Oct. 7, 2020
At present, it’s difficult to recall a time when citizens and local government worked collaboratively.
Yet, in 2016, that rare event did indeed occur. When an Amazon Data Center’s need for power in the western end of the county resulted in chaos, thousands of residents joined together to ensure Amazon’s “extension cord” caused the least amount of damage to residents, small businesses, the environment and our historical assets.
Citizens understood it was important to be proactive to ensure we had an updated planning strategy, not only to protect their interests but the data center industry as well. Born of that endeavor was the “Data Center Opportunity Zone.”
The adoption of the first-ever data center overlay district began when the board of supervisors passed a directive in August 2015 to craft an overlay district and required the draft include all relevant stakeholders to include the county planning staff, the Coalition to Protect PWC, Dominion Energy, the Northern Virginia Technology Council and the Prince William Chamber of Commerce.
When Chris Price, county planning director at the time, presented the results, he noted, “We stuck a balance, between community and business interest.”
The overlay district’s intent is to streamline the permitting process and invite data center businesses to areas compatible with surrounding uses and that contain the requisite infrastructure.
As recently as September, the old Stonehaven project, which engendered extensive community opposition, was quickly rezoned for data center use as it was within the overlay district. That approval process demonstrated the data center overlay district has been a success.
The district encompasses more than 10,000 acres in industrial areas with access to the appropriate infrastructure. We can applaud the results of the hard work demonstrated by the community, government, data centers and yes, even developers.
And yet, a mere four years later, a cascade of data center applications are suddenly proposed outside the overlay district even though these proposals will bring new transmission lines, substations and other costly infrastructure investments.
Most troubling are new data center applications within the rural crescent, at a time when the county and its residents are exploring strategies to highlight our unique rural assets, including by creating the first-ever “agritourism and arts overlay district.” One has to question the wisdom of proposing industrial uses in the rural crescent.
The process resulting in the Data Center Opportunity Zone was a model for how government, citizens, and business can work collectively towards a mutually beneficial goal. Let’s honor that positive example, rather than seek ways to diminish that hard-earned success.
Elena Schlossberg
Coalition to Protect PWC
Haymarket