Letter: Citizens are being railroaded | Opinion | insidenova.com
The Planning Dept. advertises that the January 20 and 27 meetings are a Review process to gather public comments. In-person participants are limited to 300 people – and then in-person participation was cancelled for January 20. Additional people were not permitted to sign on to speak remotely. I was one of the many citizens who signed up in advance to speak remotely, was never sent a link, and had to fight with the County to finally be added to the remote speakers.
If this county is truly interested in gathering public comments, the county would make it possible for as many public citizens who want to participate to speak. It’s very clear – The purpose of these events is NOT to gather all public input. It’s pure and unadulterated window-dressing. This is just another in the public’s continuing experience of being railroaded.
Prince William County now has 25 data centers. Economic Development reports that is somewhere between 4.9 M sq. ft. and 5.2 M sq. ft. built out. We are to believe that after all other approved data centers are built, that this county needs somewhere between 84 and 120 M more sq. ft. of data centers next to homes, schools, and parks?!
The current data center overlay district allows for between 19 to 37 M sq. ft. of additional data center development. That amount of expansion, plus what is already built and approved, is more than sufficient for our county. That totals somewhere between 50 and 80 MILLION sq. ft. of data centers for this county!
Only when this county stops bending over backwards to give data centers incentives, taxes them appropriately, and constrains them to existing industrially zoned locations within the existing overlay, will county citizens reap any benefits from these monolithic buildings – which consume obscene amounts of power and water, run transmission lines and substations through communities, introduce never-ending noise, and bring threats to water, land and citizens. 30 average employees is no employment benefit.
Earmarking 10,000 acres of land appropriate for data centers was a good decision. Expanding beyond this is quite simply this board breaking a promise with its constituents.
If it is the intention of this board to railroad residents out and become solely an industrial center, then get honest about that. The fraudulent process in place certainly points in that direction.
I, for one, oppose industrializing what we have.
Karen Sheehan, Haymarket, (protectpwc.org)