By: Rut Labrada, Staff writer

At a town hall meeting on April 17 at the Student Union Theatre, guest speakers and more than 70 city residents discussed concerns regarding an artificial intelligence data center to be built near the Foxborough subdivision, concluding, among other things, that the data center would not create many jobs for the City of Valdosta.

The data center, which is being spearheaded by lawyer Pope Langdale the III, has been a concern for community members since July 2025, when 720 acres of land near Coleman Road were rezoned and approved for light industrial use. 

This concern led to the founding of the organization Lowndes Citizens Against Data Centers (LCAD), who hosted the meeting as a follow-up to their previous town hall meeting in February. 

Joel Dion, Foxborough resident and LCAD organizer, opened the meeting by voicing his and the community’s concerns, notably the noise and water pollution that the data center could cause to the surrounding neighborhood and the conservation lands within the area that was rezoned. 

“Lowndes Citizens Against Data Centers submitted an open letter to the county, looking to get information on multiple topics regarding data center regulations, and also asking for a moratorium,” he said. “The response posted by the county did not mention a moratorium but did say they were going to proceed cautiously.” 

The meeting featured panelists Peter Hubbard, Georgia public service commissioner from district three, and Craig Cupid, public service commissioner candidate from district five, who spoke to the concerned residents about the economic and environmental impacts that the county could expect from the data center.  

“They’re also coming here because they’re getting a very good price on power,” he said. “They’re paying generally about 20% of what you or I pay on our power bill. It’s quite a stark difference.”

Throughout the meeting, the panelists and the audience members grappled with the question: “can data centers be good neighbors?”

One concern that many residents wondered about was whether data centers would truly bring jobs to the community, which Langdale had expressed hope about during the previous town hall meeting. Hubbard offered his thoughts on the matter.

“Data centers do create a lot of construction jobs, but once it’s created, there’s usually just a skeleton crew of people, maybe 15 or 20 people—good paying jobs, but not that many,” he said “Frankly, those data centers themselves might be taking away jobs from people that would otherwise be finding work in this economy.” 

As the meeting concluded, residents had the opportunity to ask questions or share concerns with the commissioners, and many LCAD members had questions regarding what steps were available for them to take to enforce large-scale changes that would protect the interests of local communities.

“It comes down really to elections,” said Cupid. “You have to elect the right people so we can change those laws, on every level.”

As of now, county officials have stated that official plans to build a data center have not been brought forward to them, but if they are, the county plans to proceed with caution, as such plans would require a Development of Regional Impact study to be conducted to determine the effects that the data center might have on the local environment. 

However, many residents are still concerned about the subject and are calling for the county to be transparent about any progress made and include residents in the decision-making process.