The data center fight in Palmetto, Georgia
As of October 1, 2026, Palmetto, Georgia has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Mar 2026).
Status is derived, not stored — a pause with a documented end date flips to Expired on its own — and the source is right next to the claim.
Status today
Permanent ban — city council unanimously rewrote the industrial zoning code to exclude data centers entirely
SourceNews
read 2026-08-13
An expiry date is the earliest a pause could have ended — extensions are common, so confirm with the clerk before citing it.
The project on the table
T5@ATL IV (Palmetto) — In review
Operator: T5 Data Centers · Size: 300 MW · Acres: 91
New multi-building Atlanta-area campus scalable to 300MW with on-site substation, expected operational in 2026.
Next: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.
Latest in the record
- 2026-03-01 — The Palmetto City Council unanimously approved a rewritten industrial zoning code that permanently excludes data centers from the city, following community concern that had built up around the T5 project and area data-center growth; Mayor Teresa Thomas-Smith cited an "overall disinterest" in the warehouse-like structures. · source
- 2026-01-07 — The City of Palmetto held a special city council session that advanced discussion of a potential economic development agreement tied to the T5 project. · source
- 2025-11-01 — The Atlanta Regional Commission completed its Development of Regional Impact review of the revised ATL IV application, a milestone reported as clearing the way toward construction; the Fairburn portion of the site already held full zoning/permits under existing industrial designation. · source
- 2025-05-05 — T5 submitted a revised, scaled-down DRI application for ATL IV consisting of three data center buildings totaling up to 1,320,000 sq ft along Gullatt Road, with supporting access roads, parking, utilities, and stormwater infrastructure. · source
- 2024-08-28 — T5 finalized acquisition of the 91-acre Palmetto/South Fulton County site and publicly announced the ATL IV campus, describing it as scalable up to 300MW with an on-site substation targeted for 2026 operation and liquid cooling to support AI workloads. · source
- 2024-07-16 — T5 withdrew its original DRI application, which by that point had grown to a proposed 2.95 million-sq-ft, 300MW campus across seven buildings. · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Recent news
- Palmetto Moves to Halt Data Center Development for One Year
- Palmetto Bay residents, leaders voice concerns over data centers
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 2 headlines archived.
What to do next
- Questions to ask at the hearing — force specific answers onto the record.
- Estimate the impact — electricity, water, and rate pressure for any facility size in Georgia.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Georgia briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in Georgia
- Coweta County (12 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-23
- Fayetteville (13 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- Douglas County (14 mi) — Enactedterm not documented
- Clayton County (18 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-31
- Forest Park (19 mi) — Enactedexpires soon — 2026-11-29
- Georgia (HB 1012) (23 mi) — Rejectedterm not documented
- Atlanta (23 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- Carroll County (24 mi) — Enactedfixed term, end date not recorded
All 46 tracked actions in Georgia are on the state page.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
Illustrative rather than exhaustive — dozens of localities churn weekly, and this tracks the ones we have read a source for. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to the ordinance, the enacting body's own page, or a datable report of the vote, and were read on that date. Rows marked *unverified* came from bulk compilation and have not been checked against a primary source — the locality, the year, and the status may all be off. Verify one of those with the town clerk before citing it as precedent. **Expiry is derived, not asserted.** A row with a documented end date flips to *Expired* on its own once that date passes. A time-limited moratorium whose start date was never documented keeps showing as enacted — that is a known gap, not a claim that it is still in force. Moratoriums are also routinely extended, so an expiry date is the earliest it could have ended, not proof that it did.
Part of the U.S. data center moratorium tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0.