No Data Centers in Statesboro.
A transparent view of community support for denying final approval of the proposed Burkhalter Road data center and protecting Statesboro neighborhoods from future data center development.
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02 Proposed Site
6539 Burkhalter Road · Statesboro, Georgia · City Council District 5
03 Before Final Approval
Rezoning did not grant final project approval. Before considering the required Special Use Permit, residents should be able to review the final operator, operating design, permit data, and public costs.
The developers stated that no data center operator or technology company had been selected. Without an operator, the final computing equipment, cooling system, generator fleet, staffing, and operating practices remain unknown.
Will Council wait for a named operator and final operating design? Will a later change in operator, cooling technology, generator fleet, or electrical demand require a new public hearing?
The current application does not disclose the number, size, fuel type, placement, or expected testing schedule of backup generators. EPA identifies stationary engines as common backup power sources subject to air requirements.
How many generators are proposed? Where will they and their fuel tanks be located? Has Georgia EPD received an air permit application, and will emissions modeling include nearby homes?
Statesboro's ordinance uses existing ambient sound or 50 dBA and 70 dBC at a sensitive receptor's property line, whichever is greater. The time, location, traffic, and weather conditions used to establish the baseline can affect the enforceable limit.
The applicant's own noise consultant's finished survey (August 12, 2026) already measured every tested location exceeding the 70 dBC limit, one location by nearly 25 dB. This is ambient/existing noise data, collected before the facility exists. Two earlier report versions of the same field test (May and July 2026) did not evaluate the dBC threshold at all — only the August version checks the finished ordinance's full standard.
Will an independent study measure the quietest nighttime conditions, low-frequency and tonal sound, upper-story residences, and all cooling, transformer, and generator sources operating together? Given that ambient sound already exceeds the ordinance's dBC threshold at every tested location, what does that mean for the enforceable limit once the facility adds its own noise on top?
The City report identifies wetlands on the property and states that the site remains under U.S. Army Corps of Engineers review. The concept plan places a detention pond near the residential side of the property.
Will Council wait for the final wetland determination and permit path? How much wetland may be affected, where will the detention pond discharge, and which properties are downstream?
The concept plan identifies a 40 to 90 MW requirement, while the developer said it applied to Georgia Power for as much as 99 MW. No project-specific service agreement or required off-site upgrades have been disclosed. A Georgia Open Records Act response from the Georgia Public Service Commission (September 1, 2026) confirms no filing, docket, customer record, or contract number exists for this address at all — the only documented step so far is an informal Georgia Power intake letter acknowledging the project entered evaluation.
Georgia Power's data-center contracts are now reviewed under a statewide Public Service Commission framework meant to keep large-load customers from shifting costs onto residential ratepayers. The seventh contract approved under that framework, a 3.2-gigawatt agreement with OpenAI in Effingham County approved August 27, 2026, includes a commitment that Georgia Power cannot recover lost revenue from residential and small-business customers if the data center leaves early, a 15-day PSC notification requirement for early termination, and a pledge of $15 a month in downward pressure on average residential bills starting in 2029. Consumer advocates note these protections rest on assumptions that may not hold, and no operator has been named for this project, so it is not yet known whether its Georgia Power contract would include the same terms.
Has Georgia Power accepted the request? What infrastructure must be built, who will pay for it, and what financial protections apply if the developer or future operator abandons the project? How will Council ensure that the reported 99 MW request—just below Georgia's 100 MW threshold—includes equivalent protections for existing ratepayers? Will Council require that any Georgia Power service agreement for this project include the same ratepayer protections approved for other large Georgia data-center contracts, made public before a Special Use Permit vote?
Georgia's own state auditor found that the economic-impact figures used to justify the state's data center tax exemption were overstated by roughly two-thirds, and concluded that about 70 percent of data center investment in Georgia would likely have happened without the exemption at all. A University of Georgia study went further, concluding the exemption is a net fiscal drain on the state even though host communities can see local property-tax gains. Statewide, the exemption is now estimated to cost Georgia about $2.5 billion a year, with local governments alone projected to lose roughly $1.1 billion in 2026 and $1.4 billion in 2027.
The project has been described as up to $1.2 billion in investment with approximately 12 permanent jobs. Georgia's data center equipment exemption can include state and local sales and use taxes, but no project-specific incentive package has been disclosed.
Records show the $1.2 billion figure was revised down from an original developer-supplied estimate of $855 million for the building alone, on a server-replacement schedule the independent economist who built the project's fiscal model described as unlike anything he had seen for a data center. The fiscal impact analysis behind the project's promised local benefit is commissioned by the Development Authority of Bulloch County, not the developer directly. In that analysis, essentially all of the projected 10-year benefit to the City, County, and school system — about $76.6 million combined — comes from projected property tax revenue; sales tax, franchise fees, and other spillover account for a negligible share.
Separately, research on data-center tax bases elsewhere has found that early property-tax relief can be temporary: because data-center equipment depreciates quickly, the taxable value that initially lowers rates can shrink within a few years, shifting the tax burden back toward homeowners. That specific finding comes from a Utah state study, not a Georgia one, and is included here as a documented risk to weigh, not a Statesboro fact.
Will the project seek tax exemptions, abatements, bonds, a PILOT agreement, development authority financing, or public infrastructure? What are the gross taxes, forgone revenue, public costs, and net local benefit? Has Council reviewed the state auditor's findings on Georgia's data center tax exemption before relying on this project's projected local benefit? Will any promised property-tax benefit be evaluated over multiple years to account for equipment depreciation, not just its first year?
Council should not vote to approve the Special Use Permit without first receiving these material details.
Public record · Updated September 1, 2026
What has been approved, what records have been requested, and what decision still remains.
An agency report that it located no responsive records is not proof that no permit, application, or review will later be required. Request numbers, security keys, private tracking links, and requester contact details are not published.
No Special Use Permit hearing date has been publicly posted as of September 1, 2026.
The August rezoning changed the parcel's zoning. It did not grant final approval for a data center. Ordinance 2026-01 still requires a separate Special Use Permit, public hearing, and affirmative Council vote.
Check official City agendas and minutes Read Ordinance 2026-01 (PDF)Project and permitting status last checked: .
General ordinance development is separate from approval of this parcel.
January 22 and February 17, 2026: Council's earlier work included visits to Atlanta-area edge data centers and direction to staff to develop a local regulatory framework. The later May 19 Council minutes describe the multi-month process and site visits.
Council reviewed a regulatory framework for technological facilities and data centers. No ordinance was adopted.
The draft ordinance was forwarded to the Planning Commission, which recommended approval.
Council discussed a more restrictive draft and advanced Ordinance 2026-01 by a 4–0 vote; Ginny Hendley was absent.
After a second hearing, Council adopted the general data-center ordinance by a 3–1 vote. It did not approve a specific project.
The Planning Commission recommended approval of application RZ 26-07-05 by a 5–1 vote.
Council approved the zoning change 3–2, with Mayor Jonathan McCollar casting the deciding vote. The project still requires a Special Use Permit.
Final project approval has not been granted.
The same Burkhalter parcel was reviewed first for housing and later for a data center.
87 versus 285 units: The 2024 public proposal described approximately 87 cottage-style homes. During the 2026 process, project advocates referenced as many as 285 units under R-4. The public records reviewed here do not establish that a 285-unit site plan was approved; the figures appear to describe an earlier development concept versus claimed zoning capacity. City materials also describe the parcel as approximately 26.5 to 26.9 acres, so this page treats the acreage as approximate rather than resolving that discrepancy.
Residential-buildout projections for the broader Burkhalter–Cawana corridor—not a 2026 data-center traffic study.
The City projected as many as 1,342 housing units across eight developments in the broader growth corridor.
Immediate neighbors: Cottage Row and Aspen Heights.
Broader growth and traffic corridor: The Outpost, Holly Oaks, Cawana Row, Cawana Bend, S&S Townhomes, and established homes along Burkhalter and Cawana roads.
These values summarize developer traffic studies and the City's June 2025 corridor planning for projected residential buildout. They should not be read as a traffic analysis of the proposed data center. The only traffic study on file for this parcel — dated August 15, 2024 — analyzes a 1,041-unit residential concept that has since been abandoned; it contains no mention of a data center anywhere in the document. The applicant has stated no data-center-specific traffic study has been performed.
Self-reported affiliations among active petition signers
Community-connection categories overlap because a signer may select more than one. The Bulloch County resident total counts each active signer once, even when both residency options were selected. Self-reported residency is distinct from address-verified city-limit status.