For one Georgia county, answer to surge in data centers is no

While communities across America are trying to lure large corporate data centers, one Georgia county on Tuesday rejected a proposal after neighborhood groups opposed it.

Commissioners in Monroe County, about 60 miles south of Atlanta, rejected a request to rezone about 900 acres near the town of Bolingbroke to allow a data center. Hundreds of residents turned out for the meeting to oppose the rezoning.

The crowd was so large, commissioners moved Tuesday’s meeting to the school system’s Fine Arts Center, which can seat 1,200.

Bolingbroke is a quiet, pastoral community where homeowners have large lots, horses and cows.

“It’s like Mayberry,” Valli Berg, a local real estate agent, told The Center Square, referring to the mythical small town in the television show “The Andy Griffith Show.”