Prince William Supervisor Jeanine Lawson and Virginia Del. Danica Roem are leading a bipartisan fight against a potential data center complex along Pageland Lane.
On Wednesday night, they took the fight to the Heritage Hunt clubhouse, where nearly 300 people came to learn more about the proposed PW Digital Gateway, which would be near their community.
Dozens of landowners along Pageland Lane in western Prince William, including Gainesville District Supervisor Pete Candland, have filed requests to change the land designation of their properties in the county’s Comprehensive Plan from agricultural use to technology use.
Candland’s decision to sign onto the application means he is barred from participating in discussions or votes on the proposal. The proposal is in his district.
The requests would support more than 27.6 million square feet of data centers, which would be nearly as much data center space as is currently in use or under construction in neighboring Loudoun County, the world’s largest concentration of such facilities.
A Comprehensive Plan amendment does not rezone properties. It only changes what the county says it hopes for future use of the land. The properties would still require zoning approval to allow data centers.
“It’s beautiful,” Roem, a Democrat, said of western Prince William. “Leave it the hell alone.”
Lawson, a Republican, said it was a “disappointment” that Candland signed onto what she called the “most absurd development project.”
Wednesday’s town hall started with a presentation by John Lyver, chair of the new Heritage Hunt data center working group.
The town hall appeared to be the first time many in attendance had heard about the proposal. When Lyver showed a map and then highlighted the area under consideration, it was met with surprised exclamations.
Lyver provided a general overview of the project, before primarily focusing on its potential detriments. He said the buildings could lead to flooding, would take over views and be brightly lighted all night.
“You can forget about looking at stars,” he said.
Data centers are essentially large warehouses that hold the hardware needed to support computer systems. Other than real estate taxes, Prince William County’s primary levy on data centers is the business tangible property tax, projected to produce $63.4 million in revenue this fiscal year.
The industry is the latest flareup in the battle of the county’s rural area, which has been protected mostly through 23-year-old policies to restrict development in about 117,000 acres. Those policies have been weakened this year through several party-line votes, with Democrats voting together to examine land-use topics countywide rather than only in the designated development area.
Opponents say allowing such a large development would destroy the character of the county’s rural area. They have also raised concerns about the availability of power, impacts on water quality and the potential that the buildings could quickly become obsolete as technology continues to improve. Manassas National Battlefield Park has also expressed opposition to the project.
Lawson said it’s important to have bipartisan opposition to the project and thanked Roem for coming out against it. She also said she has contacted U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, urging him to weigh in on the proposal because of its potential impact on the battlefield. She said if Kaine, a Democrat, becomes involved it would be “the last nail in the coffin” for the project.
Thursday, Kaine’s staff told InsideNoVa on Thursday that he is “aware of the proposal and is continuing to hear many different perspectives in order to better understand the matter.”
Roem’s 13th District covers a portion of western Prince William, including the southern portion of the battlefield. Del. Dan Helmer, D-40th, represents the district that includes Pageland Lane and the northern portion of the battlefield.
Helmer sent a letter to Board Chair Ann Wheeler, D-At-large, saying that although the project would be “a major economic development opportunity,” it also would “irrevocably transform the character of Northwest Prince William County and may threaten our environment.”
“Such a transformation requires careful consideration, and I hope that the Board will proceed extremely cautiously, fully understanding the impact that such development would have on the environment, traffic patterns, real estate prices, and the rural character of Northwest Prince William County,” he wrote.
Lawson urged attendees to lobby their state and federal legislators to oppose the project.
“This fight is long from over,” she said. “We’ve got some noisy landowners on Pageland who want you to feel defeated.”
Lawson told the crowd to continue lobbying local officials to kill the project.
“You can’t make sense out of nonsense, and this is nonsense to put data in the rural area,” she said. “I can’t win on logic. … They’re not going to listen to me.”
Attendees asked several questions at the town hall, expressing concerns about noise mitigation, effects on cemeteries and increased traffic.
In an unsigned letter to Heritage Hunt residents last month, those behind the proposal said they offered to present their project to the homeowners association, but were told the board was not interested in a meeting. They said that many of those who have spoken against the project are giving misleading information and are trying to “stoke fear.”
No presentation in favor of the project was included in Wednesday’s town hall.
Roem, who grew up in the area, said western Prince William has undergone “wholesale change” in her lifetime. She said data centers would stress existing electrical transmission lines and don’t belong in that area.
“Data centers do not belong north, east or west of Innovation Park. Period,” she said of the county’s technology park, which is north of Manassas. “One of the things that bothers me so much as a lifelong resident of this community is watching our wilderness, our natural habitat, our wildlife being wiped out over and over and over again. … Data centers are part of that problem.”
Roem said she will not dictate land-use decisions to local government officials. Instead, she is working with the Virginia Department of Transportation, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Forestry to review the project.
County staff are still reviewing the request and examining the proposal and its impact on the surrounding area. The board voted to expand the scope of the examination from just the requested properties to the entirety of Pageland Lane between U.S. 29 and Sudley Road.
The proposal is being reviewed while the county is examining a potential expansion of its Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District. The overlay district is currently 10,000 acres designated in 2016 to support data center development by reducing regulatory hurdles.
County staff have not scheduled a public hearing on the proposal.
Nolan Stout covers Prince William County. Reach him at nstout@insidenova.com or @TheNolanStout on Facebook and Twitter.