Meanwhile, opposing commissioners object to plan’s uncertainties
By Jill Palermo Times Staff Writer Sep 16, 2022 Updated 36 min ago 1
More than 300 people attended a public hearing Wednesday night and Thursday morning for the “Prince William Digital Gateway,” which narrowly won the planning commission’s approval early Thursday morning. Jill Palermo
The recent marathon, all-night meeting of the Prince William County Planning Commission revealed two clear sides of the debate over the “Prince William Digital Gateway,” a plan to open 2,100 acres in the county’s rural crescent to major new data center development.
The plan either poses serious risks to the Manassas National Battlefield Park, water quality, environment and the county’s overall aesthetic — or it offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to generate millions in tax revenue to improve county schools, raise salaries for public servants and expand affordable housing and social programs.
A map of Prince William County’s draft plan for the PW Digital Gateway, a proposal that would open 2,133 acres in the county’s rural crescent to data centers. The area is comprised of residential neighborhoods and small farms along Pageland Lane.
The county’s plan envisions at least three areas of dedicated parkland, a 300- to 500-foot wildlife corridor running along streams that cut through the area and buffers of at least 150 feet to reduce the impacts of the data centers on Manassas National Battlefield Park and nearby homes and cultural areas. Prince William County
Land-use designations proposed for the Prince William Digital Gateway area by the Prince William County Planning Department.
QTS rezoning application map: The 800 acres included data center developer QTS’s rezoning are highlighted on this map. The areas do not appear to include land the county wants for park space.
Those were the arguments the planning commission heard late Wednesday and early Thursday from more than 150 people who spoke both for and against the PW Digital Gateway for more than seven hours during the first public hearing on the plan.
The meeting began at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 14 and ended at just before 6 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 15. At about 5 a.m., the Planning Commission narrowly advanced the comprehensive plan amendment paving the way for the new data center corridor in a 4-3-1 vote.
Planning Commissioner Joseph Fontanella, Jr. asks questions of Prince William County planning staff as Planning Commissioners Qwendolyn Brown (Neabsco) and Richard Berry (Gainesville) listen to the discussion. Jill Palermo
Planning Commissioner Qwendolyn Brown (Neabsco) sided with the plan’s supporters when she made the motion to recommend that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors adopt the CPA. Brown called the plan “an opportunity to transform Prince William County’s future in a profoundly positive way.”
“The CPA is really an economic development initiative to solidify the county’s commercial tax base and create a long-term, sustainable revenue source to fund critical community priorities,” Brown said. “To me, that means more money to put into our educational system; more money to keep our kids safe at school; desperately needed funds to pay our public servants, teachers, fire and policemen; and even more funds to put into mental health services, affordable housing and transportation.
“None of these things are possible right now unless we adopt the CPA,” Brown added, “because we don’t have the funds.”
County Planner Meika Daus, left, sits in for acting Planning Director Rebecca Horner, who did not attend the meeting. To her left are Planning Commissioners Patty Kuntz (At Large) and Juan McPhail (Potomac). Jill Palermo
At-Large Planning Commissioner Patty Kuntz seconded the motion. In remarks before the vote, Kuntz talked about the threat of school shootings and the need for money to build additions to county schools to move classes out of portable classroom trailers. She also talked about the need to build “security fences” around school playgrounds to enhance safety in response to the ongoing rash of mass shootings.
Kuntz, a mother of two Prince William County students, said she’s been especially concerned about school safety since the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, last spring.
“I want the revenue to make those [classroom] trailers gone. I want additions put on those [school] buildings so no child is collateral damage” in the event of an active shooter, Kuntz said.
“…I want security fencing surrounding our playgrounds, because until we love our children more than we love our assault weapons, this is the reality we have chosen to live in. … [A]nd if it can save just one or two lives of our children, it truly is worth 1% of our rural area.”
Commissioner: ‘Good intentions can lead to bad consequences’
Meanwhile, Planning Commissioners Joseph Fontanella Jr. (Coles), Tom Gordy (Brentsville) and Richard Berry (Gainesville) – all of whom voted against the recommendation – said they saw more questions than solutions in a plan that would pave over a sparsely developed, mostly rural area for a massive new industrial corridor.
Before Brown made her motion, Berry, who represents the district in which the development would occur, offered two motions that died for lack of a second.
Berry first recommended that the PW Digital Gateway CPA be limited to the northern half of the study area’s boundaries – an idea that reflected a similar request from the county’s historical commission – to avoid impacts to the adjacent Manassas National Battlefield Park. When that motion failed, Berry moved to deny the plan, which similarly found no support from his fellow commissioners.
Both Fontanella and Gordy proposed deferring the recommendation to sending it back to the county’s planning staff for further study.
“…There are studies that need to be completed. There are assumptions that need to be replaced with facts. There are ordinances that need to be revised and there are other decisions that need to be made in advance of this one, such as the decision on the 2040 Comprehensive Plan,” Fontanella said.
Fontanella noted that “a number of conservation organizations, including the Fairfax County Water Authority,” have expressed concerns about the environmental impacts of the new data center corridor.
“We’ve heard opposing viewpoints and presentations and conflicting data from multiple folks speaking tonight. The county staff needs to determine the ground truth,” he added. “While there are a number of unresolved red flags, I am especially adamant about wanting more information about the environmental impacts of this project.”
Gordy said he agreed with Fontanella, adding: “Good intentions can lead to bad consequences. … I think it is our due diligence to get to the truth of some of these questions that were asked. … We continue to have no level of certainty … on an extremely consequential planning decision for this county that once done, the bell cannot be unrung. … I just think we need more time to get this right.”
At that point, however, the motion to defer was out of order because Brown had already made her motion to recommend approval.
Brown’s motion prevailed, winning support from Planning Commission Chair Cynthia Moses-Nedd (Woodbridge), Commissioner Juan McPhail (Potomac) and Kuntz. Voting against the motion were Berry, Fontanella and Gordy, while Commissioner Robert Perry (Occoquan) abstained without saying why.
Motion’s conditions remain unclear
Brown conditioned her motion to approve, saying that the CPA should be amended to require that applicants seeking rezonings to build data centers in the PW Digital Gateway study area “adequately reduce noise” and that “proper measures are taken to address any negative environmental issues.”
Brown included no specifics, however, on what would qualify as a “negative environmental issue” or what must be done to adequately address it. She also did not specify regulations on noise.
Bothersome noise from data centers has become a major issue in recent months, as residents of the Great Oak neighborhood in Manassas continue to fight with Amazon to reduce the noise from four new data centers recently built along Va. 234. Some of the buildings are within 600 feet of Great Oak homes.
The issue is not yet resolved. The county’s 30-year-old noise ordinance has been identified as part of the problem because it exempts heating and air-conditioning units – a major driver of data center noise – from nighttime noise limits.
Brown also said the CPA should include the “revisions and clarifications requested by the applicant” in a Sept. 9 letter to the planning commission.
But that statement also raises questions because the letter was not made public until after the vote Thursday morning, and neither Brown nor county staff discussed how the letter’s “revisions and clarifications” would impact the CPA.
In remarks before the vote, Moses-Nedd said she believes the CPA provides “a framework” that the planning commission and board of county supervisors can use “to provide the right surgery” on rezoning applications to address issues such as noise and stormwater runoff “so we can do the right thing.”
Commissioners cite unanswered questions
Still, during the public hearing, Moses-Nedd, Gordy, Berry and other commissioners raised several questions about the plan’s particulars that county planning staff either could not answer or for which they could provide only vague responses, often saying issues could not be addressed until the rezoning stage. They included:
Infrastructure cost to county taxpayers
Gordy pressed county planners on whether the county had estimated the expenses county taxpayers would bear for infrastructure needed to support the data center corridor. County planner Meika Daus and Economic Director Christina Winn said the county had commissioned a study of how much revenue the data centers would generate but not on costs of infrastructure such as water and sewer lines, new power lines and substations and widened roadways.
Daus said data center applicants would be required to offset the costs directly related to their data centers, which would be worked out in rezoning applications and approvals.
Gordy criticized the lack of information.
“The main rationale for supporting this is the financial benefit to the county, but we haven’t counted cost,” Gordy said, noting that it appeared to him some of the data center tax revenue would have to be used to pay for infrastructure.
“I think we better get a fair understanding of what we’re signing up for, because what I’m looking at is a self-licking ice cream cone,” he said.
Jobs
Gordy also asked if the county has studied whether existing data centers create the jobs they promise. In the CPA application, the county included a wide-ranging estimate for jobs created by the PW Digital Gateway: between 1,471 and 5,008.
Without offering specifics, Winn said the county has been surveying data centers about jobs as part of the county’s fast-tracked, site approval process, which is available to data centers because they are one of the county’s “targeted industries.” Winn said the job numbers “seem to follow” stated projections.
Promised open space
County planners are pitching the new data center corridor as a way to increase park space and public trails. The CPA proposes three new parks and designates an “extensive trail network connecting those parks,” according to Prince William County Planner David McGettigan, who presented the CPA to the planning commission.
Of the study area’s 2,139 acres, 807.9 acres would be designated for “parks and open space,” while 439.8 acres would be preserved as protected “environmental resource” and about 10 acres would be designated a “county historic registered site.” The remaining 1,321.5 acres would become “Tech/Flex,” a designation that allows for data centers and other industrial uses.
But Gordy noted that the two rezoning applications that have already been filed for the area do not include offers of donated land for parks.
Also, Gordy noted that a June 2 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court declared an Albemarle County proffer unconstitutional and unenforceable because it did not have a direct connection to the rezoning. The case involved a voluntary proffer by a developer to provide payments to a local transit service.
Gordy asked how Prince William County could require a private landowner to give up land for parks given the court’s ruling.
“I don’t see how you get to the parks and open space [designation] because [the rezonings] cut out all the land around it, they leave it out,” Gordy said. “Also, we are seeing case law that counties cannot enforce” such proffers. “Again, this is a major argument for this case – that we’re going to get those parks and open space,” he said.
Daus acknowledged his concern and said the county is still looking into the court case.
“It’s something we’re looking at extremely closely and working with our county attorney on,” she said. “We’re definitely aware of those concerns, and it’s not lost on us. … We believe it is legally defensible. Open space preservation is something that is very important to the project, so it’s something we believe we can advocate for and secure during the rezoning process.”
Reach Jill Palermo at jpalermo@fauquier.com