County’s infrastructure gaps, legal preparedness cited amid growing regional interest in tech development

By Miles Layton

GATESVILLE — A Gates County commissioner came away from a pair of data center meetings this week with more questions than answers, raising doubts about whether the rural county has the infrastructure — or the legal groundwork — to responsibly welcome one of the technology industry’s fastest-growing development trends.

Commissioner Dave Forsythe attended two meetings on Wednesday, one in Virginia earlier in the day and another that evening at Merchants Millpond State Park, where local leaders gathered to discuss the implications of potential data center development in the region.
“This issue is headed our way,” Forsythe said.
His frank assessment arrived roughly five months after the Gates County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a one-year moratorium on data center development — a pause intended to give county leaders time to research potential environmental, infrastructure and economic impacts before any formal proposal could land on their desk. See our story here about the moratorium.

The meetings suggested the county is now actively using that time, though Forsythe made clear the work of understanding what data center development would truly mean for Gates County is far from complete.
“Overall, while I was appreciative of some discussion, I was disappointed that more of the concerns noted by Gates County persons were not specifically discussed,” he said.

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What Is a Data Center?
For many rural counties, the term “data center” may still be unfamiliar. At their most basic, data centers are large warehouses packed with computer servers that store and process information for online businesses — providing cloud storage, computing power and connectivity for the digital economy.
But their physical footprint comes with significant demands. Data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity and generate extreme heat, requiring large volumes of water to keep servers from overheating. Nationally, data centers consumed roughly 17 billion gallons of water in 2023, according to Pew Research. A 2025 paper published through Science Direct found that data centers accounted for 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024 and are expected to represent nearly 10% of electricity demand growth between 2024 and 2030.
Beyond power and water, the facilities can produce significant noise and air pollution. The generators and cooling systems that keep data centers running can reach sound levels of up to 96 A-weighted decibels — well above public health thresholds — with persistent noise that can affect workers, nearby residents and local wildlife.

Infrastructure Gaps
Among Forsythe’s most pressing concerns were the county’s infrastructure limitations — gaps he said could make Gates County an unlikely or problematic candidate for large-scale data center development.
Electrical capacity topped the list. A presentation at the Virginia meeting revealed that Dominion Power currently faces an approximately 10-year lead time for manufacturing the equipment and constructing the transmission lines and towers needed to power major data center facilities. That timeline, Forsythe noted, places such capacity well out of reach for Gates County in the near term.
Water availability presents a similar challenge. While Forsythe acknowledged that some modern facilities are designed to recycle water and reduce consumption, he said the county’s current water capacity appears insufficient for larger installations. Sewer demands, by contrast, were described as minimal — particularly for facilities that reuse water on-site.
High-capacity communications infrastructure is also absent. Data centers require robust connectivity to major users such as universities, military installations and cities — links that Forsythe said do not currently exist in Gates County.
“We don’t have the connected infrastructure,” he said, ticking through each deficiency in turn. “We have limited electricity, limited water, and we don’t have the high-capacity communication connections to major users.”

Legal Preparedness
Infrastructure was not Forsythe’s only concern. He also warned that local ordinances must be carefully and precisely written before the county faces pressure from well-resourced developers.
“Corporate strength of data center corporations can push for siting approvals if local ordinances are not solidly prepared,” he said.
Forsythe noted that some companies have argued their facilities qualify as warehouses rather than industrial operations — a classification that has, in some jurisdictions, forced the approval of projects that local governments might otherwise have restricted. Some localities, he said, have had to revise their ordinances as many as three times before achieving adequate protections.
He also cautioned about the role of land speculators in the process. Developers, he warned, may seek to secure pre-approvals on sites with the intention of selling those parcels to data center corporations at a profit — a dynamic that could leave the county with little leverage once the process is underway.
That legal vulnerability exists within a complicated state landscape. A bill passed by the North Carolina General Assembly following Hurricane Helene — Senate Bill 382 — limited some local government authority to zone by requiring that any zoning change reducing allowed land uses or density obtain written consent from affected property owners. Critics have said the law is too broad; supporters argue it protects private property rights. Either way, it means local governments cannot implement protective zoning changes unilaterally.
Several local governments across North Carolina have already moved to limit data center development. The Town of Canton and Chatham County have each enacted one-year bans on new data center construction as they study the issue.

Jobs, Taxes and ‘Bait’
The economic case for data centers, Forsythe suggested, deserves close scrutiny before Gates County considers extending any incentives.
Job creation, he said, is modest by most measures. Presentations indicated that small facilities may employ as few as five people, with larger installations topping out around 25 positions — numbers Forsythe implied may not justify significant public concessions.
“The number of people employed at these facilities is not large,” he said. “The largest ones employ around 25 people. That’s not a lot of jobs.”
On tax revenue, he urged restraint. “Tax revenues may be limited,” he said, adding that any incentives should be carefully weighed and not extended too readily. He noted that the lure of new tax base can sometimes lead local governments to offer more than a project ultimately warrants — particularly when job creation falls short of initial projections.
Forsythe was similarly skeptical of grants and community perks — for recreational facilities or transportation improvements — that data center companies sometimes offer as part of the approval process.
“My opinion is these are bait,” he said, though he acknowledged that other officials view such offerings as worthwhile considerations for communities that might otherwise see little direct benefit from a large industrial facility in their midst.

Noise and Less-Obvious Impacts
Sound emerged as another area of concern. Forsythe said larger data centers produce a persistent low-frequency hum that can carry into surrounding communities, and that soil berms and sound walls are among the mitigation measures used in other localities.
More troubling, he said, were informal reports from the Virginia meeting of sound frequencies outside the range of human hearing — infrasound or ultrasound — that have allegedly caused window vibrations and distress to animals in communities near existing facilities.
“There were concerns raised — not in any formal study, just verbally — about sound frequencies that humans can’t hear causing window vibrations and problems for animals,” Forsythe said. He was careful to note those concerns had not been formally documented, but said they underscored the need for Gates County to take a thorough, unhurried approach to the issue rather than moving quickly under development pressure.

One Positive Account
Not all voices at the meetings were cautionary. One presenter who had served as town manager in Zebulon, N.C., when a smaller data center was sited there offered a generally positive account of that experience — a perspective Forsythe acknowledged but did not appear to find fully reassuring given the scale of development now being proposed in rural counties across the region.
“There was a positive experience shared from Zebulon,” he said. “I appreciated hearing that. But a smaller facility in a more developed area may not translate directly to what we could be looking at here.”

The Moratorium’s Origins
The meetings came roughly five months after Gates County commissioners took their first concrete step on the issue. In December, the board voted unanimously to approve a one-year temporary moratorium on data center development following an emotional public hearing and an extended board discussion during a special-called meeting at the historic Gates County Courthouse in Gatesville.
That moratorium halts development approvals for data centers and similar high-capacity facilities, giving county leaders time to research potential environmental, infrastructure and economic impacts and to consider whether future ordinances are needed to protect Gates County’s rural character and natural resources.
County officials emphasized at the time that no data center proposal was before the commission. However, growing regional interest and recent inquiries into the county’s development landscape prompted commissioners to act before any formal application could arrive.

Lessons Learned
Forsythe closed his assessment with a call for Gates County to absorb the lessons other localities have learned the hard way — and to resist the temptation to move faster than the county’s understanding of the issue warrants.
“Lessons learned from other localities are important as we move forward,” he said. “We need to make sure our ordinances are in place and solid before we’re in a position where we’re being pushed.”
For residents across northeastern North Carolina, his takeaway carried a broader warning — that the era of data center development is no longer a distant or abstract concern reserved for urban counties and major corridors. The technology industry’s appetite for land, power and water is expanding outward, and rural counties with undeveloped land and proximity to growing mid-Atlantic data center markets are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs.
The question, as Gates County works through its moratorium year, is whether the county will be ready when that development pressure arrives in earnest.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​