Community members speak out against a substation at Plaza 500
Residents of the Bren Mar Park area and beyond packed a meeting of the Mason District Land Use Committee (MDLUC) on July 28 to oppose Dominion Energy’s proposal for a massive substation to serve the Plaza 500 data center on Edsall Road.
Dozens of people who spoke at the meeting raised concerns about noise, the lack of public engagement, outdoor lights on 24 hours a day, environmental damage as the site is located in a resource protection area, air pollution, and Dominion’s practice of putting profits ahead of people. “Think about the human costs,” a resident told the Dominion representatives at the meeting.
Related story: State agency approves transmission line in Bren Mar Park
The site plan for the data center, to be developed by Starwood Capital Group, was approved by county staff. As a by-right project, it doesn’t need to be approved by the Board of Supervisors. The State Corporation Commission last year approved a transmission line to connect a future substation next to the data center to the Van Dorn substation.
The substation, however, hasn’t been approved. The Fairfax County Planning Commission is holding a hearing on it on Sept. 24. Since substations go through a 2232 process for public facilities, the Planning Commission has the final say. There won’t be a hearing or action by the Board of Supervisors.
Unanswered questions
The MDLUC will take a vote at its next meeting, on Sept. 22, on whether or not to endorse the substation proposal. The MDLUC vote is nonbinding; it’s merely a recommendation to the Planning Commission.
The Dominion representatives at the meeting couldn’t answer simple questions from the residents about the results of a noise study or the height of the transmission line. (At an open house on the transmission line, Dominion said it would be 125 feet tall.)
Chris McDonald, senior siting and permitting specialist at Dominion, offered incorrect information, claiming that the substation would be 300 feet from residences, while documents on the project show the distance is just 67 feet.
Alis Wang, the Mason District representative on the Planning Commission, asked why the substation couldn’t be located somewhere else not so close to people’s homes.
McDonald acknowledged that would require a rezoning and it would raise Dominion’s costs.
Related story: Mason land use committee to consider substation for Plaza 500 data center
“This location was chosen without taking into account the neighbors, which is unfortunate,” Wang said.
“This is completely inappropriate and incomplete,” said Brian Sterling, a resident of Bren Pointe, which is adjacent to the substation.
Sterling noted there hadn’t been any public meetings on the substation until now and that the MDLUC in 2022 urged the Planning Commission to oppose the data center.
Residents are unhappy
At the time, the Starwood Capital Group had paid $90 million for the property but wouldn’t say what they wanted to build on the site. Starwood has never met with the community on the project and didn’t send anyone to the MDLUC meeting.
“They’re playing games with us and with the county,” Sterling said. He called on Dominion to locate the substation at the Van Dorn site, which is not located near residents. “Or better yet, a data center should not be going on this site.”
Related story: BoS backs data center industry on substations, rejects residents’ concerns
Noting that ratepayers are subsidizing the cost of data centers, another resident asked, “Why should we help pay for any of this when we’re not getting any benefits?” The growth of artificial intelligence is driving data center projects, while “AI is being used by ICE to surveil our communities.”
Questions were also raised – but not answered – about why the SCC approved the transmission line before the substation was approved, whether other locations could be considered, and whether the transmission lines could be moved to the other side of Plaza 500.
Community not informed
Several residents of the Landmark area in the City of Alexandria said they will be affected by the data center and substation but weren’t informed about the project until the day before the meeting.
“Putting a substation in the most dense area of Virginia is insane,” a resident of the Watergate at Landmark told the Dominion representatives. “You picked the cheapest option, not for the well-being of the community.”
Another resident berated Dominion for talking about the color of the 12-foot perimeter walls but not “how you’re going to abate noise, make sure water will be clean, and that diesel generators won’t be used. How do we know the people building this are doing it for the benefit of the community?”
“It’s frustrating to have to be here and argue that we matter,” said Jordan Bassford. “It’s really frustrating to have to ask if you care about us.”
p.s. drove by their today- most folks aren’t talking about how miserable it’s going to be when construction starts and takes what a couple of years -let this be a lesson – you get what you vote for and I’ll bet 99 percent of the people at that meeting voted for Democrats because Orange Man bad! Well Orange Man never put a data center next to residential areas! But, I still feel for the people living around there – no one deserves that intrusion on their quality of life.
The BoS has not covered themselves in glory here, but making this a TDS issue is ridiculous. Orange Man didn’t build anything there because he couldn’t, he’s not a county official. I bet most of these people did not vote for a data center in their literal backyard, so that’s just blaming voters for a corporation’s actions. I’ve not heard of one BoS candidate running on putting data centers everywhere. Again, the county has messed this up and the idea of a data center right by a school and neighborhoods is just bad policy, but this has nothing to do with Red vs. Blue.
It was great to see so many people come out to push back on this. Between this and the way FCPS is handling the boundary review, it really does feel like the county has written Bren Mar off.
They’re writing off Bren Mar, the school currently receiving a giant renovation?
Just remember, members of the Board of Supervisors are up for re-election in November 2027. Their callous attitude toward the Bren Mar Park residents should not be forgotten.
And remember the Supervisor for Mason was not at the meeting and hasn’t commented about this controversial project taking place in his own District. Also worth mentioning he ran as an environmentalists!!
If anyone is on the fence about where these things should go, take a drive out Rt 50 to Paris. Get out of your car and take a look east and south and ask yourself “if we must have data centers, is THIS is a better location than Lincolnia?”
My preference is NONE but if I must choose, sorry Bryn Mar.
Agree wth the above comment re the callous attitude of the BOS to residents of Bren Mar and the surrounding areas.
Long time Democrat here but in the next local elections voting Republican.
As an aside the current Maso District Supervisor Jimenez and his staff are extremely unresponsive to his constituents concerns.
Vote them out
According to the 2020 census and ArcGIS data from Esri, there are over 28,000 people in the one mile radius around the Plaza 500 location, including Fairfax and Alexandria. That is an extremely densely populated area. These people will suffer the worst impact of the data center. If you extend the radius to 2 miles around the site, the population increases to almost 85,000 people. Based on everything we know about data centers from other locations, the sound will definitely be heard within the entire zero to 2 miles around radius. So the plan to put a data center in this location is beyond cruel. And no one knows exactly how bad the impact might be, because the developer will not give any details about the data center or any possible sound mitigation efforts. They could be building the noisiest, dirtiest type and the Fairfax government doesn’t care enough to insist on seeing the plans and the studies before approving all of this. Those of us who live in Alexandria are extremely upset that we have no say in this and we won’t even have the satisfaction of voting against the irresponsible Board members who approved it.
Drove down Rt 1 from Beltway to Pohick Road yesterday. Except for the old Pohick Church and new public housing across from Lockheed Blvd, everything looks worse than a data center. Tear it all down. And is data center noise really worse than Rt 1? Let’s see the measurements.