Fauquier Times: New Fauquier County policy seen as strong deterrent to data centers

So, will the new policy actually discourage any more data center development? That’s a key question as 2024 plays out.

Both sides agreed in interviews last week that Fauquier County’s new data center policy, adopted by the supervisors on Dec. 14, is the strictest in Northern Virginia — and possibly the entire state.

Indeed, the policy is so restrictive that two policy committee participants from the commercial side, real estate brokers Carter Wiley and Bill Chipman, walked out toward the end of the group’s final meeting.

“We left because it became so patently obvious that the only voices that that were really being listened to or being discussed with staff were the (Piedmont Environmental Council), coalition people, anybody who thought data centers were evil,” said Wiley, a commercial and industrial real estate broker who lives in Fauquier County.

Bill Chipman, who, like Wiley, left near the end, said in his view the policy was written before the committee began its discussions. Chipman, founder of a Warrenton-based commercial real estate firm, is marketing Maple Tree Farm just east of Warrenton as a potential data center site.

For their part, committee members from the Piedmont Environmental Council and other groups wary of data center development — including Protect Fauquier, Protect Catlett and Citizens for Fauquier County — said they only offered ideas to improve a policy drafted by the county’s staff. They said they had even more suggestions — such as a ban on nondisclosure agreements between the county and data center developers — that did not make it into the policy.

 “I think the supervisors said it best when they approved it last month, that if no one’s happy with it, it’s a good policy,” said Kevin Kask, who represented the Piedmont Environmental Council on the committee. “And there were certainly things we would have liked to see in the policy that weren’t reflected.”

Still, whatever their philosophical disagreements, both sides agree that the new policy leaves little opportunity for new data centers in Fauquier County. They said restrictions on zoning changes, power lines, compatibility with neighbors and building heights will discourage any new development.

“I believe that it is a deterrent,” Wiley said. “It is a strong deterrent from data being sited in Fauquier County,”

Here is a breakdown of the new policy:

Zoning: The new policy limits data centers to only two zoning districts: the “planned commercial industrial district,” located only in Vint Hill, and “business park” zones.  In the entire county, there is only one business park zone, a 234-acre area north of Remington. The area is already fully taken up by the planned “Remington Technology Park,” a data center rezoning that was approved in March 2018. It has yet to be built.

Vint Hill contains the county’s only planned commercial industrial district, where data centers are allowed by right. But Vint Hill is also seen as fully occupied by the OVH Cloud center, which just expanded its plot, and the Cyrus One site next door, where four data center buildings are planned on 48 acres.

The policy also states, “the data center use should not be expanded to other zoning districts” without a comprehensive plan review. Some believe that means data centers should not be proposed in districts that are not business parks or planned commercial industrial districts — period.

“The policy’s greatest strength is that the policy says we only want data centers in the two areas that are zoned for data centers, and we don’t want to rezone for more,” said Cindy Burbank, secretary of Protect Fauquier who sat on the committee.

He also notes the policy provides guidelines but is not law, and developers could still make their arguments to the board of supervisors.

The policy does not say how it will apply to projects in the pipeline. The proposed Catlett Data Center Park, for example, has applied to rezone from industrial to business park, but the matter has yet to go to a hearing. Two other Remington-area properties are also seeking a rezoning to allow for data centers but are not as far along in the process.

Chipman’s client, Maple Tree Farm, has met with county officials but has not yet filed for rezoning to allow for data centers. Part of the property is zoned industrial, is crossed by transmission and gas lines and has room for a solar farm.

“We have just a glimmer of hope,” he said.

Power: Zoning aside, the policy’s power restrictions pose a huge burden.

“Data Centers should be located no further than one mile from an existing electric transmission line,” it states. Since transmission lines are generally between 230- and 500-kilovolt lines strung on 100-foot-tall poles, there are very few potential data center sites within that range.

In fact, all industrial-zoned sites along Va. 28, also known as Catlett Road, are at least 3 miles west of the Remington-to-Nokesville 500 kilovolt line.

Fauquier’s zoning ordinance, which is replicated in the policy, requires that all 230-kilovolt transmission lines and lower-voltage distribution lines for data centers be buried — an expensive provision not seen in surrounding Northern Virginia localities.

The policy further stipulates that data centers and their transmission lines and substations cannot be located along national or Virginia scenic byways. U.S. 15 passes by Haymarket, Warrenton and Culpeper and is a National Scenic Byway. Maple Tree Farm is just off the byway.

Compatibility: If that were not enough to discourage data center developers, the policy states that the huge data center buildings “should be compatible in scale” to the surrounding area. Taken literally, Chipman points out, that means that any data center complex must be surrounded by other huge buildings — something uncommon in Fauquier.

And the policy limits buildings to 45 feet in height, which is one story for a data center. That would sharply limit the number of square feet a data center can encompass, and thus the amount of computer equipment it can hold.

For those reasons, Wiley argues, Fauquier will be missing out on the benefits of data centers — including the technology jobs and especially the tax revenue.  “I certainly don’t believe data centers should be everywhere and anywhere. But I do believe there is a place for them in our market, in our community, because they fill such a valuable void in the tax structure,” he said.

Wiley notes that warehouses are permitted in industrial zones, where data centers are not, yet generate much lower tax revenue than data centers, which are taxed on the value of their high-priced computer equipment along with their real estate.

“So, the revenue that a data center generates is 10 times more than what a warehouse would,” Wiley said. “So, now you have warehouses with 10 trucks and 10 cars and 10 people … and the impact is so much lower with the data center.”

Kask said that, if that turns out to be a concern of the supervisors, they should undertake a review of the county’s comprehensive plan with an eye toward adding data centers in as a permitted use.

“And maybe that’ll take some time, but I think it’s in the interest of the county to undergo those discussions,” he said.

Reach Peter Cary at news@fauquier.com