AI data center could swallow up century-old property and family cemetery in Georgia
The race for data center infrastructure in the United States is moving fast, and rural communities are getting caught off guard along the way. What once seemed limited to major urban hubs or industrial corridors is now knocking on the doors of families who have lived on inherited land for generations, with no warning and very little room to react.
That is exactly what is happening to Debbie Jackson, a resident of Muscogee County, Georgia, who found out in February that her 15-acre property sits in the path of Project Ruby, a mega-development valued at $5.18 billion with 650 megawatts of capacity, being developed by Habitat Real Estate Partners. The land has belonged to her husband’s family since the mid-1800s and holds something no real estate contract can replace: a cemetery with 22 graves, less than two miles from the planned perimeter of the project.
This is not just a matter of square footage or market valuation. It is about memory, identity, and the right to know what is going to happen to the place where you live before the decisions have already been made.
Since learning the news, Debbie has been living with a growing list of concerns that go well beyond sentiment:
- Fire safety in the surrounding area
- Constant noise and light pollution
- Risk of water contamination
- Decline in property values across the region
In an interview with the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Debbie summed up the situation bluntly: everything feels uncertain. And what makes this even more delicate is where she stands in the timeline. When a project of this scale enters the permitting process, the clock starts ticking, and the window for action shrinks with every approved step. Debbie’s case is real, urgent, and unfortunately becoming less and less rare. 🏡
What is driving the expansion of data centers into rural areas
Over the past few years, the demand for data processing has exploded. The rise of artificial intelligence, streaming services, cloud computing, and everything that depends on digital infrastructure has pushed major companies and specialized real estate funds to look for land in less populated areas to build their data centers. And when we say less populated areas, we are talking directly about rural communities, which historically have fewer resources to push back against this kind of investment and, in many cases, less access to information about what is being planned in their neighborhoods.
The appeal of these regions for developers is pretty straightforward: cheaper land, less municipal red tape, state tax incentives, and in many cases, proximity to high-capacity electrical power sources. A data center like Project Ruby, with 650 megawatts of capacity, needs a staggering amount of energy to operate, and rural communities are often located near substations and transmission lines that can handle that kind of demand.
The problem is that this equation, so convenient for investors, rarely includes the interests of the people who already live there in any genuine way. States like Georgia, Texas, Ohio, and even Wyoming are seeing this trend gain momentum, with companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta competing for space alongside specialized developers like Habitat Real Estate Partners.
On top of that, the accelerated pace at which these projects move through the permitting process leaves little room for local residents to organize, consult experts, or demand more detailed impact studies. In many American states, zoning rules for this type of development are still being written, creating a legal gray area that favors whoever has more economic and legal power at the negotiating table. 📡
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Once the project is approved, the power to act shrinks drastically
When a major development like a data center is proposed near your home, a lot of people’s natural reaction is to wait and see what happens. But that wait can be costly. Once the project clears the approval process, the window for intervention closes almost entirely.
Howard Jacobson, chief operating officer of Stronglast Builders, is straightforward about this: if the municipal approval process was followed and completed correctly, the best opportunity to challenge the data center has already passed. He explains that the zoning process, which includes public hearings, special use permits, and site development plans, is the primary venue where citizens can gather information and raise formal objections.
After the project clears that stage, the remaining options for neighbors basically come down to litigation. Jacobson describes that route as expensive and rarely successful when both the developer and the municipality followed proper procedures. A judge may temporarily delay the implementation of an already-approved land use to allow litigants to present their arguments, but municipal land use decisions are, broadly speaking, very difficult to overturn.
Litigation is not entirely useless, though. Even if it cannot stop a project, it can generate enough public pressure to push the developer toward modest concessions. That could look like wider buffer zones or additional noise mitigation measures. In the specific case of Project Ruby, the local planning commission voted 5-to-1 to expand the proposed buffer zone from 75 feet to 500 feet, although Debbie Jackson considers that expansion insufficient.
There is one important exception in this scenario. Jillian Hishaw, an attorney specializing in agricultural and land use law and author of the book Systematic Land Theft, explains that when the development involves federal funding, residents gain more legal avenues to challenge it. With private money, environmental studies and assessments are often bypassed. With federal money, there is more legal ground to litigate. However, even that route has gotten harder. A 2025 executive order, according to Hishaw, now allows the federal government to bypass all federal environmental assessments, further shrinking the room for affected communities to maneuver. ⚖️
Property values at risk: what the data says so far
One of the most concrete concerns raised by Debbie and others in similar situations is the potential decline in property values around a data center. And this is not an unfounded worry.
The honest answer right now is that nobody knows for sure what the impact will be, because the data center boom is too recent for clear patterns to have emerged in the numbers. But projections from people who follow the issue closely are not encouraging.
Hishaw, who has spent 13 years providing legal services to rural landowners through her nonprofit organization, predicts that property values near these facilities will decline over time, especially as the cumulative effects on natural resources, water, and land use become more apparent. In her assessment, within a few years the impact will push prices down because there simply will not be enough natural resources left to farm or to sustain life in the surrounding area.
Debbie Jackson herself is already weighing whether to stay or sell, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. That decision is complicated by an $800-per-month mortgage that will not be paid off until 2044, combined with the belief that the data center will devalue her property regardless.
For homeowners trying to assess their own exposure to this kind of risk, the most relevant comparison may be other large industrial or infrastructure neighbors: power plants, logistics distribution centers, and cell towers. These developments have documented track records of negatively affecting adjacent residential property values, generally more severely the closer the distance.
In the specific case of data centers, the constant noise from cooling systems and backup generators is a factor that concerns real estate appraisal experts. A 650-megawatt complex like Project Ruby does not operate quietly: it involves hundreds of cooling units running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without interruption. For anyone living just a few miles away, that kind of disturbance can make a property far less attractive to potential buyers. 💸
Permitting and community participation: where the problem lives
The permitting process for developments like Project Ruby is, in theory, a space where the community can speak up, present objections, and demand that certain conditions be met before final approval. In practice, however, this process often favors those who have the resources to hire attorneys, environmental consultants, and urban planning specialists. Residents of rural communities, like Debbie Jackson, rarely have access to that kind of specialized support quickly enough to influence decisions while there is still room to do so.
In Muscogee County, as in other American counties facing similar situations, public hearings on data center projects are often announced with short notice, held at times and locations that make it difficult for working families to attend, and conducted in technical language that is not accessible to most people. The result is that by the time residents grasp the full scale of the impact being approved, most of the decisions have already been made. Permitting becomes a formality rather than a genuine process of consultation and participation.
This is a structural problem that goes well beyond Debbie’s specific case and is repeating itself in dozens of counties as the demand for digital infrastructure continues to grow.
What property owners can do before it is too late
If you live in an area where data center development is expanding, and that increasingly includes rural communities across the South and Midwest of the United States, the time to act is before a project enters the permitting process.
The first and most important step is to monitor local zoning meetings. Most land use battles are won or lost at the municipal level, before most residents even know a project is being proposed. Signing up for alerts from the county planning and zoning board and showing up to meetings makes a real difference.
As Jacobson emphasizes, the zoning process is the primary means by which citizens can obtain information about and challenge any rezoning, special use permit, or site development plan.
It is also worth knowing what exists on your land before a developer comes knocking. Debbie Jackson’s situation is more complex because of the historic family cemetery and the possibility of unmarked Indigenous graves on the property.
Hishaw advises property owners in similar situations to request an archaeological survey before permits are approved and to contact the state historic preservation office. If there is any possibility of Indigenous remains, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the relevant tribal historic preservation office should also be contacted. If the land is recognized as sacred and listed on the national register, that can become a legitimate obstacle for the developer.
Public records requests, known in the U.S. as FOIA requests, are another underused tool. Public records can reveal which environmental assessments were completed and whether the developer received any kind of waiver. In privately funded projects, Hishaw notes that these studies are frequently skipped, meaning neighbors may not have the full picture of what was or was not analyzed.
And finally, do not face this alone. Hishaw is finalizing a model public policy document that property owners can use as a guide when attending planning and zoning meetings, a clear sign of how widespread this problem has become. According to her, the situation has already reached epidemic proportions. 📋
What rural communities are left with in this equation
It is important to be clear that the expansion of data centers is not inherently a bad thing for the regions where they are built. In many cases, these developments create local jobs, boost municipal tax revenue, and bring improvements to energy and connectivity infrastructure for the entire area. The problem is not the technology itself but the way these projects arrive, often without transparency, without genuine dialogue with the affected rural communities, and without effective mechanisms for residents to protect their interests.
Debbie Jackson’s case highlights a tension that is only going to intensify in the coming years. The demand for data center infrastructure is not going to slow down. On the contrary, with the advancement of artificial intelligence models and the explosion of data consumption on a global scale, the pressure for new sites and new facilities is going to increase significantly. That means more families in rural communities will find themselves in the same position as Debbie: confronted by billion-dollar projects that arrive quickly, move through permitting efficiently, and leave little room for questions.
For Debbie, the options are limited, but the project has not yet received final approval, which means there is still an ongoing public process to engage with. The window for meaningful intervention, however, shrinks with every procedural step.
For everyone else watching the data center boom expand toward their communities, the lesson Debbie Jackson’s situation offers is not that neighbors are powerless, but that power in these situations is time-sensitive. The property owners who fare best in these cases are the ones who show up at the first meeting, not the one that happens after the permits have already been signed.
Understanding how this process works, what property owners’ rights are, and how the impact on property values can be documented and challenged is, in this landscape, a concrete way to prepare for a reality that is already knocking on the doors of many American families. 🏘️
