Supervisors to vote on data centers
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors’ upcoming vote on data centers, scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 10, could have huge consequences for the future of Mason District and the rest of the county.
As Tyler Ray, the president of the Bren Pointe HOA Board puts it, “The supervisors will decide whether to protect all residents or side with corporate greed and out-of-control data center development.”
The big issue for Mason District residents is Starwood Capital Group’s proposal for a huge data center at the Plaza 500 industrial park on Edsall Road.
Related story: Community speaks out against Plaza 500 data center
Residents of Bren Mar Park and nearby communities organized the Save Bren Mar coalition to urge the BoS to protect nearby residents, some of whom live just 260 from the proposed project site. An electrical substation planned to serve the data center would be even closer.
In addition to Bren Pointe, coalition partners include Landmark Mews, Overlook Foundation, the Ridges at Edsall, and the Jefferson Green community associations.
The key issue to be determined is whether the existing or more stringent regulations would apply to data center projects, like the one at Plaza 500, that are in the pipeline but have not been formally approved.
The existing zoning rules allow the Plaza 500 data center to be developed by-right, without the need for a public hearing or public notification.
The proposed zoning change would limit the size of data centers and where they can be built by-right, increase the setback from residential neighborhoods, require noise studies, and require the screening of generators and other outdoor equipment.
The Board of Supervisors previously held a hearing on the data center ordinance on July 30, where more than 60 people spoke. The board was unable to proceed with a vote, however, because staff had failed to follow the requirements for public notification. As a result, the board scheduled another hearing on Sept. 10.
Related story: Board delays decision on data centers
That delay has given both residents concerned about the negative impact of data centers and the data center industry more time to lobby the supervisors.
Meanwhile, county officials have been putting out dire projections on the budget – due mainly to falling office occupancy – which is fueling efforts to find new sources of revenue. Data center developers are emphasizing the potential for generating tax revenue, which they say could lead to lead to lower property taxes for residents.
Residents and environmental groups are arguing that any increased tax revenue from data centers is not worth a deteriorating quality of life, increased air and water pollution, and the soaring demand for energy from fossil fuels, which would set back efforts to mitigate climate change.
The Board of Supervisors has put off discussions on environmental and sustainability issues to a later date. By then, many more data centers could be approved.
Bren Mar Park residents have urged Mason Supervisor Andres Jimenez to ensure that the Plaza 500 project would be required to comply with the new zoning ordinance. According to Ray, “Impacted residents believe it would be a failure of leadership if Supervisor Jimenez doesn’t take any action during the board meeting.”
Board chair Jeff McKay has publicly stated that he wants to set the nationwide standard on data centers to protect residents and the environment. “In meetings with residents, he has indicated a reluctance to require unapproved data centers, like Plaza 500, from complying with a new ordinance,” Ray says. “This would deny residents the benefit of the new protections, including a public hearing.”
Related story: Residents concerned about Dominion’s substation project
Supervisor Kathy Smith (Sully), vice chair of the board and chair of its Land Use Committee, will offer the motion on the zoning ordinance at the conclusion of the hearing. According to Ray, “she will decide whether to use the unanimously passed Planning Commission recommendations as a baseline or ignore their recommendation and put forth a different proposal, likely with weakened residential and environmental protections.”
In 2022, Starwood Capital Group sought to rezone the Plaza 500 site to a higher industrial designation with the intent to build a data center. That application was indefinitely deferred over concerns by county staff, the Planning Commission, and residents.
Then when the supervisors indicated they were moving toward enhanced protections for residents, Starwood submitted a site plan application for a by-right data center, meaning it wouldn’t need board approval or a public hearing. That application was so incomplete, with many missing pieces, that staff wasn’t able to review it.
According to Ray, “Residents believe this submission was on its face a blatant attempt to circumvent the intent of the board in order to be exempt from the new residential protections that Chairman McKay and many other board members indicated should be the standard for all future data centers coming into the county.”
Big Question: Will McKay and Smith, whom most other supervisors bow to for ‘guidance’, evolve into responsible sustainable environmental stewards of FFX Co.? Or will they continue their duplicitous conduct where they pledge to aspire to ‘nationwide standard on data centers to protect residents and the environment’ but, in fact, do exactly the opposite?
HINT: Selective wording in advertising hearings is used to prevent actual positive results to combat global warming and resident protections. Then McKay/Smith claim that they are stuck with the limits of the very wording they chose! How stupid do you think voters are when, time after time, they ignore common sense and vote for damaging zoning or policy changes?
Will these two evolve into protectors or will they continue their Trump-ish behaviors where they continue to lie and leave residents/voters in a ditch while their developer pals/campaign contributors grin all the way to the bank?
Sadly, in Fairfax Co., voting Blue for decades has disadvantaged the public. We have blindly voted color (Blue) vs. character… Jeff McKay, politically ambitious BOS Chair and Cathy Smith, Sully district supervisor and dictatorial head of Land Use Committee, are anything but True Blue in their actions. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Tuesday, Sept. 10th we will see if they OR a majority of our other 8 supervisors will champion the ‘common man’ or continue gambling with the safety of millions people in our region.
Well said, Charles Darwin. Sums up my observations exactly. And you can throw in the self aggrandizing county executive into the mix. They all congratulate themselves on their NAIOP award when, in fact, NAIOP told them how to restructure the county to serve the developers. I have no problems with fair development. But public service is more than just serving the developers. Don’t believe me? Read it for yourself: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/landdevelopment/sites/landdevelopment/files/Assets/documents/PDF/NVBIA/fairfax-vision-and-recommendations.pdf
Since the taxes generated by data centers would offset some of the revenue lost by people working from home, I’m curious to know which county services those opposed to data centers would choose to cut should the BoS agree with them.
Across-the-board budget decrements as budget options have been around for many decades. The which-service-to-cut discussion is just a red herring – a misdirection. Let’s see the BoS and County Exec put forward a single-digit decrement for all services, not eliminate any.
Let’s be clear that this community is not opposing data centers in Fairfax County, but asking that the same protections the county is putting in place to ensure they are going in the right places applies to this unapproved proposal too.
As it stands, there would be no public hearing or review by the Board of Supervisors, for this application. Given the recognized impact that these can have it’s fair to think the Board should review each of these.
There are appropriate places for these, but not 200 fr from residents with electrical transmission lines and an electrical substation less than 80 ft from homes, without so much as a public hearing.
There are other redevelopment, tax generating, options for this site like mixed use which is happening literally next door in Alexandria and is much more consistent with the community then a massive industrial data center and electrical substation.
Great question. First though, the commercial sector has not performed in a very long time, not just since COVID. Many have been sitting empty for decades and have not produced occupancy taxes like they promised this county when they were built. I might suggest raising those property taxes to help offset the revenue they are not generating and creating a scenario where they are more incentivized to redevelop. But commercial and retail sectors are more of a global issue as well as a local one. So the “revenue lost” has been going on for a very long time and not just from people working at home. But that didn’t stop the BOS from taking huge raises for their part time jobs, nor did it prevent them from pumping massive amounts of revenue to staffing a huge LDS department not to mention all the expensive consultants they keep hiring to justify their political desires so those are some ripe areas for cut backs. And BTW, those people working from home as well as other residents are being completely ignored by this county even though they are their primary revenue source. So cuddling up to data centers hasn’t proven to be the massive revenue generator in other cities, creates short term construction jobs which is about all they do, and then a minimum staff for running the center once it is up and operating. They use massive amounts of energy — and those costs will make for higher electric bills for residents — and massive amounts of water. Testing of the back up generators using diesel fuel not only prevents us from reaching goals on climate but threatens our water supply. Some within the industry believe this sector is being overbuilt and have raised concerns about that. I think residents deserve a BOS that focuses on quality of life issues for the residents who actually are the revenue generators. And wouldn’t that make a nice place for businesses to move and develop?