Petition, Final Push Against Data Center, with Council vote next week.
Community members are invited to sign an online petition which will be submitted to the council before Monday’s final vote.
On Monday, December 2nd - a week from yesterday - the Atlanta City Council will choose which side prevails…
On one side: Councilman Antonio Lewis and the commercial property owner on behalf of whom he is pursuing 24-O-1481 /Z-24-66, legislation which would allow for a Data Center next to the West End MARTA Station.
On the other: the residents of multiple neighborhoods, community organizations, and Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs), as well as the Atlanta Department of City Planning and the Atlanta Zoning Review Board.
Yesterday, with barely a quorum present, the City Council’s Zoning Committee recommended that the full council approve 24-O-1481 /Z-24-66. The vote was 2-1-1 (two in favor, one abstaining, and one opposed). The committee’s vote came after Council Member Lewis personally appeared at the meeting to request that the committee disregard the recommendations of the Planner’s Office, the Zoning Review Board, and the two impacted Neighborhood Planning Units (NPU-T & NPU-V). Before the vote, the proposed ordinance was amended so that Council Members Wan, Amos, and Winston could have their names removed as sponsors - an indication suggesting that upon further review of the ordinance, they may no longer support it.
With just a week before the deciding vote by full council, the community is organizing a final push against the legislation by signing petitions, writing cards, calling undecided council members, coordinating with advocacy groups, and reaching out to the press. Their rallying cry is perhaps best summed up by Pouya Dianat, President of the Adair Park Neighborhood Association, who at the November 14th Zoning Review Board meeting had this to say:
We want streets that have vitality. We want developments that breathe life into the soul of our neighborhood. And a data center surrounded by chain link fence, razor wire - with no access for anyone - limited jobs, no retail, no affordable housing, does not provide that…
The biggest leeches on electricity right now are data centers. 10% of the expected growth of [electricity] use in this state is tied to data centers. There are environmental concerns…noise, the use of water, the increase of electricity…that all make this not a good fit. The planner’s report backs this up entirely…
Every day that we go down Ralph David Abernathy and we see that corner not being redeveloped, not providing that vitality, not doing the things that the West End LCI set out to do and told us would happen is another day that we’re setting us back. Even worse, a data center coming in is a block on those things for decades. These are not decisions that yield a return on investment in a year or two; they’ll be there for decades. So when my children are grown, when West End Mall is redeveloped, when Atrium Health has done doing a great job of turning the Met into what it can be, when Abrams Fixtures, Slim and Husky’s, Sammy Sandwiches, the Residences of West End…are all standing up, we’ll all look at this corner and say: “What happened? Why did our councilmen allow the interests of one business to shape the destiny of a neighborhood?