Prince William Times: Gainesville-area residents take their fight against the PW digital gateway to court

James Thomas, of Gainesville, speaks during a protest against rural area data centers — including the Prince William Digital Gateway — during a protest outside the James J. McCoart Administration Building Tuesday, Sept. 13.

Photo by Jill Palermo

Residents of the Heritage Hunt, Oak Valley and surrounding areas in western Prince William County are taking their fight against the 2,139-acre Prince William Digital Gateway data center corridor to court.

In two separate lawsuits filed in Prince William County Circuit Court on Wednesday, Nov. 30 and Monday, Dec. 5, the Oak Valley Homeowners’ Association, the Gainesville Citizens for Smart Growth and 12 individual residents of Heritage Hunt, Oak Valley and Catharpin are asking the court to halt further development related to the Prince William Digital Gateway comprehensive plan amendment, which the county supervisors approved Wednesday, Nov. 2 after an all-night meeting and public hearing.

The Oak Valley lawsuit also asks that the court put the brakes on any county effort to use taxpayer money to purchase private property near the Manassas National Battlefield Park for public parkland in connection with the data center development. The addition of new parkland near the battlefield is outlined in the digital gateway CPA, but the plan does not specify how the land will be acquired. 

The Prince William Digital Gateway CPA changed the county’s long-term land-use plan for the 2,139-acre corridor from A-1 agriculture to “tech/flex,” allowing for up to 27.6 million square feet of data center development. The CPA, however, does not entitle or rezone the land for certain uses.

Still, the lawsuits argue that the supervisors’ move to pave the way for data center development in a rural area of homes and small farms will harm residents’ property values, health and quality of life.

Mac Haddow, president of the Oak Valley Homeowners’ Association, called the county board’s approval of the Prince William Digital Gateway CPA a “rush to judgment” made with little regard to nearby neighborhoods or residents throughout the county.

“We have a mess on our hands. Why? Because of some very effective lobbying by multi-million dollar corporations to the detriment of all of the citizens of Prince William County,” Haddow said in a Dec. 6 interview with The Prince William Times. “There’s been no explanation as to why we had to do this so quickly. Nobody knows, except that it means more money for these data center operators.”

Heritage Hunt is an over-55 community of 1,863 homes and 3,400 residents along Heathcote Boulevard between Heritage Hunt Drive and Catharpin Road in Gainesville. Oak Valley comprises 254 homes just west of Catharpin Road. Both communities are near or adjacent to the planned PW Digital Gateway. The Oak Valley lawsuit also includes plaintiffs whose properties are outside Oak Valley but abut the digital gateway planning area.

“We have [property owners] encircling the digital gateway,” Haddow said, in an effort to include plaintiffs directly harmed by “inappropriately located data centers.”

“We’re not opposed to data centers,” Haddow added. “We’re just opposed to putting them in the wrong place.”

The digital gateway planning area encompasses several several homes and neighborhoods slated for new data centers — but not all of them. In total, more than 100 property owners – including all in the subdivisions of Trappers Ridge, Dominique Estates and Catharpin Farm Estates – are under contract to sell their homes and land for between $500,000 to $1 million an acre to data center developers QTS and Compass if the county supervisors approve three rezoning applications filed in connection with the digital gateway CPA.

The rezonings seek to develop about 1,600 of the digital gateway’s 2,139 acres into new data centers. But the companies’ plans do not specify how many individual data center buildings are proposed. The Oak Valley lawsuit states that based on the size of most data centers operating around the county, the three rezonings, if approved, could result in 32 two- or three-story data centers or 90 one-story data centers in the digital gateway area.

The lawsuits seek to slow the rezonings or stop them altogether. Both name the Prince William Board of County Supervisors as defendants. The lawsuit filed by the Heritage Hunt residents also specifically names Board Chair Ann Wheeler, D-At Large, and Supervisor Pete Candland, R-Gainesville, as defendants.

Prince William County Attorney Michelle Robl declined to comment on the lawsuits Friday, Dec. 2, but said in an email that the county attorneys’ office would represent the full board as well as Wheeler and Candland individually. The county has 21 days to respond to each of the suits.

Neither Candland nor Wheeler responded to requests for comment.

Heritage Hunt residents’ lawsuit: Supervisors’ vote was ‘arbitrary;’ Wheeler, Candland violated state law

The lawsuit filed Nov. 30 by Gainesville Citizens for Smart Growth, an anti-digital gateway group, and Heritage Hunt residents Roger Yackel and Roger Miller includes three counts. The first charges that the supervisors’ approval of the digital gateway CPA was “arbitrary and capricious” and “violated the defendants’ substantive due process.”

The second and third counts charge that the supervisors violated Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act and that Wheeler and Candland violated the state’s conflict of interest law for state and local officials.

In the first count, the lawsuit argues the supervisors failed to prove a need for the 2,139 acres of data center development, citing two consultant reports commissioned ahead of the digital gateway vote. The “Camoin report” detailed how much land remains in Prince William for data centers under current zoning and the market demand for new data center space. The second study, performed by Stantec, looked at whether the county should expand its Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District, which is comprised of 9,500 acres where data centers are allowed by right.

The lawsuit argues that the Camoin Report “fails to provide statistical or even anecdotal support for the [digital gateway]” because it did not adequately assess existing undeveloped land in the overlay district or consider the possibility of landowners assembling their properties for data center development. Stantec, the contractor hired to assess the overlay district, did not recommend an overall expansion and further stated that siting data centers near the Manassas battlefield “is not favorable,” the lawsuit says.

The supervisors, the lawsuit says, also failed to assess the corridor’s infrastructure costs and either ignored or did not fully comply with the county historical commission’s recommendation to protect historically sensitive land from industrial development and Fairfax County Water Authority’s request for a study of the development’s impact on the Occoquan Reservoir.

The reservoir is the source of drinking water for 800,000 people in Northern Virginia. The supervisors voted in August to cooperate with a study of the watershed being conducted by the Northern Virginia Regional Commission but did not agree to wait for its results before approving the comprehensive plan amendment.

The lawsuit charges that the supervisors violated FOIA law by improperly citing a nondisclosure agreement with the data center companies when declining a FOIA request from area residents. The nondisclosure agreement “indicates that there were negotiations and transactions in process before the land was even designated for the data center use,” the lawsuit says.

“There [was] no competitive bidding or request for proposal that would protect these agreements,” the lawsuit adds. The NDA’s “existence indicates that a decision on the land use portion of this project where the public can opine is a mere formality.”

Regarding allegations that Wheeler and Candland violated the conflict of interest law, the lawsuit argues Wheeler provided insufficient information to Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy Ashworth to determine whether Wheeler’s current and former investments in data center companies exceeded the law’s threshold that would require her to recuse herself from voting on the digital gateway CPA.

Ashworth issued an opinion in September that Wheeler’s investments were not large enough to require her recusal. But the lawsuit argues that other aspects of the state’s conflict of interest law do not require a minimum threshold investment.

The lawsuit goes on to say it’s important that Wheeler not have a financial stake in the plan since she is the only supervisor representing Gainesville District residents on the gateway issue. According to a separate opinion, Ashworth said Candland must recuse himself in all votes related to any data centers in the vicinity of the digital gateway planning area because of his personal financial stake in the deal. Candland and his wife, Robyn have signed a contract to sell their home and 5.7 acres in Catharpin Farm Estates to Compass data centers if the company’s rezoning application is approved.

The lawsuit argues that Candland violated Ashworth’s opinion by Oak Valley lawsuit: Supervisors violated open meetings law, are forcing taxpayers to buy parkland

The lawsuit filed Dec. 5 by the Oak Valley Homeowners’ Association and 10 individual property owners argues the board of supervisors’ approval of the digital gateway CPA is improper and should be voided by a judge based on five counts. Their complaint repeats some of the arguments included in the Heritage Hunt residents’ lawsuit but further charges that the supervisors violated Virginia’s open meetings law and FOIA law in their actions leading up to the Nov. 1 public hearing. It also charges that the supervisors’ vote to approve the CPA “unlawfully force[s] the taxpayers” to purchase about 500 acres of parkland in conjunction with the plan.

Regarding the alleged violations of the state’s public notice rules, the lawsuit argues that Oct. 18 and Oct. 25 ads published in the Washington Post inadequately described the changes at hand. While state law requires that such notices include a “descriptive summary,” the lawsuit charges the county’s notice included only the specific land-use designations – a change from agricultural to “tech/flex” – but offered “absolutely no indication that this area is being replanned so as to allow the location there of data centers.”

Regarding the alleged violation of open meetings law, the lawsuit alleges that Wheeler participated in an April 2022 telephone call involving two digital gateway area landowners that involved “the simultaneous conversation of three or more members of the [board of supervisors.]” The lawsuit cites an ongoing lawsuit among property owners under contract to sell their land to data center developers as the source of information about the call.

The lawsuit also alleges that Supervisors Victor Angry, D-Neabsco, Andrea Bailey, D-Neabsco, Margaret Franklin, D-Woodbridge and Kenny Boddye, D-Occoquan, likely violated the state’s open meetings law by collaborating on changes to the digital gateway prior to the Nov. 2 vote.

Angry mentioned working with the other supervisors on proposed amendments to the CPA before the Nov. 2 vote. Angry “did not identify the context in which this collaboration took place; however, on information and belief … the collaboration may have been through in-person meetings, simultaneous emails, or simultaneous telephone calls,” the lawsuit states. “If such is the case, it appears likely that such efforts violated Virginia’s open meetings law.”

Angry and Franklin have declined to comment on the allegations. Baily and Boddye did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Regarding the lawsuit’s allegation that the digital gateway CPA “unlawfully force[s] the taxpayers” to purchase parkland, the lawsuit states that almost 500 of the more than 807 acres of parkland designated in the comprehensive plan amendment are not part of the rezoning applications and thus will have to be purchased by the county, according to the supervisors’ discussions prior to the Nov. 2 vote.

“The CPA is surrounded by two world-class parks—the Manassas National Battlefield Park and Conway Robinson Memorial State Forest,” the lawsuit states. “Plaintiffs and their fellow Prince William County taxpayers should not be forced to pay for parks which would be not needed, but for the board’s unlawful, arbitrary and capricious decision to adopt the CPA to allow data centers on the 2,139-acre Digital Gateway parcel.”

In a Friday, Dec. 2, interview, Yackel, a plaintiff in the Heritage Hunt lawsuit, said he decided to sue the county out of frustration that the supervisors ignored residents’ concerns about the massive new data center corridor.

According to the CPA, Heritage Hunt will be separated from the new data centers by more than 20 acres of forested land. But Yackel said that’s not enough to insulate the community from the noise pollution and traffic from what will likely be more than a decade of construction as well as the resulting industrial blight.