Swain public hearing brings moratorium support, data center opposition
Hyper-scale data centers have become a focal issue in communities nationwide.
File photo
A March 31 Swain County public hearing for a data center moratorium drew a crowd of around 140 people, a turnout proportionate to 12,900 residents in Wake County, confronting commissioners to plead their case.
Attendees filled the six rows facing commissioners, leaving a couple dozen straining to watch the event behind the open double-doors. All had shown up to be part of the conversation about hyper-scale data centers and out of concern for about how these facilities could impact every aspect of their livelihoods.
Hyper-scale data centers have become a defining contemporary issue in communities nationwide. Data centers were around long before this moment, but as smaller, quieter facilities, hidden inside office parks. However, the massive proliferation of AI hyperscale data centers — and the massive cost of these centers themselves, with a continuous power demand of around 100 megawatts and a daily water consumption of 5 million gallons — has placed them at the top of the list of priorities for local politicians.
Global corporations like Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon are behind these projects, which tend to target Black and indigenous rural, low-income communities, a truth that is not lost on Swain residents. The county fits three out of four listed criteria — low-income, rural and while mostly white, also includes a large part of the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
What’s more, former industrial sites in Swain County — and all of Appalachia — are attractive data center locations. In Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky, corporations are seeking out abandoned coal mines for future hyper-scale operations.
While data centers moderately expand a county’s tax base — Cherokee County’s Marble facility, for example, paid approximately $362,000 in combined 2023 personal and property taxes — residents consistently complain that the harm outweighs the good. Among other things, these facilities strain power grids, lower property values, inflate ambient temperatures, pollute the environment and produce noise pollution.
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While Swain County’s moratorium doesn’t prohibit data centers outright, it provides a year of protection while the county investigates how it’ll respond to the growing threat of AI expansion.
As favored by the majority at the public hearing, commissioners might subsequently choose to ban high-impact facilities indefinitely. Alternatively, they could choose to allow data centers in certain districts but impose regulations.
Over almost two hours, commissioners heard from over 30 constituents, more than a handful of whom had registered with the false belief they were completing a sign-in sheet — and only one of whom was opposed to the moratorium. Their testimony showed that Swain County has been paying attention.
“My sister lives on Fairview, the Marble side, and I could hear [the data center] there. It’s miles away from her house. Now she is up on a mountain, but you could still hear it. You could see lights,” said Carla Piercy.
As names were called and speeches read, attendees clapped and cheered, sometimes interrupting with encouraging words.
Courtney Dills highlighted the painful and unforgiving past of many rooted generationally in this part of Western North Carolina — forced removal through the Trail of Tears in the 1800s and, a century later, evacuations in service of the fledgling Great Smoky Mountains National Park. For Dills, this history has facilitated an inseverable connection to the earth. “I don’t have a memory in my life, no matter what stage of my life I’ve been in, that has not involved these rivers and rocks and trees,” she said.
Another speaker, Mariah Hanson, encouraged attendees not to forget the motivations of their adversaries.
“When we boil everything down to it, it’s us, the average people that are hard-working, against billionaires,” she said. “No matter how these incredibly rich people spin it, these centers are just for one thing, and that’s to make them richer. It has nothing to do with us.”
“I think we’re David fighting Goliath, and I think we can do this. We have all we need here, and we can’t replace our environment with anything else, not any money in the world,” Kathy Peterson said, echoing Hanson’s sentiment.
The most powerful testimony came from Celia Baker, a Swain County resident with over 30 years of professional experience in global data security and information technology. She spoke about high impact facilities from a place of personal knowledge and firsthand witness.
“The data center developers are targeting rural counties, poor rural counties, low on the tax burden, low on the educated workplace burden, high on the natural resource availability, because they are coming in to exploit that. That is what they do. That’s what they’ve always done,” she said.
Baker received a standing ovation from multiple members of the audience.
W. Kent Maxey, former candidate for Bryson City alderman, was the sole voice against the moratorium. His words were met with intermittent shouting and jeers and other interruptions.
“Tonight, I’d like to ask our elected officials and everyone else here to consider one simple question, ‘Are we about to say no to something that we fully do not understand yet?’ Because once we make that decision, this permanent ban that I keep hearing, we can’t go back,” he said.
Moratorium language
In a Jan. 20 meeting, Swain Commission Vice Chair Tanner Lawson mentioned a suggestion, first made by Courtney Dills, to buy the old airport property, ensuring that the county could deny permitting to high-impact industrial uses.
Commissioners in an early February meeting briefly discussed the possibility of passing an ordinance to prevent the development of data centers. The conversation continued throughout the next few weeks, and after the town of Canton passed its own moratorium, these facilities became a hot-button issue.
A year-long moratorium bars the county from accepting, processing, or approving any applications for “1) building permits (except for interior renovations that do not expand capacity or impact exterior appearance/noise); and 2) Environmental health permits; and 3) Any other development approval required by law for the establishment, construction, erection, alteration or expansion of any data center, cryptocurrency mining facility or other high-impact data processing facility” within all unincorporated areas of Swain County.
It exempts existing permitted facilities and applications approved before the moratorium is passed. Months one through six involve studying potential effects of high-impact facilities. Commissioners will draft “land use ordinances and/or amendments and performance standards to regulate these facilities” in months six and seven, with public input accepted and workshops held from months seven through 10. During the final two months, commissioners will hold public hearings to consider and adopt such ordinances.
Multiple residents offered comments about how the process might unfold. The first, Fred Crawford, advocated for a citizens’ committee that would draft land use ordinances in clear, concise legal language and bring those to the board. Anne Herzog, adding that any solution must be individualized to the geographic area, reiterated Crawford’s suggestion.
“I also believe we do need some sort of ad hoc community committee to be part of researching this while the moratorium is put in place,” she said.
The idea was so popular that some even volunteered to be part of such a committee, even though it was not listed as part of the moratorium document.
Regardless of who surveys the area, they’ll be starting with essentially a blank slate. Outside of Bryson City, the county lacks any sort of zoning. Weak or absent regulation puts any jurisdiction in a vulnerable position pending a moratorium — but Swain’s specific situation provides some advantages when commissioners enter the planning stage.
While North Carolina doesn’t prohibit banning data centers outright like several other states, the General Assembly recently weakened one avenue of opposition. A small section within the 2024 Disaster Recovery Act, passed as a response to Hurricane Helene, prevents municipalities from “down-zoning” parcels without written consent from all property owners. In application, this means a county acting alone cannot restrict use of a parcel by changing its zoning classification.
To effectively restrict data center development, local governments often define “data center” as a specific land-use category and exclude it from permitted uses within industrial zoning districts. However, this could be interpreted as “down-zoning” as defined by the statute if those districts previously allowed similar high-impact uses.
For example, Jackson County permits cryptocurrency mining with several imposed regulations. A future attempt to restrict data centers could fall under “down-zoning” given that both industries could be interpreted as high-impact uses under municipal code. However, Swain County, without comprehensive zoning ordinances, would not be subject to this legislation.
According to public record, Swain commissioners have not received a single letter of interest — nor any form of communication — from corporate owners of data centers.
A data center moratorium on the Qualla Boundary, which includes parts of Swain County, was listed on the EBCI April 2 tribal council agenda, though it was not discussed during the meeting.
The Swain board will vote on the county-wide moratorium at its April 21 work session.
