By Jill Palermo Times Staff Writer Sept. 22, 2022
Prince William County Board Chair Ann Wheeler
The Prince William Digital Gateway — a controversial proposal that could remake 2,100 acres alongside the Manassas Battlefield National Park into a massive new data center corridor — will not receive a final vote by the board of supervisors on Oct. 11 but will rather be “pushed out a few more weeks,” according to Board of Supervisors Chair Ann Wheeler.
Wheeler, D-At Large, said she decided Thursday morning to delay the vote and remove the Prince William Digital Gateway comprehensive plan amendment from the board’s agenda for its Tuesday, Oct. 11 meeting to allow more time to clear up “confusion” and what Wheeler called “misinformation” about the process.
“There seems to be a great deal of questions and confusion about the process, and I think we need to take a step back and clarify that before we move forward,” Wheeler said in an interview with the Prince William Times.
Wheeler said she did not know when the CPA would return to the board’s agenda but said it would likely be “before the end of the year.”
The move comes a day after another contentious meeting of the Prince William County Planning Commission during which the commission heard complaints from residents about its decision to recommend approval of the PW Digital Gateway CPA in a vote that took place at about 5 a.m. after a marathon, all-night public hearing.
Chief among the citizens’ complaints were that the county planning office acted as the “applicant” in the CPA during the planning commission public hearing rather than data center operators QTS and Compass, who have filed rezoning applications to build data centers in the area. Also not considered “applicants” were the more than 100 landowners who are under contract to sell their properties to the two data center companies at a rate of about $1 million an acre.
Speakers also complained about the Planning Commissioner Qwendolyn Brown (Neabsco) including in her motion to recommend approval the “revisions and clarifications requested by the applicant” in a Sept. 9 letter to the planning commission.
The letter, from by lawyers for both QTS and Compass, was not publicly discussed during the planning commission’s public hearing but included several changes that would weaken county policies aimed at protecting open space, preserving historic resources, ensuring sufficient wildlife corridors and controlling polluting stormwater runoff from damaging tributaries to the Occoquan Reservoir, among other things.
Wheeler said she had not yet seen the letter and was not well versed on the changes requested by Compass and QTS. But she said other misconceptions — such as whether properties along the 13000 block of Catharpin Valley Drive are included in the CPA study area — drove her decision to delay the vote.
The Prince William County planning staff report on the PW Digital Gateway CPA notes that 22 property owers along Catharpin Valley Drive requested to be part of the CPA but that the planning staff rejected that request. The staff report said the property owners would have to submit a separate request to the county to have their collective 216 acres replanned for data centers.
“The pause is just to clarify the misunderstandings and confusion regarding the process and to make sure we have good information for the public,” Wheeler said.
Reach Jill Palermo at jpalermo@fauquier.com