of our definition and it is what we're anticipating as a way for us to understand how these function and the impacts they may or may not have on resources and what do they have to have on site to be able to operate. So one of the things that requires all of the things on this graphic are things that require the power for these facilities. um to the left in the blue you have this notion of the cooling systems and what they draw that amount of energy is entirely dependent on the design of the cooling system. So the demand for power is less when you have a more evaporative cooling system that is more reliant on water as you move away from the water and using some non-water source of cooling or a closed loop system. What is typical, it's not an absolute, but what is typical is you start to see higher energy requirements that go along with that. On the right hand side, you see the IT equipment, the stuff inside, the stuff that's working. Those are working very very hard. Um, and they're generating a lot of heat. That's why the cooling

systems there, but they are also in and of themselves pulling an equal amount of power. Um, and we'll talk about the scale of power usage in just a second. Literally just a second. So um a small data center translates and various sources will tell you various things but this is one of the ones we kept seeing. Um 50 50 megawatts can do a small data center or 32,500 homes. So what is 50 megawws? This is the question Bruce Li was asking, right? What a what what is a megawatt? Okay, so one megawatt is what it takes to power the homes in Winterville. Not the businesses, just the houses. One one megawatt. Um, a Publix shopping center tends to have about three megawws that needs to be available to keep all the refrigeration up and everything you would expect to keep that grocery store viable and working. Um, so 15 megawatts is what we're talking about in this scenario for a smallish data center. um that power draw varies by the type of function inside the facility. Not every function, not every facility has to be big. As I mentioned, some can be very small and still have a large draw. So, um what we want to talk about in our proposal is how to use the energy as a metric for understanding where we can have data centers by right and where we may need to have them as a special use. And that's that's getting to the finish line of what we're proposing. All right. Um, how much water do data centers need? Again, this varies by the type of cooling method. Your I can't even say your grandfather's data center because there was no such thing. Uh, your your older brother's data center uh used a lot of water and it was relatively cheap, relative. Um, and as these things scaled up, the

demand for that water to cool, the immense amount of heat that comes out of these facilities began to be something that water providers had to take very seriously because it wasn't it was it was a hard ask to have those things um that amount of water leave the system because it is an evaporative process. That old school cooling system, you didn't get the water back. It's just in the atmosphere. It's gone. So, uh, technology has advanced to where there are closed loop systems that may use water, may use a mix of water in a coolant or may use an entirely a nonwater coolant. And those closed loop systems really dial down the water usage. Um, in the case of a mix system or a water closed loop system, you may have some evaporative qualities to that just in the design of the system where you have to recharge periodically but not nearly at the level that you would have to with an evaporative system. Okay, this is what I just talked about. All right, so we've got a handful of definitions. Um, these are in the memo. I'm not going to read these to you. We can come back to these if it's important um in the discussion. But I do want to point out the data center definition that was included in the moratorum was meant to be a very broad definition. It is not meant to be necessarily a regulatory definition. It was meant to give us space to work and define the type of things we're talking about. It's a good jumping off point. I don't think it's exactly the definition we're going to finish with, and that's okay. Uh the second data center definition is one that we're working on right now. And what we're trying to do is have this definition be broad enough as I said to serve as an umbrella and cover all the things that data centers can do. And that that definition helps us differentiate it from some of the things that it has been compared to. Um in some communities they've compared data centers to an office use.

Some have compared it to a warehousing use. Um, some have compared it to almost like a substation utility kind of use. Um, all of these are not perfect fits and so we feel pretty strongly rather than comparing it to something else, let's just lean on what it is and give it a description. And so that's what staff has done at this point. Um, we're not married to that wording, but we feel pretty good with it. These two definitions are about those cooling systems I just mentioned. Closed loop meaning there is no evaporative process associated. Openloop system does have an evaporative element to help with that cooling. And then we have these two definitions that are going to be important we think if the text amendment that we're considering comes to fruition. One, on-site power generation is a key component for a lot of these facilities to make sure they have that redundancy. um most facilities rely on some sort of generator on site. What we're considering is perhaps we need to have also the opportunity for renewable energy to be used that's generated on site. So we have both a definition for on-site power generation that opens the door for that discussion and then we have a definition for renewable energy that lifts he heavily from uh the energy policy statement that Athens clar county adopted in 2020 but does go a little bit further than that and bring some newer information into it. So it's not inconsistent with with what this government has considered in 2020 but it's moving the needle a little bit further with a little more specificity. So anticipating our regulations, what our interpretation has been to date is that this is an industrial use. Um planning staff is still looking at this and we're looking at the scale and usage of these and we still feel it's

appropriate to classify them for our industrial zone. Um right now with the scale and the function that we're noticing in our research, this is the zone that's most appropriate. This is where we're saying that they will be permitted. The other zones in the code were not proposing that they pop up as a permitted use. This map is showing you where we currently have industrial zoning on the map. This these are I would say threequarters of these sites are developed if not more. So could a data center go on a site that already has a building? Yes, it could. Could it go in that same building as a redevelopment opportunity? Potentially yes. Um, we have some green field Izzoned property. Would that be something that we would consider in our industrial zone? I think we would if we had the right um framework for considering it and issuing permits for it. But we wanted to give you a representation of where that and current heavy industry zoning exists. And none of this proposal is proposing to take land and change that any zoning. This we're going to work with what's on the map today. Okay, so some anticipated aspects of what we're kicking around. We've talked about definitions. We want to have those in there. We need them to make this work. Um the use table, it's what I just described. We're talking about the zone only. And in the I zone what we're suggesting is that data centers would be a byite use for the type of data center that is drawing incorrect 2 and a half megawatts is what's in the memo. So 2.5 megawatts and down is by right. That's very small. That's not a lot of draw as we just talked about. That's about that public's size. But 2.5 megawws and down by right staff will review it. It doesn't come for any

kind of public review. It goes through planning commit. I mean it goes through plans review and we would apply all the necessary life safety reviews and code reviews that we would normally do to go from 2.5 to five. We are suggesting there would be opportunities for staying by right if you do some things like if you were to use if it's a water system that you're using in there we would like you to consider using purple pipe which is the reclaimed water is not the portable water that we've paid to treat is the untreated but safe for contact water. So that means it would be filtered on site to make it useful for that facility. But if you extend that purple pipe data center developer, you would have the ability to move up from 2 and a half megawatts to five by right if you're using a water cooled system. Now if you're not using a water cooled system, this doesn't help you. Um all all data centers what we're suggesting across the board would be required to be a closed loop cooling system. True closed loop cooling system. Um that doesn't matter if you're small scale or anything. We're saying that's a baseline requirement for data centers. Um the other consideration to take you from two and a half to five megawatts of power would be if you can provide that whatever redundancy that first layer of redundancy you need for your operation. If you can provide that amount with a renewable source, provided on site, then you can add up to whatever that renewable capacity would give you um for that facility, but that would cap out at five megawws. Anything beyond 5 megawatts is a special use. So most of these facilities that are a larger scale are going to be north of that 5 megawatt load. That is not to say that that's a no. It's an if. If the

following things can be done, you'll be fine. We just need to have that demonstrated. And that's very consistent with what we do with our heavy manufacturing standards today. Okay. So, the power usage I talked about, one of the things that comes up in our research and we've read with other communities is noise with data centers. There's a hum associated with these, especially with the larger scale. um where this has been an issue in other communities, it seems to be that it's popping up in places that really were green field development where prior there was nothing where perhaps there was rural land pasture that now has a facility that's making this 247 sound. And there there's been science and some documentation about what that consistent hum can do to um natural environment to uh a functions nearby. Um whenever we've seen the numbers associated with that hum, we're seeing that it sits around 70 dB or less. That's what our current code has. So current levels are you can have 70 dB up to 70 dB between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. in our industrial zone and after 10 p.m. 55 dB. That's when you're next to residential where you have the opportunity for being disruptive. It's 80 dB elsewhere across the board. So if you found an industrial site that was not adjacent to a residential use or residential zone, you'd be able to have 80 dB by right today for manufacturing or other heavy manufacturing or industrial uses. So we're saying that's consistent and there's really not a need for a change. Um we have standards on our code for vibration. We haven't found much information that the data center uses generate a a routine sort of aspect that creates vibration, but we think it's worth mentioning because there have been comments that we've heard that the

vibration associated with the processing could be uh detrimental. We have a standard for that. One of the things that we think is important though is the hazardous materials storage that might come with a data center. Um most designs have generators for their redundancy on-site generators. Largely those generators are diesel fueled. So that means the diesel storage has to be on site for that for that generator. Um, if you were to have a data center that was pulling 375 megawws, which is a number that has come up as we've been looking at comps for square footage and things, 375 megawws would generate a need for at least 100 generators. The generators to meet that demand are 3 megawatt generators. Each 3 megawatt gener generator to have 24 hours of power has to have 5,000 gallons of diesel. So 5,000 gallons of diesel times 100. 500,000 gallons of diesel on site. And that's a relatively conservative number because you'll notice 3 megawatt generators 3* 100 gets you to 300, not 375. So it could actually be a little north of that. But what we're seeing is that's that's in the ballpark of that kind of facility. that is essentially a small tank farm and it has its own level of of management and regulatory um requirement to make sure it's installed properly that it's being maintained properly. Our fire uh and emergency services are aware of it and know how to handle it in case there's an issue. And so that is one of those metrics that keeps this as one of those heavy manufacturing type uses. that amount of fuel being stored on site is atypical when compared to anything other than a manufacturing a heavy manufacturing use. And one of the things that I think you'll see in our final draft of text

amendments is that we will be looking at enhanced buffering. And as we write that design requirement, we're being careful not to just single out data centers. If we're saying these are heavy manufacturing use and if we're saying we think there needs to be additional buffering, we'll probably recommend it not just for data centers but for all heavy manufacturing. Um so we'll be looking at that. Um there may be a sliding scale. It may be dependent upon distance from residential land use. Um but we do think that enhanced buffering, a planted buffer is helpful for a couple things. One, it helps mitigate some of those noise issues potentially. too. Um, with cooling systems, um, there there is some offging that may come from that and having the additional planting is going to help mitigate any negative aspects that might come from that. Um, and it it is a nice transition on these types of campuses that has been helpful for a bunch of things. We we already have a tree uh tree canopy requirement that has to be met. This is an opportunity to meet that. Whereas inside these campuses, what we largely see is things are padded out. There's a whole lot of grading going on. And so the opportunity to get trees in and around these types of facilities is is not plentiful. Um so putting them to the edge makes some sense. And so I think that's where we're going to find ourselves is maybe with some buffering um adjacent to residential and adjacent to the rightway. And I think that's the last slide. Yes. Yes. So happy to answer any questions. Um, definitely want to hear public comment. Um, but thank you for your time.

Thank you, Bruce.

I guess I will take some public comments. So, if there's anybody who has thoughts, ideas, guidance, whatever you wanted to contribute to the conversation as we move forward with this, you're welcome to step up the audience. Hi, I'm Denise Horton. I live at 815 Boulevard and I'm sort of new to understanding or exploring some of the of what's going on with data centers. Um, a lot of what I've got gathered has come from, you know, New York Times articles about the data centers being built in Atlanta that have truly disrupted the lives of people who live nearby. Um, one of the things I would encourage you guys on is some of the things in terms of the the vibrations, uh, some of those sorts of things that may not be documented real thoroughly yet. Um, but to anticipate as much as you can on the front end, to give as much buffer as you can. uh when you look at some of these things the again in say the Atlanta area where there are issues of you know lights uh that are taking away from people's you know who live nearby the the bright lights about around these places. Um, so anyway, I I you know, applaud you guys taking the zone and the the county staff taking the zone, but I hope that uh ACC will move toward allowing the smallest data centers possible. Um, because I think there are more problems with them than we really know yet. and um that we should protect the residential areas that are around them as much as possible and the people who will be living close to them. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi everyone. Um I'm Olivia Asher. I live at 105 College Station Road. I'm with Coalition of Athens Scientists. I'm a computational scientist and I've been working on understanding data centers over the past year. Um I think Bruce did a really good presentation and I just want to share with you all some of our recommendations for regulations of data centers. So we do think that all data centers should require a special land use permit even if they're small to offer an opportunity for public input on these projects. And in the application, we recommend that the developers give a water and energy use plan, a storm water plan, and their plan for energy and water conservation, as well as a transmission line assessment and proof of customers. Sometimes data centers are built speculatively, so they're building a resource with all of that uses so much power and water without knowing who's going to use it. I don't think we want that to happen here. They should also have noise use limits that Bruce mentioned. And I believe since Athens has a 100% renewable energy resolution that says by 2050 all of Athens should be able to be powered by renewable energy, the data center applicants should be able to show that they can meet the goals of that resolution. Uh there should also be a limit on uh light pollution and a buffer requirement. And this data center development should also align with our economic development plan for Athens. Data centers only provide about as much jobs as the McDonald's, but they use a lot more resources. So, I think that's important to keep in mind when already for them. Um, and the backup generator should meet um EPA tier 4 standards and

should only be tested in daytime hours to avoid noise issues. And just to give a little perspective on the situation in the whole state of Georgia, in Georgia, there are already 98 data centers that use enough power to power 3 million homes and 67 million gallons of water a day. So when we think about the whole state, we already have a lot of burden of data centers here. So each new one, we need to really carefully consider whether or not that's something we want to promote. And that's another reason that I think all of them should require a special land use permit so the public can have opportunity to have input on these projects. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm Dr. Tuana Smith Mattis and I'm going to humanize this a little bit. I stand before you as someone who have lived through years of environmental suffering on Pitt Road diagnosed with chronic bronchitis on and as someone carrying the memories of family and neighbors who are no longer here to speak for themselves. For decades, we knew something was wrong. We watched person after person get sick. Cancers, kidney disease and failure, breathing issues. On our short road, more than 30 people fell ill ill and far too many died. My younger sister Stacy, a non-smoker, passed from lung cancer. She was a leader in trying to get answers about what was going on. A few years after her death, my parents, my two aunts, and then I went to the mayor and commissioner Thornton to restart our quest for answers. A lot happened. Eventually, we were referred to the Southern Environmental Law Center where finally the water got tested on Pitt Road. This was in 2024. Poss contamination was confirmed. Only then did the city manager declare Pitter Road a state of emergency. And only then were families moved off of contaminated water. We thought that meant we were finally being protected. But less than a year later, we woke up to heavy machinery and a data center being built right behind Pitt Road. No notice, no meeting, no transparency. Many of us didn't even know the project had been approved or who to call on. The commissioners didn't even know what it was being built. After decades of environmental harm,

this felt like another message that our lives don't matter. No. Now we've been told that this has been allowed under some type of byright authority. But let me be clear and a utility poll, we understand that being by right, but an entire data center that is not okay. So I'm asking firmly for the commission to do these things. clarify and review all byright provisions for Georgia power or utilities to ensure that they are not being misused to justify industrial facilities without oversight. as mentioned by Bruce, require special use land permits, but I believe for all data centers so that no facility is ever again placed in a vulnerable community without environmental review, public notice, and meaningful input and require that utility actions align with the county's development and land use plan, our Athens County renewable energy plan, and our economic development plan. Please imagine going home and seeing an industrial building where trees once stood. Imagine knowing your neighborhood was already declared a state of emergency, losing many family and neighbors, then being told that the project was allowed by right. We are hardworking citizens who desire to have a decent quality of life just like you all. We are taxpayers. We are human beings. We deserve dignity, transparency, and protection. not surprise industrial development in our backyard. Please ensure that this text amendment reflect zoning and standards that you yourself would be comfortable living in. Thank you.

Any other public input?

Hey, uh Suzanne Warfelts. live on the east side of Athens and um what I wanted to say uh really seems irrelevant after this fantastic overview and not nearly as relevant as what um Tana has you know her experiences have led her to say but you know I've been doing a lot of reading about um about the Dana centers and I've read about the benefits and I've read about some horror stories and mostly my takeaways are that um the data centers use resources like small cities and that's generally electricity and water. They don't employ that many people. So the city in terms of employment don't won't get all that many benefits and they can be loud and unsightly and um and that puts a lot of stress on the city which which leads us to have you know need creative ordinances which have you know been outlined. I mean, I think we understand the risks that we're facing by um the data centers coming into our our area, but I wonder if some of the creative benefit agreements, which I love that term, creative benefit agreements could, you know, be put towards use like the commission is um talks about affordable housing problems. we have um citizens that need energy um assistance and stuff. And I I just think that we need to be um Oh, I also loved the on-site power generation idea is if that um uh comes from renewable. I mean, it's going to be a warehouse with a huge roof that could be put to use. Um and and that uh and the last thing is that that

we need to protect the integrity not only of of our communities but you know nature is a part of that. So we want to not um uh use resources unwisely. Um yeah I think that's it. Thanks. Thanks for this.

Any other comments? Good evening. My name is uh actually Dr. Moffett, but Dr. Derek Moffett. I was political science teacher for longer than I care to share. Uh I live at 120 Calvin Street here in Athens, Georgia. One of the things that bothers me most about this project is that wherever you look, uh, whether it's Atlanta, Bacon, where I was just a few weeks ago, all the people that are involved and all the people that have been touched by this are saying, "This is not what we wanted. This is not what we anticipated and this is not the type of project that we would have approved had we had any notice. That being said, I think one of the things that we must look at and we must share is that the community ought be involved in some practical way like Dr. Matic said, you know, I cannot imagine had anybody gone to those citizens at at Pitted Road and said, you know, we fixing to put this in here. You know, that it may screw up your water. It may do this. You're going to have this buzzing and vibration. It's going to have this. No. Do you mind after the horrific things that have happened to those people? I cannot imagine they would have said yes. And so that's why you just kind of just snuck it in there and said, "Oh, well, I don't believe that had this been somewhere on the campus of the University of Georgia, somewhere near downtown, they would have just snuck it in and said, "Okay, you people just deal with it." You know, we saw the same thing in Flint. We see it throughout the country. And at some point in time, we have to look out for the least of these. And this does not

seem to be a project that's looking out for the least of these. And so we would ask that if you do go forward that you know we have the various districts here in the county that you know you have meetings uh allow valuable input make sure you post it so people can know about will know that you know you're having them. Uh like I said when I was in Mon a few weeks ago all in Mon if you know anything about Mon has never been a hot bed of community activism. Uh but everywhere you look was please say no to data centers. And I'm thinking, okay, there's got to be something to this. And so, again, you know, get the public involved and particularly look out for the least of these. You know, some of these communities have suffered and suffered long enough. You know, if this is not something you would want as your neighbor, why would you be vote to have it be somebody else's neighbor? Thank you. Anybody else? Hi, I'm Kelly McRum. Uh, I'm at 148 Wilshire Drive Thrive. Um, I've lived in Athens for seven years. Um, I'm an environmental scientist and, uh, my mom actually used to work in zoning for the city of Dallas, so I have an appreciation for planning and for staff who gave a fantastic presentation. Um, I can't say anything more eloquent than what has already been spoken here, so I won't try to. Um, but I just want to give another voice to say uh I think it would be wise to make um these sorts of permits special use only and to not have data centers be allowed by right um especially given all of the variety that we've just seen in this presentation that we know that data centers can come in all shapes and sizes. I think having everything be special use um where we can look over it carefully, make sure

that everything is up to snuff and and uh a good neighbor for uh Athens and Athenians. Um I appreciate that this may seem like it gives more headache to staff. Um but the intention is not that. The intention is that we are taking proper precautions to make sure that Athens is um sustainable and healthy in the long term. not just in the short term. Thanks. Yeah. Any other comments?

Y'all can y'all can come like you don't have to wait. Uh thank you for letting me give a few minutes of your time for my opinion. And just so that you all know, I know I was coughing, but it was from a cold two weeks ago, so it is just a residual. Sorry. Could you say your name and your address? Yes. My name is Gail Chimo. I'm at 245 Milstone Circle, Athens.

Yes. I really wish that you would consider the special land use um permit for this just so that we have transparency. Um, you know, I've been kind of following these data centers for a while. In Georgia, we have 98 of them here and across other states that have like Virginia has a lot more. And some of the issues with these, one of the types of data centers is a cryptocurrency data center, which I would say absolutely no that, you know, that's one I would suggest we do not have in our county. They are the ones that are creating the hum uh because they have to have much larger air conditioning cooling units and they're just more detrimental to our environment which being here in Athens Clark County we have the 100% renewable goal. So I just don't think that the cryptocurrency would actually align with our um so getting back to the special land use permit that uh just creates transparency around construction resource use of water and energy noise reduction all the things that were in the presentation which was awesome. Thank you for that. Um, but it also includes like the notice to the newspaper, public hearing for planning commission, recommendation by planning commission, the public hearing for Athens, Clark County Commissioners, and a public vote on granting the special land use uh permit. So, I think these things are important that we really take our time and research what is coming into our county because in other counties there has been data centers sneak in and then

all of a sudden the community finds out, oh well, we didn't know that it was going to be this big and um just the visual of it, you know, they go in and they clear off acres and acres of land and that is impacting our environment. environment even though we're not in that county because we all know, you know, how how important trees are to our environment. So, I just um just want to say please take your time and consider what these data centers can do to our communities here in Athens and use the special land use permit for them just so that we have time to really look and see what's coming into our county. And with 98 other data centers in the uh state, do we really need them here? But thank you for your time.

Um I'm Laura Ayer and I'm at 1031 Holly Berry Lane and um I represent um Southern Sustainability Institute and I do um training around Asen's really local work about sustainability. Um, one of the things that I do every year is I go through uh what I call a study group called the clean and renewable energy plan. If you guys are familiar with this, it's something Athens should be incredibly proud of. Um, I know that that communities across our nation, you know, come come to us and ask questions about it. So it's something we want to really hold dear and it's me been mentioned a couple of times and we have some goals here in Athens and that is by 2050 we are running the city by 100% clean and renewable energy and everything and as Bruce I feel like the last couple of months at least I've learned more about data centers than it's been like drinking through a fire hose here. Um there's a lot of information we've been going to workshops in Atlanta. Bruce has been there. Other people in this room have also been here. We've really done a lot to educate ourselves about this. Um everything that's been said, I'm not going to um reiterate that except for I would not have any by right. Um we're we really need uh um government just in general to be very transparent. And I think Athens has an opportunity. Let's just show we're transparent. If you have the word data center, I don't care if it's a one lot watt data center, but if you have a data center and we see it, people are going to freak out. They just are. So, I would say we do special land use for anything that has data center in it um for now. Um but going back to the energy, I um I'm very concerned about the energy you use. I don't believe a big data center that we could ever meet our goals. I really think that we really have to look at that carefully. Um, I

know that in the write up that the really good write up that Bruce did, we say incentivize provisions of power equivalent. I I don't know how we monitor that, but I if we can have require we really really want to look at the energy use of these. There's no way we can go 100% clean with Athens with a big data center unless we really look at that and and require it. um in um we've been getting a lot of information from um as we network with communities at these workshops and things like that. There's a lot of draft and I'm sure you guys have received the draft um ordinances that are that are going around um to work off of so you don't have to start from scratch. But one of the things I'm going to point out is um the um um reporting out and there's se several reports that that they ask in the ordinance for yearly and one of those is in energy like how much energy are you using a mean amount of energy in addition to water and the other resources. So um we have this draft I think we've passed it on to you. So take a look at that and let's make sure that we do some really good reporting on these data centers if we if we do allow them. Thank you.

Thank you.

Else my name is Malcolm Peavey with Athens Coalition of Scientists on that alphabet drive on the north side of town. Uh, I wish I could say that this is a recent thing for me to know about these data centers. However, um, spent half my 20s working for Intel building servers actually. So, a lot of those times when you see the Intel logo on different things, I probably built the server that went into that. Um, beyond that, um, my time as agricultural ecologist, um, I'm horribly, I guess, disappointed what I've seen as far as the government administration several times over, not just the current one. Although it is worth pointing out the current one has pointed out that uh anthropogenically sourced climate change would no longer be mentioned on federal sites under the current administration. Um I think clearly on the state level we should have some transparency. I think we should stick this at the echo I guess some of the sentiments of everybody else earlier. Um they should be very transparent as far as like what's going on with us. Um and I also don't like any of the Bitcoin mining. I think we shouldn't go into that at all. But that's my stance on that one. I think it's weird. Um, just society focus wise, um, I want to say 70% of our forest, if you would to be dropped off in a forest, you could probably walk out of within 15 minutes, they're within one mile of the edge. Um, Georgia is very well known as a place that likes its magnolia trees, trees in general, and hopefully we wouldn't change that.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Hello, I'm Sally Kunan, 760 Rambling Road here in Athens. Um, thank you for delving into this. Um, this is so complex and uh just a huge uh issue that we're facing for our community. So I would just ask you that as you um begin to craft these regulations that you keep one simple question in mind and that is how will how can these regulations best benefit the citizens of Athens.

Thank you.

Hey um I'm Barrett Binder. I'm at 171 Herring Street in Athens. Um, and I obviously just walked in. I um, actually I'm a um, a youth basketball coach, so I just came from my game. Um, but, uh, so I didn't hear a lot of what other people said, but I would just like to, um, talk about the environmental impact of these data centers. Um, I've seen reports of other towns that haven't been careful that have led to catastrophic like increases in their power bills as well as um wide ranging effects on the water supply. I've seen um reports about how much water these data centers use and I've seen uh some of the reports about how this affects people in the towns surrounding them. Um so when I think about what's as um who sorry what was your name? S

Sally as Sally had said um when I think about um what's best for the town, I think about what's best for all of the people in the town, not just some people. So there are definitely some people who would benefit from things like data centers and things like Bitcoin mining going up. But I think the important thing to keep on the balance is how much does that one or small number of people's benefits, how much does the environmental impact and how much does the um yeah, mostly the environmental impact affect the people around us and um because we all we all share this community, right? Like I want to be able to continue coaching my girls basketball team next year and the year after that. I don't want to have to worry about even though um the world is moving towards closer to climate disaster, I want Athens to be doing what we can to avoid that.

Thank you. Anybody else? All right. If not, we'll take it on this side of the room. Um I have a burning question for you Bruce because one of the things that start by so we have one data center right correct and they said they could do it by right because it was a partnership between Georgia Power and Atlantic Gases right is that so the application was actually submitted by an agent of Georgia Power. Okay. and

that being a public service commission regulated utility provider um they are exempt from local zoning for installations that are part of their network of services. So Georgia Power could build data centers that would use power at our permission, right? I'm just I'm just kind of like saying words out loud, but and the reason I I paused because like I live like a block away from a large Georgia Power property. So, could they theoretically build a data center on their property without us having any say in it?

Anything that's regulated by the public service commission is exempt from zoning. So, it's exempt from zoning. So what when a development comes in like the one on Boil's Road, the zoning questions were off the table. No matter what that property was zoned, it didn't matter.

It didn't matter. The zoning did not matter. What we did re because it did have a submitt. There were plans that came in. We weren't reviewing those for zoning compliance. Those were being reviewed for the use of the water, making sure the water was available, that fire and emergency services could service the building, um that the storm water was handled properly on the site. So all the other performance aspects that are regulated that are typically engineering related aspects um water sanitary sewer um uh storm water streets and drainage um those issues fire emergency all of that was reviewed for with that development. So do we fighting all that?

So like I I get like I in particularly I I really like the the scales that you have there and how there's basically like you can max out at like a pretty low level without even getting into like the 375 megawatt size place, right? But I guess is there is there something that we could construct within that framework of our like say our water use or something that that could restrict say another entity like a power company that said well doesn't matter what the zoning is we can come in and create what we want. Is there still a regulation that we can write into our code? things we still have to like meet.

I would say this and and I would defer to our public utility staff if if I get this wrong or if it needs to be said differently, but if we had insufficient water, you would not be able to build it. I think it is that simple. So unless that builder, and this is true of any kind of development, residential, industrial, institutional, if there's not sufficient water, a developer can then say, "Well, I'll extend the infrastructure and build it to county specifications for the county to accept." That still doesn't mean it's a yes. It's a talk about that because then we have to decide, is what they're building going to connect to our system properly? Do we have the ability to process it downstream or or elsewhere in the system? But it does at least allow for the discussion to move forward. If there's no water availability and there's no good way to get there and if a developer doesn't want to extend it, then it doesn't happen,

right?

And so there's just sort of a de facto way of dealing with not just data centers but all kinds of things. If there isn't the infrastructure sufficient to serve it, then that is not a site that can support that build and it doesn't happen. Now, that's with data centers that rely on heavy water. So, what we're acknowledging is that there's technology to this where there can be cooling systems that don't rely on more than a single load of water and periodic maintenance of that load, which is significantly different than a daily upload or weekly or whatever frequency it might be. And then there's also systems that in theory by design are closed, use no water at all, and the maintenance of that is putting more of whatever that coolant might be into the system. And it's not public water. It's whatever that coolant that chemicalbased coolant would be.

Yeah. So, but really though that's that's a state level issue though like of of these of a utility coming in and creating Oh, for like the Georgia powers. Yeah. And that's something for the public service commission to regulate public service commission issue. That's not a All right. Sorry. One followup to that. So does that mean that Georgia Power can build anything they want anywhere they want that they own land? Like could they build an automobile manufacturing plant um on you know agricultural zoned land?

No. So so the correlation on this would be Georgia Power had an office on Prince Avenue. That office was not part of their distribution system of their utility office and so it was not exempt from zoning. So what is exempt? I wanted to put a d a data center there.

If it's connected to the utility that that entity provides whether it's gas or power or you know whatever utility that is regulated if it's related and this is my summarizing of what the public service commission can regulate and what it defers on. If it's part of the distribution of that service that is provided by the utility, not an office function but the actual infrastructure for the service, it is exempt from local zoning. And so that the argument was made this data center is part of our network of service. It is necessary for us to provide the service of our utility to our customers. And so it was at the time argued to be integrated into the network of their utility much like a substation might be or a power plant. So Georgia P's data center that they built in Athens, if I'm understanding you right, is not providing data center services for for other entities. It's just part of Georgia P's own data processing needs about where there are outages and where there that kind of thing. It's it's their own internal data set.

That's the way that it was represented. Exactly. Y. So, we probably don't need to worry about them building much more because I thought you were saying I thought you were saying like they're allowed to build it and it's a large customer that's going to use a lot of electricity and so they build it, but then they lease space to Amazon Web Services or other sort of commercial data. If that's a business model that's out there, that is not the business model that was portrayed to us. That it was a speculative build that was then going to be private function. It was represented as part of their provision of the utility.

Okay. and and Austin maybe as the attorney can you is the county's understanding of the PSC's preeemption of our local zoning that it is limited to Georgia Power can build data centers for their own use but they can't just start building data centers wherever the heck they want um just to generate I would concur I like the way Bruce said it I mean if if it's tied to the utility then it's exempt from from zoning tied to that tied to the revision of power or the is that what you mean?

Yeah. It's not related to the building system. It's related to getting the power from A to Z or the monitoring of that system as you just said. Yes. Then it's then it's subject to public service commission regulation which means it's exempt from local zoning. Okay. Yeah. So, as soon as they start leasing parts of their data center to XYZ web company or whatever, that's when they no longer have that exemption. That would be a different use of that property than what was represented.

Um, so then similar question I had to the the noise idea. If something's already built, what do we have to regulate that? So like if if a building is built and they are a data center and they were supposed to be a private data center and now they're leasing out space or if now the place is humming like crazy but it's already built like how do we

Okay, so if it is found to be subject to local zoning then we have standards in the code to bring to bear on that. We like to get those standards vetted during construction, during the development of the plans, but that's not the last time we're we're looking at those things. Um, the vibration and the sound standards in that code section we use frequently to do code enforcement for some of our corporate partners in town. If they move to a third shift of of production and they keep the same level of noise that is during daytime without a drop, then we have a conversation with them. Um, if they change their product line and now they have a new piece of equipment in there that makes a different kind of sound and it's more, then we have a conversation. Um, that happens. But um in the case of oils road I guess if you're asking if it is still not subject to zoning then those standards are not something that we would use for code enforcement. It can't it would be beyond our scope.

Yeah. Sorry I kind of wrapped up two ideas because I was thinking like what what repercussions like how do you how do you gauge the sound from a proposed project? You know is that part of what they would Yep. So so here's what we get when when somebody comes to town. Obviously, we can't engage something that doesn't exist yet, right?

So, what we get is kind of a promise, an acknowledgement of the standards. And 99 times out of 100, what's being proposed to be built here, they built somewhere else. And so, there's a comp. And so, there's there's something that's already in the field that's already operating. Um, in some cases, we even go visit that installation. But what we do ask them to do is pull from that experience, put it into the plan set. It's a guarantee because it's now in the approved record. And if it's found once they're up and running that it doesn't meet those standards, then we have grounds for getting them to calibrate it differently or make a change to come into compliance. So, with that being said, is there a way to evaluate the mitigation plans that have been used in a previous development and apply them to our development locally?

Sure. Sure. I mean, with when you read our industrial chapter, there's there's a handful of things where it tells you if you're below these levels, all you have to do is really demonstrate that in your plans and we carry on. And if you never go above those levels, you're fine. like there's there's no followup if we have um and I think this is I I may be missing what you said but I hope I'm I hope I nail it here.

Well, just to clarify, there's a couple of things that seem to keep coming up and that's with regards to power usage, water conservation, air quality, and noise pollution. So, in my in my designer brain, I'm thinking if there was a way to simulate what this would really look like, we can then evaluate what potential safeguards need to be in place. But right now I don't have a lot of information. Well, and and to that I this is an opportunity for me to make clear what we do regulate and what we don't regulate. Okay.

So, two of those four things you mentioned, power and air quality, we don't have local regulations for. We rely on service commission or the utility provider to make sure that that power is adequate and that it's not impacting anybody else adversely. That's kind of the social contract that comes with those utilities. Um the air quality aspect is handled through the environmental protection division in some cases EPA. Um the reporting that those installations those those manufacturers have to go through annually to the state or the federal government that's what we rely on for air quality. We don't we don't have a local regulation on air quality. And then you had two others. Uh noise pollution and water conservation.

Okay. So noise and water. Yes. So for noise we have a standard in the code and that's Yep. On screen. And then uh for water, we have two types of water conservation. We have the conservation of our portable water sources and then we have conservation as it relates to storm water, making sure that we don't have water quality issues from poorly handled storm water runoff. So we we tackle it both ways. Okay.

Um so I appreciate all the work staff's done on this. I think this seems like a really good um effort uh to address what's obviously a pretty um serious potential problem. Um and uh so this is going to sound nitpicky. I had a concern about the definition in that it seemed a bit over broad. Um you know it says a facility that houses information technology infrastructure for building computing delivering or transmitting applications and services or for storing and managing the data associated with those applications and services. Um and I wondered um does that not encompass any business with an online commercial presence that has computers running in the office that manage their their customer data? you know, one computer in an office or any institution, the hospital, the university, whatever that that's got servers that manage customer data and and stuff like that. And um so, and obviously we're not trying to regulate that, right? Uh if Pedmont Hospital wants to have a server room to to manage there so I can like log on and whatever, see my test results or something like if if that's local and and under their control. I assume we're not trying to regulate that. Um it is commercial and it seems to meet the definition. So, I just wanted to flag that issue for staff as you continue to develop this

and maybe there's a way to um maybe it's about scale. Maybe it's about u you know like that has more than x number of square feet or more than I don't know how to what you can probably figure it out better than I can on the fly like how to define that but it just struck me that maybe um that's unintentionally overregulating regulating things we don't mean to regulate. So, just wanted to flag that.

And and I appreciate you saying that. What we don't want to do is have an overreach and um for a bunch of reasons. One, it it it it muddies things up and it it creates problems that are in some ways unnecessary for the sole purpose for the purposes we're trying to mitigate, right? We start reaching into things that really aren't popping over into these problem zones that we're trying to manage, right? Um, so, uh, sometimes it's a simp, you're really good at this actually. You sometimes it's a simple word that you add in, you know, a facility dedicated, you know, something that gives a little more specificity, something that that differentiates, and that's why we have this in front of y'all today is there's room for improvement. We're by no means saying this is finished. Um, so yeah, I take that comment um, and we'll work on it. Lots of people are wrestling with this. And so, and the other planners that I've talked to over the last couple weeks, um, they tend to fall into two buckets. One, there's somebody who's been tasked with writing something overnight because there's somebody coming to town, right? And then the rest are folks that are a little more nuanced and have dealt with other types of industry and other types of things. This isn't the first time they've tried to to kind of write something and tackle it. And so, uh, while I appreciate all of my peers in various environments they work in, the ones that we've been gravitating towards are the ones that, um, understand the nuance and understand not overreaching and trying to get the definition right. So, I think we've got good partners for trying to address that. So we will

comment was just that um that I appreciate the the public comment from um a lot of the folks that came out and and um I'm generally skeptical of um the tendency to push things into a special use permit process um because it's costly and timeconuming and deters people from doing things and imposes burdens on staff Um, but this is maybe the exception where I um have been persuaded that maybe these ought to be not by right and and ought to be subject to a special use process um in all cases. I mean I you know I I think I'm still open-minded on that. I you know I understand staff's effort to be if it's micro if it's very small then maybe we don't need to go through all that. Um but once it crosses a certain threshold then we do um and you know and and maybe that's the right answer. maybe there is a a size below which we ought not to meddle and and you know u the but I'm as I said I'm I found what some folks said persuasive and and just given the the potential for very significant impacts on water usage um and power usage and thus electricity prices um I'm I'm persuaded that proceeding with a little too much caution might be the right approach here. We can always go back and and remove the special use payment process as we have recently done with the short-term rental U thing if we find that it has has um gone too far. So, I might I might be inclined to start with everything being special use and then maybe ratchet it back later if we're convinced that

there's some types or some sizes that don't need that. If if I may just piggyback on that because I think um there were some comments made and and this is maybe a moment to explain some things how we do business uh with these reviews about transparency and even those items that do not go before the planning commission then on to the mayoring commission. There is a public posting of that. That's one of the things that we do with our neighborhood notification initiative. Anything that's going through plans review is pushed out as a notice to those folks that subscribe for those notices. Um that is something that's available through our website. Um you don't have part of a neighborhood to be able to subscribe to those notices. Um so is a different level of interaction with development. It's not just going to the mayor and commission. Only about 2% of the things less than 2% of the things that get built go before the mayor and commission. So that tells you 98% plus are handled administratively and that's where we try to put that transparency into those postings of our plans review agenda and it's not uncommon for us to have members of the public come and sit in on those reviews. Those are being reviewed by right. So there is not a a vote from the public. There is no elected body that's looking at those. It's it's staff working to get something to be in compliance with code. But it is all open to the public and and uh you know we're also here from 8 am to 5:00 pm sometimes after 5:00 pm to talk about things and we're happy to do it. So if anybody has questions ever about something that's happening next door. Um we make time for those questions and we try to put that information out there. It's just a different way of getting that information in front of folks. So just a PSA on that.

Sorry. Um, I guess as I'm listening to this and public comments and thinking about I need someone to convince me why we would allow any of these. I don't see the benefit. Like I really don't see it. We don't get jobs. Not much. Maybe we get property tax revenue. Is that sort of the like I'd love to sort of hear from our economic development director or somebody who could tell us why we wouldn't just say no to this. Um, and maybe there is. I don't have a very good sense of the scale thing yet. I know you you made a graphic that sort of shows that, but I you know I think I I don't even really understand how physically large a 2.5 megawatt data center would be. But I just question one of the commenters said this is weird. I thought like you can just end your sentence there because I think we kind of live in a twilight zone where we're even talking about doing something allowing this kind of land use that doesn't have any benefit to the people who live here. And I know Athens kind of fights against this way that people sort of derogatorily say that we're anti- business. I actually don't really think that we're anti- business. This would certainly be seen as that. And maybe this is the place where I would want to put my foot down about that. Like we're not even talking about water quality was only brought up by one person. But the minute you start talking about like lower water use closed loop systems, you're talking about chemicals, right? And then you're getting into a whole different problem. And so I I just don't I need a really strong argument of why we should even allow any. And if there's a teeny argument to be made there that I can understand, then I would need to

sort of understand the scale thing. I tend to agree with Matt that like I don't really like the special use process for all the reasons you said, plus that it's political. Um, and so it makes me kind of not trust the process as much as I would trust staff actually. Um, I also kind of wanted to say something about, you know, the point Kristen was making about um, what can happen on utility owned land I think is important to think about because even if it has to be regulated, there's somewhere in the Athens clar county code. Maybe it's outside of zoning, it's not in the state, but it's here related to that might need to come into play. Like part of the recommendation might be and also in the event that you have a utility who might not have to be subject to zoning, but they want to build a dating center. They there they have special you know there's already some that exist some some regulations that exist but do those need to be looked at so that we if we go to all this trouble to either say no to all data centers or limit that to a certain size of data center and then a public utility comes in and builds a monster and kind of undoes what we all the work we've done to prevent that from happening. Um, I also this issue of kind of speaking of energy usage and the renewable energy plan. Again, it just seems like one of these one of these monsters could come in and sort of undo all this good work we've done. like we have so much money, resources, time, resident, citizen input about um making all of our government buildings greener and and the renewable energy promise of having everything run on renewable sources by 2050. I I don't whoever said we shouldn't be thinking

necessarily about incentivizing but requiring like I just think to me this is this is this could be a total mess and I think we have to proceed slowly and you know maybe some magic happens in the next four weeks or so but I can't imagine I just think we need a little bit more information. I it wouldn't surprise me if we were actively in a situation where we needed to extend the moratorum, but I think that um yeah, I think this could could be a disaster and I just feel this community has been working for decades to try to become uh to tread more lightly on the earth than we would even consider. I mean, these are like from a I'm thinking about transmission lines in the air. I'm thinking about uh noise, vibrations, all of that. Like there's no good story. There's no good anecdote where someone's like, you know, somebody built data center and the in the neighborhood next door or in the industrial area two miles outside of town and it has really benefited our community. No one said that. I've never seen that. Like, so I just think we need to think about this. Like I I just I really don't see maybe I'm missing something. I don't see why we would say yes to any.

I mean, I guess that's all of that's dubtailing on my question is when staff is coming up with their initial thoughts, where where was your mindset when you thought anything should be by writing?

Yeah. Yeah, we can circle back on that. Um, so because data centers are very quickly painted with the brush of again what you see on TV in the last several months, these things that you can only appreciate from the air, you know, they're just that big. Um what the research will show is that yes those are data centers but also and there are other data centers that you drive past probably every single day um that we don't even know about because they are associated they were they were once a server room and they've since morphed into something else and there was no process for review there was no opportunity for discussion um and what we're trying to do with this definition is recognize they're all those. And in those instances where we have data centers that provide integral support services for our current corporate neighbors, partners, folks that are already in town that that do have jobs and and have been established,

this is probably going to be a part of some of their lives having a facility that is a data center. So that's kind of getting into what Matt was talking about, but maybe something that is working in tandem rather than out within an existing,

but they're all data centers. And what we don't want to do is inadvertently write some sort of exemption saying if you're associated with fill-in- thelank company, that's that's okay because you your primary use, which which is in essence what we would saying is you have a primary use that's manufacturing and it's not a data center. We're only concerned about data centers that are primary uses. That's a slippery slope. The minute we do that, primary becomes what? It's the definition of 50% plus. So if you have 100 acres and 50 50 acres plus a square foot is given over to some use that we find to be okay. But then 49 acres is a data center and we can't regulate it because it's subservient to it. It's not the primary. That's the sort of world we live in where we have to have those conversations across the counter or on the phone with somebody who's coming to town. We'd rather not have that. What we'd rather have is a definition that says these are data centers. They might exist at the hospital. They might exist on campus. They might exist on somebody who's ancillary to the campus that it's actually private. We want an opportunity to be able to regulate those. And what we've found through our research so far is that the draw of electricity, the the need for electricity helps define the operation that's going on inside.

And once we can have a handle on the operation inside, we can start to understand what are they doing? What's the what is the benefit? And and is this edge computing? Is this more data storage? And is it somewhere in between? And when we have less of a draw, then we have less need for generators. We have less need for redundancy. We have less need for on-site diesel storage. It's less less less less less. And those things across the country really when you look at them, they aren't the ones that are spiking the concerns. They're not the ones that are producing the negative impacts. And so I don't know that you're going to have a group other than data center developers perhaps that might stand up and say data center

what you probably would find like many things is there's a group of people that don't even know they're next to a data center is that what you're talking about the sort of one to 2.5 yes that's and that's what I don't have a very good sense about and they exist now beyond that one in Clark County because they're associated with existing businesses helping the infrastructure system we would have to have somebody come forward and say, "Oh, yeah, I got a data center." Nobody's really doing that. But it is conceivable to say that some of our larger institutions in town probably have a data center facility of some sort

and they were able to install that and have it operate without the need of spiking water demand because we would have seen that or without the need for high tension, you know, power lines coming in because we would have seen that. And so without those obvious sort of pieces of physical evidence for the facility itself, we can only assume that if they exist, they're fairly low-key and and they're operating in a way that is almost imperceivable except for the people paying the bills for that power and for that water, right?

And so you guys feel that that threshold of the 2.5 keeps it under that would be enough of a blanket. That's our starting point and and we're coming up with that starting point to Sarah's point of trying to visualize what does 2.5 mean? What does it look like? And so that's when I said, you know, the average grocery store that we're seeing built these days is three megawatts, right? But that's not saying a data center would be a 30,000 foot data center to have three megawatts. Quite the opposite. that might be the size of a refrigerator and it needs that amount of power because it's just doing that much work and it is different in that regard that it's not a onetoone relationship between power draw and square footage and so we're really steering clear of the use of square footage to help regulate this. We don't think we need it and we don't think that's the issue. um we think it's other issues related to the function inside the space not the size of the space if that helps. So I don't think you're going to hear anybody come forward and I don't think there's a a booster club for for this land use but um what we are hearing are the folks that are critical of it are seeing physical sort of manifestations of things that are worth being critical of. how we write a regulation to say those aren't okay, but we need to look at those on a case- by case basis. And that's the point of the special use is to to recognize the fact that not every data center is the same. And so we need the opportunity to look at each special use on its own merit and see what are they going to do to mitigate the things that we might be concerned about. And maybe there's a design aspect of that particular installation that we can lock them down to and make binding and that makes it okay moving forward. But that's a high bar. I will say that's a that's a high bar.

And so would this be one of the other circumstances where you know most in a lot of cases special use I know that there are some criteria that we use in general across the board but it seems like if special use was going to be a pathway then there a very specific set of things. So like 25 years down the road, a new planning director is in a it's it's a less hot topic maybe. I'd kind of doubt that actually, but right the the thinking people aren't being as careful or they got complacent or what all the things that happens. How do you how do you write something into the way to to pro provide at the very least guidance for people in the future to know why did we put a special use permit process on this and what were the considerations what needs to be and it you know it can't really be quantitative in the sense that things are going to change so much but I just wonder about

so there's an art there's an art to ordinance writing and when you oversp specify you tend to yourself with things that become quickly outdated. When you underspecify, you leave cards on the table. You leave things unre. And so what we're trying to do is find the sweet spot. And our special use criteria that we have right now are pretty good at giving staff the ability to find moments in them to say, "Yes, I think I think this is worth taking it forward, or this is a criteria that we're going to evaluate and dig a little deeper, like referencing other policy statements that have been adopted." that allows us to reach beyond the zoning code to have a discussion about whether this is a good thing or not a good thing. What we want to do with this set of regulations is reach a little bit past those base level special use criteria and have something that is performance-based for the data centers whether that's related to cooling or whether it's related to um the storage of these these you know flammable materials or finding a way to use renewable energy to offset the need for having so much stored on site. Those are things that are very specific to data centers. And I promise I gonna get to you. But the other thing I want to say is if we start if we start regulating data centers dramatically differently than other heavy manufacturing, we need to be careful because if we start trending in the way of saying, okay, we haven't seen these, but we're afraid of these. And so we're going to write regulations that are far more aggressive than we would write for some other kind of heavy manufacturing, I think we're going to get in trouble. and we'll get in trouble from somebody who's not even in this discussion right now. It'll be that other heavy manufacturing use that that kind of comes alongside and manages to navigate a situation because we're focusing so much on data centers. What we want to do is if we say these are heavy manufacturing then we want to make sure there might be some things about heavy manufacturing across the

board that we want to revisit. Maybe it is buffering like I suggested but it could be other stuff too. So, we just want to make sure that we're on good legal footing all the way through this while still doing our job to express community values, do right by the environment, and then set us up for success, not just five years from now, but when I am 80 and 25 years from now and still the planning director, we'll still be able we'll still be able to do the work that we need to do. So, yes, it

I appreciate your explanation, Bruce, and and um I was just going to offer a suggestion in the direction of what Sarah was was saying. Uh it sounds like you're you're you're using the power usage as kind of a proxy for if it's um an ancillary thing like if the hospital's doing a data center to do their hospital stuff then you know it's going to be under the one mega watt or under the 2.5 or what whatever it may be. Uh but but maybe an additional um more direct way to say would be to say as part of the definition, you know, it it uh or as part of the regulation that if it is below a certain power threshold and is ancillary to and subordinate to a different primary use, then it's

exempt or then it's by right. So the hospital can do it without having to go through the special use process because they're just turning a room into a server center and cooling it with a lot of air conditioning and and you know it's ancillary to what they're doing there doing their hospital stuff. Um and the university can do it they got to do it and a you know existing industrial user who needs you know a bunch of servers to run their sales operation related to their business. it would meet that require. It'd be ancillary to their otherwise permissible use. Uh but that would tend to exclude um a third party data center where somebody's just building a data center to rent space to Netflix or Amazon Web Services or or other heavy data users. So if you if we wanted to be more restrictive than simply power usage, but still carve out something that's by right to avoid the cumbersome special use process for like you said our existing um entities that just might need to build a server room. Maybe we we could use something like ancillary and subordinate, you know, language alongside the the megawatt hour um threshold.

Okay. One thought I have too with the special because I agree about the special use permit like now that we're seeing all these short-term rentals, it's like, oh, what have we created? But I'm hoping that we're not going to see as many data centers as we do short-term rentals, right? So, so I mean if we see one a year, right, that would be right. They said there's 100 in Georgia right now. So, right. And there's more than that many. So, so like I would be totally fine with the special use process for everything. Yeah. You know, so again, one of I'm sorry, Sam. Go ahead. No, if you had something I got my stuff ready.

Okay. So, so just to hearken back to something in the presentation that there are two trend lines that we're we're watching and the one is the bigger sort of the easier ones to kind of recognize. The other is the smaller and not not to get too science fiction focused on this, but it's it's it's not beyond the realm of possibility that a data center function might ultimately be embedded in something that's not even a building. It'll be some other sort of manufactured good that we have, a car. And there may be capacity within that car to do data processing functions. And then what's being created is a network of these really small things. And so what what we want, we're not trying to go crazy with this definition, but we do want to be smart and recognize that we may have something that 5 years from now is remarkably different than these 200 acre type facilities and they're actually more powerful and they're everywhere because they're embedded in other things. And that's there's a very strong likelihood that that is evolving and and taking shape. So what does that do for land use? I don't know. But if the definition does anticipate having to at least have the conversation about something that size and how it's connected to things, that's what we want. And so I I hear what you're saying about having special use be a broader net. I think I think we're kind of talking the same thing in that regard that we want we don't want to lose something. We don't want to lose track of something that might be impactful. Um, but we do feel kind of strongly that there are some things that are probably I don't want to say innocuous because these are a big deal. Even if they're small, they're a big deal. Um, but there might be some things that are functioning just fine and they're not really creating the dent on our services

that we're really talking about that we're concerned about. Okay.

So, I'll kind of cocktail that a little bit. um the rate of change of speed and size of computers, computer chips, anything it that's way way over my head is extremely fast and faster than probably anybody in this room can imagine. Uh, no offense to anybody, but that in in five years, what we're talking about is probably going to be so different because in five years, an Apple Watch is going to be so different and this is going to be so different. So, I'm just imagining uh what they're doing in there uh with the the data centers at the moment would be smaller and they'll be running cooler because I I am quite certain just by being logical that there are engineers trying to make this these things run cooler because that is costing them money. So if it's costing a business money, they got people on it to make it cost less. So that's going to all change and then they're going to want it to be smaller because that costs less money. That's all going to happen. At the same time, we're going to be having more and more need for this. So you throw all of that in and on a Thursday at uh 8 uh 13, I'm not able to come up with the answer. what's going on in five years. And it's similar to a project we voted on a month ago. One reason they didn't put anything out on part of that land um in the plan development was because they don't know what's going on in 10 years. So it just be a big old lie. So I I that's why I like things a little loose in the sense that we don't know what it's going to look like. So if we to support what

Bruce already said, if we go in with a list of these things, that list is going to be so obsolete before you know it that we're just back here, you know, constantly doing that. Um, uh, I like in general the idea of special use for most any reasonable size. uh at the moment it's easier to if we were to say uh one megahertz rather than five megahertz and larger go through special use process it's easier to say well we overshot that one kind of no harm no foul we can loosen it up because we know what we're doing five years from now three years from now it's it's part of what I had a problem with with the short-term rental thing uh we allowed um RM and now we're not allowing RM. Meanwhile, 1,200 realators said you can do RM and people have bought property saying we can do RM and they just hadn't registered yet and now we've pulled RM out and so they bought properties with the thought of maybe registering uh to do that as special use short-term rental and now that's not allowed. I know. So it's but my point is they bought it based on the current law and now that law has been stripped out from them and so it's easier to go with the let's do special use for something lower so we know what we're really talking about and then lighten that up later and then no one's caught buying property thinking they can do this and now they've got to go through a special use. So that's uh that's that I have heard and I don't know and I'm just throwing it out because Sarah I think you mentioned it that property taxes the they're going to collect they municipalities will collect

a lot more on property tax on that land like an extremely large amount more I had seen that I just keep hearing that so I don't know but if my property tax caning be cut in half like I'm hearing and reading out there and I don't know. I never saw the numbers. Well, that might be and then you just have to weigh that out. Is that worth the the bad? Um, so I imagine y'all are kind of looking into that or that's the because I do like the idea what are the benefits. We're not hearing much about benefits. We just hear about the bad issues. Um the and just so we know as well a moratorum the one they have it can be extended. Basically the man commission just has to vote to extend it.

Yes. For cause. Yeah. Yeah. For a cause like like we haven't what are we going to do? We don't pass it through or there's other good reason or they just decide we're not comfortable. They have cause they can extend it. How long can they like one month, three more months, a year? Can they go any distance?

Council left. I've heard Oscar does a great presentation on Victoria. Um, six months is is sort of the typical defensible period of time. And that that's defensible if you have a purpose, you have a program for what's to be achieved, and you have some sort of measurable outcome at the end by which you're going to make your determination of that, you know, effort that you did. Um, and so what they have done is something that's kind of on the half step of that. Um, I don't I honestly don't think the attorney's office would advise our mayor and commission to go beyond the six-month window.

Okay. All right. So, we know there's that could probably be done, should we to not put too much pressure on us in January. In other words, if there if we weren't comfortable with it, it's not doesn't just go away and now we can't do anything with it. Can be extended probably another three months. That's maybe. Yes. Yes. could couldn't be extended under three months.

Okay. Um and then the by requiring or or um some some type of instruction that they provide on site power. the I I just I mean that sounds great, but Clark Middle has solar panels now in the parking deck. Um and I'm on an oversight committee for all these floss funds and that's not going to that that's not built to power the school like the whole time. it it does a little percent during the hot days when the peak hours are hitting and and they deal with peak hours in a a school system where we don't in our house but so that's going to take 14 years to to basically pay for itself which is the business's problem. I'm not going to be concerned about how long it takes a business to power itself but but it sounds like and seeing the amount of power those things can provide. I mean, you you couldn't hardly turn on a light switch, uh, even if you had a whole field worth of that. So, I would say let's be careful dancing around that issue as well, or at least because it could be a ton of solar panels that just literally can't light that place up in a minute. And and we've just now got a whole field full of solar panels that are useless practically. So, I'm just throwing that out that um that always sounds great, but when you go and actually look at the numbers, it's it's not producing exactly what we think something using that much. And another reason I like uh perhaps um doing more of a special use is I I didn't know this this Bitcoin thing. They hum louder, they do this and that. Those are other things we don't know

about. That's what I'm hearing now about Bitcoin. What about something here? And what about something there? So I I still like the microscope sort of left on each as they come in at least for a little while. We can always take the microscope away a lot easier uh at doing that. And then here this is just a question maybe I should know. Um, and I hear I I read and and read and watch some fiction uh or um and you hear about California and their water issues and businesses or farms going in and sucking water out of the neighbors farm through the aqueducts and all of that. Um, what's the well? What are the codes for? I mean, could a could one of these businesses start drilling and sucking water out of Athens?

I I curious. I mean, I might defer to our public utilities engineer on that question, but I think if it is an evaporative cooling system that would use that much water, you need to do that. That's something we're proposing you couldn't do by right anyway, right? Like you you would have to do a closed loop system. Um I don't it would be a heck of a well would it not Matt?

Likely. Yeah. The the other thing to consider is that any well um by um so uh public utilities is only concerned with the surface water uh resources. So Bear Creek, Milon, Northone and soon the the reservoir. Um so we we wouldn't actually have any kind of regulation over a data center using wells. But somebody who knows something about pumps that would be you would be able to tell by the installation that this is going to over that this is going to affect an aquifer. This is going to be something that is withdrawing more than the water needed from that property.

So yeah, they would have to report that stuff to the the EPD to get a permit for a well. So they would still be regulated by the state. Yeah. All right. Just thought I'd toss that out. I'm reading out west might be going on. Okay, that's my those are my thoughts. Question. Okay, so the justification I'm curious about the justification for the 1 to 2.5 megawatt being by right 2.5 to five being conditional by right.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that? What that would be? So the the thinking was and again this was what we were seeing was some of these five megawatt installations are very small. So um not a campus they were modest buildings and and what what we were seeing with those types of insulations of five megawatts or less. When you got closer to five, you still had these cooling situations to deal with and you still had generators in some instances that needed the fuel storage and that kind of stuff. And so what we were saying was if if you were to do closed system and if you were to do which would be required and if you were to have some percentage of renewable for your your redundancy that additional power to keep it running you could you could earn the ability to expand the size of or the function of that capacity by right the function of that facility by right because you're doing something to help literally offset the need for the on-site diesel. because you're now using a renewable source and our you know one of the metrics that we're looking for is the storage of the hazardous materials and making sure we don't have a problem

that's something that is happening in that.5 to five

so that's at a scale where it's cons although Alex is right it's tough to use solar there's other types of renewable sources that generate more power but there's more of a upfront expense to that kind of installation if it's geothermal or if it's something else more aggressive wind power um Maybe you could get in the realm of a megawatt or two or three if done in the right location. It's all very, you know, dependent on the circumstances or maybe you can't, you know, and then it's off the table. It's just an incentive like it's not a requirement because not everybody, as much as we'd love to be able to say there's renewable opportunity everywhere, kind of it kind of varies by sight and by circumstance. um like these these facilities don't do green roofs because the roof is actually being used for the function of the facility. The roof's not some big flat expanse. It has all kinds of conduit and piping and even if it is a closed loop system, you do have pooling equipment that comes up from the roof. And it's also a huge liability to have anything that's carrying water or that kind of load like a green roof would above all this equipment. So, they're not going to do it. So, you know, the things that you might normally put out there as suggestions to kind of offset or mitigate, they don't apply. So, what we want to do is make it an option. If you can do it, then you might be able to exceed the 2.5 that you can do by right because you're doing some performance of the thing that we're trying to mitigate, but it's it's going to be more.

And what about the wastewater issue? I mean, that we already have regulations in industrial around that. That's right. How do we do those live in our zoning regulations or that's elsewhere? That's the storm water or waste water. Uh waste water.

Okay. So for wastewater um a data center, especially if it's closed loop system, the only reason there would be waste water is if there's some sort of failure of that system. And so what we're talking about then is not anything that would make it into our wastewater system. It's going to be something contained inside the facility by the design of capturing that coolant or capturing that fuel or whatever it may be. So there is really nothing other than whatever domestic use of water might be going on. That's the only waste water that is likely to be coming from these facilities other than the times if it is a closed loop system of water where they may have to flush that system. Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

And then there's a filtration process. It's it's EPD regulated. They have to go through all kinds of steps to make sure that that has actually happened properly and that's monitored and all that paperwork comes to public utilities to make sure that we're square because we we're our our water treatment facilities aren't set up to deal with those types of things coming out. So, they have to deal with it on site. Did I say that right?

Yeah. And we also have a sewer use ordinance and we regulate all industrial u developments. So they would have to provide us with a survey of the chemicals and things that they're going to have on site and we would look at the plans and make sure that there's not going to be any contaminants uh that are put into the sewer system. And if there is any risk of that, they have to provide us with a plan for how that's going to be m uh mitigated or avoided. And if there's anything that could make it into the the treatment or the the collection system, uh there could be pre-treatment requirements on site as well. There you go. Is that something that's regularly tested? Is there some

Yes. So we have an environmental compliance officer um and they go around and they actually do sampling at industrial sites, make sure that everything's in compliance. Okay. So that would essentially kick in

in this case. And the other part of this is we have two other departments sitting in the bullpen over there that also care about the storage of these other possibly corrosive or costic or flammable materials. Um fire marshall needs to know about these things. If there's ever an event out there, they need to know what they're going into. So there's very detailed cataloging. There's all kinds of marking inside the site. Any manufacturing facility, any the hospitals everywhere, wherever there's anything like that, there's a protocol that they have to follow. and that had routinely checked. Um the other side is public works and storm water. Whenever and some of us may remember when the fire occurred on transconded and the chemicals were flushed into Trail Creek. So what was storage a mismarked storage situation in a very old facility that had no containment protocol or installation at all became a storm water issue where we had an environmental concern now in one of our waterways. So we have all kinds of things in place federal, state and local level to manage any of those contingencies and there's routine checking for all of that. Yeah. Is it possible to ask a question of the audience member who's the environmental scientists?

So environmental scientists. Yeah.

What about the closed loop systems? Is there anything that we've talked about tonight that we haven't been considering especially from an environmental standpoint, not just with humans, but with all living things? the closest want to come up if I don't if anybody feels qualified to talk about it you're welcome as a non I think the only thing about the closed loop systems is that they do take more power in that case I believe you mentioned that as well and um the chemicals so basically Bruce covered everything that I think you did a great job and that's the main concerns I would have with the closed loop system as well as just the chemical chemicals and then increase power usage and add

I was just kind of curious if we knew what type of chemical it was. I imagine it's like a dialectric fluid but depending on what type of glycol they have in there kind of changes the toxicity of it.

Is there one specific type of chemical they use or is that something that's ever evolving too? I think it's what split between like mineral oils, biouel oil, mineral oils, vegetable oil, some dialectric fluid that's either like a glycol that has like a propylene or ethanol or something like ethylene is the two options I guess under that. I was curious if we knew which one it was just because one of them is like biologically inert whereas the other one very much still would be an issue. It's almost pretty close to like antifreeze. So I assume if we have a closed loop system as part of a way that someone could do by right that we would have all those details. All of those details. That's right. Yeah.

Just because those are important. But I imagine we wouldn't have a data center that's big enough to where we would have to worry about how much they're removing or getting rid of it because it does all go through the system as far as like how we remove that waste. I just over time I imagine a lot of data centers nationwide would probably add to a lot of that has to be removed. But I don't think we'd have one big enough to worry about. Thanks. The only thing I want to add and it's a point of clarification. Alex had mentioned on-site power generation. What we're proposing, so if you're a tier three or above, you have what's called two wet. So two times the need. So if you need 10 generators to run, a tier three is going to have 20 generators on site that can be all used at a moment's notice. So on-site power generation is part of these data centers no matter what. What Bruce is talking about is specifically that redundancy system potentially being where that renewable energy where that energy for that renewable energy comes from. So that would mean that the generator doesn't have you know a small scale 5,000galon tank and larger scale to 50 to even more thousandgalon tank that it would come from solar water geothermal wind something that isn't a turbine or something of that nature. So, I just want to make sure everyone understands what on-site generation means because it in this world it means something very specific versus the renewable energy conversation which is to help offset what that on-site generation which will be there anyways is pulling from for its main source of energy.

And is the on-site generation always created by like liquid fuels? typically. Yeah, it's the cheapest and easiest. So there's a little bit of an air quality consideration as well. How would that come in? Yeah, so that's have an EPD keep up as well. But those, let me get this far right. Those generators wouldn't come on unless the power the redundancy generators, right? Okay. So if I my data center needs 10 generators to run every moment of every day. Okay,

the only time a redundancy comes in is when there's a loss of power or when I'm performing maintenance. And that's why the tier the tiers are about latency and maintenance time. They have nothing to do that's their main purpose of why those tiers exist. So if I need to do maintenance on one side of a farm, a server farm, it may take only two generators to go down or two more to keep it going. So there's no loss of time for whatever data is coming through. That's what you mean by the uninterrupted power supply system.

I can talk engineering about it, but that's not really what that'll be a side conversation, not a Well, that's what it says up there, right? But I'm not going to go into how UPS's work and blah blah blah. You promised later. You have my email. Don't worry. Has this been helpful? Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And hopefully it has been to y'all, too. Yes. It's got layers. I feel like I'm going to research data centers over winter break. Okay. I know it's a weird no holiday special about data centers, but who knows? the science network. All your Black Friday deals come from a data discovery channel. Yeah, exactly.

So, I don't Yes, we fixed that in the memo. It's right that content up there did not lift from the memo. So, I Yes, it to the state and that right yes I apologize. Please refer to the at home version as you Okay. Um, well, with that, I I don't really have a report. I hope everybody enjoyed the parade last week. So,

I I don't have a report either. I I do appreciate your time. I I appreciate this year. So, thank you all for the time you give to this, the reading that you do, the site visits that you do, the hard questions that you give us, the direction that you provide. It makes our jobs easier. And I know sometimes you feel like you're not making it easier, but you are. So, um, I do appreciate all that we all do, all the staff. So, thank thanks to you for everything that you do. Happybody. Second. All in favor? I. All right. Thank you, guys.

Wow. Okay.