Elena Schlossberg-Kunkel, executive director of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, one of several groups organizing against opening the county’s rural area to data centers, speaks during a Nov. 10 event at Sunshine Ridge Winery in Gainesville.
A coalition of local, regional and national conservation groups are organizing the opposition against a plan for data centers and other industrial uses in Prince William County’s “rural crescent,” laying the groundwork for what may become a major land-use brawl in the coming months.
The Prince William Conservation Alliance, The Coalition to Protect Prince William County, the Piedmont Environmental Council, a regional nonprofit – as well as the American Battlefield Trust and the National Parks Conservation Association, two national associations – held an informational event at Sunshine Ridge Winery in Gainesville on Wednesday, Nov. 10, attended by around 130 people.
The organizations are sounding the alarm about the impact of “industrial sprawl” on rural communities, historic sites, wildlife and the Occoquan watershed in Prince William County, where thousands of acres are being considered for potential data centers and other industrial uses.
Speakers from each group spent about 10 minutes addressing the audience at the winery before taking questions and comments.
They outlined several major new developments that could impact Prince William County’s rural area, including a plan to expand the county’s existing, 10,000-acre “Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District,” as well as proposed changes being considered for the county’s first comprehensive plan update in more than 10 years.
Most concerning, they said, is a proposal known as the “PW Digital Gateway,” which could see up to 2,000 acres of land in the rural crescent re-planned from agricultural to “tech/flex” industrial uses. The area runs along rural, two-lane Pageland Lane and abuts Manassas National Battlefield Park and Conway Robinson State Forest. The plan is being pursued by more than 80 homeowners who say they want to sell their homes for data center uses.
Environmental impact, land speculation top concerns
The Pageland Lane corridor is environmentally sensitive. It consists of mostly former farmland and undeveloped land and is crisscrossed by Little Bull Run, a tributary to the Occoquan Reservoir, which is a source of drinking water for much of Northern Virginia. The area directly borders about 5,500 acres of protected forested land and open space at Manassas National Battlefield Park and Conway Robinson State Forest.
Conservationists say new industrial uses in the area will dramatically increase the amount of stormwater and pollution runoff into nearby waterways and could impact the viewshed from the parks.
“As the county continues to add [impervious surface], we’ll continue to see more flash floods and more pollution in the county. I think collectively we have to view that as a potential concern,” said Kyle Hart, a field representative for the National Parks Conservation Association.
Hart added that the National Parks Conservation Association wants to preserve the park so it feels the same way it did when fighting occurred there during the Civil War.
Some speakers at the event also alleged that land speculation is the driving factor behind the digital gateway proposal – not data center companies.
There have been multiple rezoning requests for new data centers in the county in the past year, and data center users are buying up vacant land in Prince William County at a rapid pace, with prices nearing $1 million an acre, as demand for internet services continues to increase. Northern Virginia is the data center capital of the world, centered in Loudoun County, but data center users are increasingly looking to neighboring counties for more space.
Troy Hill, director of data center operations at Manassas’ Iron Mountain data center campus, a special guest at the event, said he believes data centers are not looking to develop in the county’s rural areas, however.
Hill said he was not speaking on behalf of Iron Mountain but as a private citizen of Prince William County.
“Data centers aren’t going out and requesting the land on Pageland. That’s not happening. We have plenty of land,” Hill said. “This is people wanting to get value out of their homes; people seeing the price tag of what they think they can get.”
Hill said local land speculators are asking for far more money than some data center users are willing to pay, and that there are opportunities to expand within the county’s existing overlay district.
Bolthouse echoed those statements. She said the reason for expanding the data center overlay district into the rural areas of the county “is so that speculative developers can make additional money off of flipping lower-priced land in the rural area to higher valued industrial land.”
The PW Digital Gateway proposal is spearheaded by two longtime Pageland Lane residents, Mary Ann Ghadban, a commercial land broker and developer, and Page Snyder. Since pitching their idea in March, they have been joined by an increasing number of homeowners who live along the Pageland Lane corridor who also want to be included in the plan.
They also say that the Dominion Energy transmission line that traverses the corridor makes it an ideal place for data centers. Data centers require lots of electricity in order to operate.
Some call for Gainesville supervisor’s resignation
The digital gateway plan also recently garnered the support of Supervisor Pete Candland, R-Gainesville, who lives in the Pageland Lane corridor. He was previously among the staunchest opponents of the plan before offering his own home, located in Catharpin Farm Estates, for future data center development.
Candland and his neighbors filed a comprehensive plan amendment with the county on Nov. 4 to replan their homes for data centers or other industrial uses. Days later, Candland said he would recuse himself from voting on the PW Digital Gateway proposal when it comes before the board of county supervisors.
Earlier this year, Candland said he would fight any data center development in the rural area “tooth and nail.” As recently as Oct. 21, Candland held a chili cook-off fundraiser advertised with a pitch that, “Your contribution will help Pete stand up against Dominion Power and other organizations looking to diminish your quality of life.”
Since then, Candland has faced calls to resign from some Gainesville District residents, including from some who attended the Nov. 10 event. About a dozen opponents attended the Nov. 9 board of supervisors meeting wearing matching T-shirts calling on Candland to resign.
Candland’s staff declined to comment in an email about whether Candland would resign and referred the Prince William Times to Candland’s Nov. 7 Facebook post explaining his decision.
Decisions likely months away
The Democratic majority on the board of county supervisors has supported initiatives to look countywide – including in the rural area — for new land to support industrial and residential development. Only Supervisor Victor Angry, D-Neabsco, however, has championed the plan for data centers on Pageland Lane. He has said the proposal would be a major boost to the county’s commercial tax base.
At-large board Chair Ann Wheeler (D) said in a recent interview with the Bull Run Observer that the “digital gateway… would bring substantial economic investment to the county.” Wheeler has not yet stated her explicit support for the plan.
Not all Democratic elected officials like the idea, however. Del. Danica Roem, D-13th, who represents parts of western Prince William County, said in an interview earlier this fall that she would fight any proposal that could require new transmission lines to be built along the I-66 corridor in Gainesville.
The CPA requests for data center uses on Pageland Lane – as well as the data center district expansion and the county’s updated comprehensive plan — will be considered separately by the planning commission and board of county supervisors. Both bodies will also conduct public hearings before taking final votes.
Kim Hosen, executive director of the Prince William Conservation Alliance, and Elena Schlossberg-Kunkel, executive director of The Coalition to Protect PWC, ended Wednesday’s event by encouraging county residents to become more involved in the decision-making process and to make their voices heard by local elected officials.
“This isn’t just about me and you. This is about everybody who gets drinking water from the Occoquan reservoir. This is about everybody who breathes air. This is about making a change and being a model for something in the 21st century,” Schlossberg-Kunkel said. “This plan is 20th century, and we cannot afford 20th century anymore.”
Reach Daniel Berti at dberti@fauquier.com