Fulton County, Georgia – Fulton County is drawing a line around one of the fastest-growing pieces of modern infrastructure. Data centers may still be built in the county, but commissioners say local taxpayers should not be asked to sweeten the deal.
The Fulton County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution on Wednesday, August 5, opposing tax abatements and other financial incentives for data center projects from development authorities operating within the county. The measure also urges the Development Authority of Fulton County to stop considering those incentives.
Sponsored by District 1 Commissioner Bridget Thorne and District 2 Commissioner Bob Ellis, the resolution comes as data centers face growing scrutiny over their impact on surrounding communities. Commissioners pointed to concerns involving heavy water and electricity consumption, noise and additional traffic.
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Those concerns are already shaping policy elsewhere in Fulton County. Cities including Milton and Roswell have adopted moratoriums on new data centers, reflecting broader questions about how the large facilities fit into existing communities and infrastructure.
The county resolution does not prevent new data centers from being approved. Zoning and land-use authority rests with Fulton County’s 15 cities, meaning individual municipalities can still decide whether a proposed facility should move forward.
Instead, the county’s position focuses on money.
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Georgia already offers financial incentives to data centers. According to the resolution, those state incentives are estimated to cost county and municipal governments about $1.1 billion in sales tax revenue during 2026 alone.
Local development authorities have added another layer of incentives in recent years by approving property tax abatements for data center developments in Fulton County. Commissioners are now arguing that those local subsidies should end.
The Development Authority of Fulton County operates independently from county government, so the Board of Commissioners cannot directly dictate which projects receive incentives. The resolution instead formally calls on the authority to decline future requests involving data centers.
The scale of previous incentives is significant. Since 2020, the DAFC has granted about $150 million in tax breaks for data center projects. Roughly half of that total was designated for a single Microsoft development.
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That history is particularly relevant because developers have indicated that local tax incentives are not a deciding factor when choosing where to locate data centers.
Fulton County’s action therefore leaves the door open to the industry while challenging how much public support it should receive. Cities will continue making their own zoning decisions, and data center proposals can still advance.
But if county commissioners get their way, future projects will have to make their case without another layer of locally approved tax breaks.
