The Effingham County Board of Commissioners in Georgia voted unanimously on the first Tuesday of November 2026 to delay a decision on the site plan for Project Camellia, a data center campus valued at about $20 billion. The board will take the item up again on November 17.
The developer is OpenAI, working through Octans GA LLC. The preliminary plan covers roughly 1,347 acres in the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub and includes six data center buildings, a warehouse, an operations building, two electrical substations, cooling infrastructure and about 1,600 parking spaces. Buildings in the revised plan rise to 42 feet.
Commissioner Roger Burdette made the motion to table after raising concerns about noise protections and safety. The site borders dense residential neighborhoods along Hodgeville Road, and the written plan contained no berm commitment. A company representative initially could not confirm one, then promised a 20-foot berm after a recess. Burdette said a verbal promise was not enough and that he could not support the plan without an approved berm.
On power, the article gave no total capacity figure. OpenAI previously committed to battery storage for backup power, and a company representative said generators would serve life safety and security systems rather than the data center buildings. Commissioners and residents also raised questions about water and sewer service and wetland impacts.
Opposition was visible at the meeting. Protect Effingham welcomed the delay, and a resident-led petition with more than 1,500 signatures seeks ordinance changes that would ban data centers in all zoning districts. Commissioner Beth Helmly said a data center moratorium would be discussed at the next meeting.
Source: Construction Review Online -- https://constructionreviewonline.com/effingham-county-tables-openai-20bn-project-camellia-data-center-vote-until-nov-17/