Rally-Press Conference Presentation – Before BOCS meeting: 092022
Hello Prince William!!
Thank you, to Elena, Karen, and the Coalition for organizing this event and inviting me to speak.
My name is Vida Carroll, and I live in the Brentsville District. I’m a wife, a mom, a homesteader, and really just an everyday citizen – probably like most of you. And probably like most of you, I am looking around with concern and confusion as our entire county is hit with proposal after proposal of industrial buildings, high density housing developments, road widenings, power line extensions, data centers… next to our homes…. in our backyards… on top of our farmland… next to our National Battlefield and state forests… next to schools!
By the way, I’m not just talking about one school… I am talking about SEVEN SCHOOLS right now that will be directly impacted by data center campuses – 2 high schools and 5 elementary schools.
I’m also not just talking about a few acres of industrial development. It is several thousand acres spread across what is currently rural or residential land. I’m not just along Pageland Lane… it’s in Haymarket, in Bristow, in Nokesville, and even down abutting Prince William Forest.
It’s overwhelming to see.
And I want to remind everyone here that this growth isn’t just limited to industrial development.
Many citizens are unaware of the massive amounts of housing sprawl the Planning Office is proposing across Prince William County. Within less than a 3 mile radius from my home, the county is proposing zoning changes that would bring 3,446 homes — again, into an area that is within less than a 3 mile radius from where I live.
This is just a small example of what is proposed for across the county…. thousands upon thousands of homes.
- Where is the demand for these homes?
- How is this smart land use, when we are on the verge of the housing market slowing?
Every single one of these developments will require wider roads, more schools, infrastructure improvements for sewer and water, construction… And we will be paying for every single infrastructure improvement needed to support these homes with our own tax dollars. Tax dollars that will now be unable to go to older roads in need of improvements, for our overcrowded schools that need renovations, for parts of our county that need tax dollars… These needs will once again go unmet while new roads and schools are built to support these unnecessary new housing developments.
One of the arguments I’ve often heard in support of data centers is “well, at least it isn’t a bunch of houses”.
Well guess what, Prince William? We will be getting the worst of BOTH.
We will be getting industrial blight, 110 foot tall data centers constantly humming, and we will be getting suburban sprawl, thousands upon thousands of homes, thousands of more cars on our streets, thousands of more students in our overcrowded schools. Is THIS really what we want our Prince William County to look like?
One of the things I love about living in this county is that we have it all — we have our state forests, our national battlefield, we have the Potomac River and Bull Run Mountain, we have historic towns like Occoquan, Brentsville, and Haymarket, and we have homes and community while still having our beautiful rural space.
The Pathway to 2040 (Comp Plan Update) envisions a county that looks nothing like the Prince William I love to live in.
It envisions a county spanned by a four-lane bi-county parkway, schools and parks backing up to data center campuses, and every bit of open space covered with housing and powerlines.
It is overwhelming — but today I am so encouraged to see everyone here. I am encouraged to hear the deferral of the Devlin Technology Park vote! It’s a win for today, a show that citizens voices, when unified together cannot be ignored!
But we need to remember that a deferral by developers is NOT the same thing as a NO VOTE by our elected officials. This proposal will be back, just like the data center campus — the one directly adjacent to PACE WEST and Tyler elementary — that proposal is back up for vote after NEXT WEEK after a 9 month deferral.
Just because one proposal was deferred today, does not mean our community is safe from this industrial sprawl.
And it does not mean we will just sit back:
- Not at tomorrow night’s vote on Pageland Land
- Not at next Tuesday’s vote on John Marshall Tech Park
- And not at any other vote coming up
Thank you, and I can’t wait to hear you all speak inside.