Georgia Power Says It Can Seize Her Childhood Home for an AI Power Line

Ansley Brown posted a video to Instagram in late July. In it, her mother walks through the house Brown's mother grew up in, the same Fayette County, Georgia, home that Brown herself was raised in. "This is my childhood home," Brown says in the clip. "And it's on the war path of a new Georgia Power transmission line."

Georgia Power, a state-backed, for-profit utility, says it can take that house.

The utility is invoking eminent domain, a legal power the state grants for public use, like highways or fire stations, to clear roughly 30 homes and 330 land parcels along a planned 1,000-mile transmission line that will carry nearly 10,000 megawatts of power from a new generating plant. The line, called the Ashley Park–Wansley 500 kV Transmission Line, is one of the largest grid projects in Georgia Power's history, and the utility has confirmed the build-out on its official project page.

Per a fact sheet from the Georgia Public Service Commission, the state's utility regulator, about 80% of the line's new capacity is expected to flow to data centers; the remainder would serve other customers. That ratio is the part that turns a local land dispute into an AI-buildout story.

Brown's family is among the first to go public. Georgia Power has told the family that negotiations are "concluded," according to Fortune, which first reported the project on July 26. The terms have not been disclosed; Brown's mother has suggested on social media that a nondisclosure agreement may be involved. Fortune's piece is anchored to the GPSC fact sheet, Georgia Power's own statements, and on-the-record comments from the Brown family.

The Browns say they were never offered a meaningful choice: take the offer, or have the property taken. Under Georgia's eminent domain process, if a landowner refuses a negotiated sale, the utility can petition a court to seize the parcel at a court-determined price. For a for-profit company serving a load that is roughly 80% private AI compute, that mechanism is doing a lot of work.

Congressman Brian Jack, a Republican whose district includes parts of the affected corridor, has fielded multiple constituent help requests. Jack previously served as White House Political Director under President Trump. Georgia Power, in a statement to Fortune, acknowledged Jack's "advocacy on behalf of his constituent" and said it would "continue to engage with him and his office." The Browns' case has since drawn coverage from CBS News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, local WSB-TV, and Fayette News.

The eminent-domain question is not new. Utilities have long had the power to seize land for transmission projects, and courts have generally upheld it for "public use." The Browns' case changes the math: a 1,000-mile line that exists primarily to feed private hyperscale data centers is, on the Georgia PSC's own numbers, roughly four-fifths private compute. The remaining fifth has to carry the full weight of the "public use" argument.

Brown's mother has not yet moved. In the Instagram video, she is still walking through rooms. Brown is asking supporters to contact Georgia Power and the governor's office before her family is forced off the land. The Georgia PSC has not yet scheduled its next hearing on the broader transmission plan.

Ashley Park–Wansley is one project. The template is national. As more states weigh how to power the AI buildout, the same legal mechanism, a utility condemning private land to serve a load that is mostly private, is going to arrive in more front yards.