Frederick prepares for data center development

Increasingly, data center developers are eyeing sites in parts of the commonwealth outside Northern Virginia, the largest data center market in the world.

Members of the Frederick County Board of Supervisors decided to put a game plan in place before those developers come to call.

“We wanted to be ready,” says Wyatt Pearson, planning and development director for Frederick County, which sits about 80 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., in Virginia’s Shenandoah region outside Winchester.

At an April 9 meeting, board members unanimously approved amending the county code to provide specific regulations for data centers. Previously, data centers were permitted in most county zoning districts as a by-right use, meaning board members didn’t get a vote.

Currently, Frederick has a single data center, called the Middletown Data Center. It’s a 43,400-square-foot operation.

“Because they’re so small, and because of where they’re located, we’ve never heard anything as far as concerns or issues with them,” Pearson says.

Last year, board members asked county staff to draft regulations for data centers in case bigger, louder operations set their sights on Frederick.

In preparation, county staff studied ordinances around the state, looking particularly closely at Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William counties. Additionally, Frederick County consulted with Alexis Kurtz, a noise control engineer who is a principal at Washington, D.C.-based Trinity Consultants.

Under the amended ordinance, most zoning districts in Frederick require data center developers to seek conditional use permits, which requires going before the board. The county does have a technology manufacturing district where data centers could be built as a by-right use, but no land currently has that zoning, so developers would still need board approval.

Before getting that OK, a data center developer must now conduct site assessments evaluating the operation’s impact on water, agriculture, noise and other matters.

Once in business, data centers can test and operate generators only during weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A noise study will also be required one year after a certificate of occupancy is granted and every five years after that.

Before voting in April, Frederick County Board Chair Josh Ludwig said the amendment to the ordinance may not cover everything to ensure data centers coexist peacefully with neighbors, but it’s a start.

“That way we have some protections established,” he said.