In a called meeting on Wednesday, July 1, the Blairsville City Council adopted a moratorium that temporarily pauses the acceptance of applications to develop data centers inside city limits.
No one has approached the city about building a data center to date, but Blairsville currently has no regulations on them, and the moratorium will give the city time to consider and enact protections before developers get the chance to come knocking.
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“If they come in five minutes ago, before the meeting started, and file an application, they get to proceed with their application based on the ordinances that are in place right now – so, they could do it,” City Attorney Marvin Harkins said, noting that the moratorium prevents that.
In the meeting, the consensus of council members and Mayor Buddy Moore was that they do not want data centers and similar facilities – the moratorium also mentions cryptocurrency and data mining sites – located within the city, hence the push to control their development.
On top of the mayor and council’s own concerns, the city’s drive for regulation stems in part from the clear desire of residents to keep data centers out of Union County for a variety of reasons, as they can strain infrastructure, disturb quality of life, affect the environment, etc.
Sole Commissioner Harold Collins has been working to strengthen the county’s existing ordinance regulating such facilities, with strong support from the public to make the regulations as strict as possible to discourage development here.
Attorney Harkins referenced the public hearing the Commissioner’s Office hosted on June 11, which drew more than 400 attendees and universal support for restricting data centers. In that hearing, some guests expressed concern about development in the city.
Harkins said the potential for data center development was limited in Blairsville proper, as only a handful of lots are big enough to host even a small facility.
But if a developer were to approach the city about setting up a small data center in Blairsville, Harkins said it was important to address current unknowns, such as impacts on local resources like water and electricity as well as traffic.
The moratorium will last until the second week of November, giving Harkins and the council time to research the issue and adopt city-specific regulations. Harkins said the city’s moratorium effectively mirrors the one the county has in place.
As part of the discussion last week, the potential to generate enormous tax revenue from data centers was briefly discussed, but the council and mayor were in agreement that data centers would not be in the best interest of the Blairsville public.
It was also brought up that, currently, the Blue Ridge Mountain EMC cannot supply the amount of electricity required to run a data center.
Conducted separately in the July 1 meeting, the council voted to implement a moratorium on “the acceptance of applications for land disturbance permits and building permits for work on properties of 1 or more acres lying within the municipal boundaries of the City of Blairsville.”
The second moratorium was primarily prompted by concerns about a development in the county that backs up to city limits, The Terraces Townhomes, an under-construction subdivision with 57 planned townhomes near the intersection of Shoe Factory Road and Gainesville Highway.
Harkins said the developer has received an option to purchase an adjacent 3.5-acre parcel within city limits to potentially expand the development beyond its current 9-acre footprint.
If the housing development is expanded, the city is concerned about the addition of traffic on Cook Street, which is a small side road bordering The Terraces, and possible public safety issues, like maneuverability for large firetrucks inside the subdivision.
Blairsville has no subdivision regulations for multifamily dwellings under five units – like The Terraces – and the moratorium will enable the city to research options for higher-density developments inside city limits for all subdivided properties moving forward.
“We have just a few of these large lots in the city, but if those were developed, those could have a pretty severe impact on the existing traffic patterns that are not ideal as of now,” Harkins said.
After the meeting, Harkins clarified that, generally, subdivision regulations set limits on what happens when a developer subdivides property, either for residential subdivisions or commercial ones.
“The idea is that going from one parcel to many means you go from one use to many uses, including more trips on the road, more use of law enforcement and EMT resources, etc.,” Harkins said. “The (as-yet undrafted) subdivision regs will address all that.”
Examples of what will be addressed by new regulations include single-family detached residential subdivisions, attached residential subdivisions with duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes and apartments, the latter of which are defined as five or more dwellings per building, and commercial subdivisions.
“This isn’t just about (The Terraces),” Harkins said. “It’s about making sure that any subdivisions of land within the city are done in such a way to minimize the impact on adjacent and surrounding properties.”
Both moratoriums will be in effect for 134 days from July 1 but could expire sooner if regulations are adopted before then.
