After more than two hours of discussion and some fiery comments from citizens, the Marietta City Council on Wednesday voted to table a request for a data center off Delk Road.
The matter will be taken up again Aug. 12 at the behest of council member Joseph Goldstein, whose Ward 7 includes most of East Marietta, including the Delk Road area.
Before that vote, and with a packed crowd on hand, the council issued a six-month moratorium on considering any other data center requests.
A week after the Marietta Planning Commission voted 4-3 to recommend approval, the City Council heard plenty from citizens in favor of and opposed to the data center request, which entailed adding another use under the existing Community Retail Commercial (CRC) category.
Prime Storage has operated a self-storage facility on Powers Ferry Place, off Delk Road and fronting Interstate 75, for the last 30 years.
It wants to convert a portion of its existing 90,000-square-foot facility for an 18-megawatt data facility for what it calls “mission critical” local purposes.
That includes law enforcement, medical and emergency services and local businesses in the area.
Former State Sen. Chuck Clay, from one of Marietta’s most prominent families, was among those representing Prime Storage.
He said that Marietta historically has always been a “vision city,” developing an old air field for what became Dobbins Air Force Base (and now Dobbins Naval Air Station), and more recently has been building up the Franklin Gateway corridor.
Adding a data center to meet local communications needs is no different.
“These things just don’t happen,” Clay said, as opponents heckled during his remarks.
He urged the city “to do what’s best” to continue to provide “local jobs with local power.”
Clay said that a new data center—located adjacent to another data center that has existed for years—would be a “win-win.”
‘What I heard was a lot of fear’
Opponents came from all parts of Marietta, including Chris Conley a former UGA and NFL football player who relocated his family off Burnt Hickory Road.
He said one of his daughters has respiratory issues, and like a number of the speakers Wednesday, raised environmental concerns about data centers.
“You don’t want people like me coming here,” Conley said, telling the council that “you messed up.”
Other citizens live close to the data center, including neighborhoods in unincorporated Cobb.
John Mendoza, who lives on Powers Ferry Drive, in the Sun Valley Estates subdivision, read from the city zoning staff analysis about a lack of code or any kind of guidance on data centers.
“So why are we even considering this?” he asked.
The council extended time to speakers, most of whom continued to express opposition.
But that also gave Prime Storage additional time to explain what they have in mind.
“What I heard was a lot of fear,” applicants’ attorney Parks Huff said about the data center opponents.
The proposed data center would be a “closed loop system” for cooling the servers and therefore reducing water consumption.
He said Prime Storage would be paying market rates for energy needed to power the data center, and would take necessary measures to go beyond complying with the city’s noise ordinance.
That’s where the discussion with council members stayed for quite a while.
Cheryl Richardson of Ward 1, which is near Dobbins, said she’d like to see a noise study as well as talk to the proposed data center’s sound engineer.
Of Huff’s point that another data center has existed near the proposed site with no incident, Richardson said that “just because we’ve done it once doesn’t mean we should do it twice.”
Some opponents broke out into applause, but Richardson told them they shouldn’t presume anything by her remarks,
“I just have too many sound questions. I’m not a scientist.”
The Marietta moratorium on considering other data centers ends on Dec. 31.
“We just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing,” Mayor Steve “Thunder” Tumlin said.
Related stories:
- Fitness center proposed for Powers Ferry ex-Kroger site
- Subdivision request off Old Canton Road continued again
- Eastside Church senior-living plans delayed to August
- Marietta Planning Commission forwards data center proposal
- Bells Ferry Road townhome plans held by Cobb commissioners
- Eastside Church senior living proposal put on hold
- Eastside Church proposes senior living to expand mission
- Cobb commissioners reject RaceTrac plans on Bells Ferry
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