With yet ANOTHER partisan vote on Tuesday June 15, the Board of Supervisors approved the Village Place Technology Park rezoning request which will bring four 70′ tall data center buildings totaling 1.2M sq. ft. next to homes and across from schools along Rte. 55 at the eastern end of the town of Haymarket. With this development, Gainesville will gain another transmission line and another substation to power more data centers in a location incompatible with its neighbors.
The Supervisors know what’s coming and the majority of them don’t seem to care.
The County treats us like this is a game and they are playing hide and seek with the facts. So let’s go on a scavenger hunt to review the proof that Dominion Energy told the Coalition and the County, in a Zoom meeting on 2/10/21, that a new transmission line will be required to power multiple new data center campus proposals at the intersection of 55/catharpin!
Here’s a screen shot of the map Dominion reviewed during that meeting. It’s a bit fuzzy, but tells the story nonetheless.
Can you find the bright green circles in the upper left corner? These represent multiple new data center campus proposals. There are three, totaling at least 12 new massive concrete buildings, totaling multi-millions of square footage. The data center complex approved on Tuesday is not the only one under consideration!
Can you find the name of Dominion Energy’s Manager of Electric Transmission Communications in the ribbon at the bottom of the map? Hint, his name starts with Greg.
Final proof! Do you see the dark blue line coming up from the bottom and joining the green line on the right side of the map? The straight brown line running west from the blue section that looks like a check mark is the suggested new transmission line route. Although unlikely to be exactly what will be the final route through Gainesville to provide power to this emerging data center district, this provides proof, with 100% certainty direct from Dominion Energy, that there will be at least one other new transmission line in the Gainesville area.
Even with all of this proof, this Board does not seem to care about the havoc it has just unleased on its residents.
The five supervisors on the Board who approved the Village Place Technology Park data center rezoning request sacrificed previously approved affordable housing and robust commercial mixed use, in the right place, for a data center district outside the data center overlay opportunity zone, in the wrong place.
This is no way to plan for sustainable quality communities. Where do they plan on making up the need for affordable housing that is located near transit and activity centers? This is the critical requirement that makes affordable housing affordable!
What the County does instead is provide another give away to billionaire tech companies, and a windfall for Dominion Energy as a monopoly utility raking in the dough from vulnerable rate payers forced to subsidize their expensive extension cords.
The Coalition is ready for what needs to happen next following this approval…
UPCOMING:
Next Tuesday’s 7:30 pm Board meeting will be voting on the Route 29 Small Area Plan, deciding on density and road plans for the Carver Rd. Settlement community.
Also on Monday, June 21, bring your comments and thoughts to this PWCA discussion of how to build better neighborhoods. Better burbs are key to the entire county flourishing and ensures the success of Smart Growth Principles, which includes protecting the Rural Crescent.
Building Better Burbs
Monday, June 21, 7pm. Online, register here.
Suburban Areas that expect to flourish and successfully compete with their urban counterparts to attract and retain talent, need to encourage a better approach to urban design.
Creating Walkable Mixed-Use Neighborhoods is key to success in this endeavor.
Prince William County suffers with the reputation as a car-oriented, monolithic suburban community with small-lot single family homes and townhouses located on curvilinear, cul-de-sac streets. Recent developments and future proposals are beginning to break this monotony but waiting for the “market” only to solve this dilemma is putting the future of the county’s economic vitality in the hands of a few innovative developers.
The remaining developers and home builders will continue to build 20th century style neighborhoods. There are hundreds of locations around the county in the Development Area that could be developed or redeveloped as Walkable Mixed-Use Neighborhoods providing the county with the ability to accommodate future growth while positioning itself as a community that is attractive to the millennial and Z generations.
Join the Prince William Conservation Alliance and its guest Tom Eitler for the Urban Land Institute as we discuss the opportunities for building better burbs.
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“UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”