Loudoun County supervisors shake up data center regulations

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors approved major changes on Tuesday night to how the county regulates data centers, eliminating them as a by-right use.

The board voted 7-2 to alter the county’s comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance, with supervisors Kristen Umstattd and Caleb Kershner making the dissenting votes. The comprehensive plan amendment makes data centers a “conditional use” in places where they are currently a core or complementary use. This change requires all future data centers to meet certain conditions to be built.

The zoning ordinance amendment designates data centers as a “special exception” use in county areas where they were previously permitted by-right. By-right applications could be approved administratively, whereas “special exception” requires applicants to go through a public hearing process and get approval for data centers from the board.

However, in a separate 5-4 vote, the board made provisions to grandfather applications that were already in place by Feb. 12 — the night the board held a public hearing on the proposed zoning changes — for projects that are more than 500 feet away from residential units. The grandfather provision requires that the applicant “diligently” pursue approval of their application and also forbids substantial modification to an application.

Vice Chair Mike Turner and Supervisors Laura TeKrony, Juli Briskman and Sylvia Glass were the dissenting votes to the grandfather clause. Kershner made a motion to extend the date of grandfathering applications to March 18, but it failed to pass, with Umstattd being the only other supervisor to support it.

According to Turner, 24 data center applications were grandfathered by Tuesday’s vote.

The county’s planning and zoning staff calculated that as of Feb. 12, Loudoun County has approximately 46 million square feet of data centers constructed or with a building permit issued and about 61.5 million square feet of potential data center development. However, staff noted in the action item documents that is an “unconstrained number” and that it’s likely that not all possible data center square footage may be fully realized due to various factors, such as changes in the political landscape impacting the industry, technology change and limitations in electric transmission capacity and related infrastructure.

Kershner said numerous data center companies have “been some of our strongest business partners here in the county” and said the new rules would create a feeling of uncertainty and make companies hesitant to do business in the county. He described the new regulations as a “dangerous game” of “Loudoun County Zoning roulette.”

“When you spin that wheel, there is a level of uncertainty that permeates all businesses, not just this business, but all businesses who are thinking and doing business here in the county, and that has huge negative effects on Loudoun County,” Kershner said.

Umstattd echoed Kershner’s concerns, saying she was concerned about taking away by-right opportunities from businesses who have invested in the county and reminded the rest of the board of the revenue data centers have brought the county. County Administrator Tim Hemstreet said last month that the data center industry generates 38% of all the county’s general fund revenues.

However, many county residents have voiced concerns about data centers in the county, with complaints about data centers straining the state’s electric grid, the centers generating too much noise and the buildings being eyesores. In particular, many residents feel that some data centers are being built in inappropriate locations — right next to neighborhoods.

Supervisor Matthew Letourneau says he appreciates the revenue data centers have brought and has consistently supported data centers “that are in places that they should be.” But, he said many data centers are in places they shouldn’t be. Glass said the changes approved empower the board to “make thoughtful decisions regarding what data centers we build in our communities.”

County Chair Phyllis Randall said one of the goals of the board is to be “the voice of the people” and that she gets emails almost every day from people complaining about data centers.

“When I first came on, I would call people and I would say, ‘But this is what it does for your tax rate and how much it lowers it, and they do this for the community.’ And somebody would say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that. Thanks for letting me know,’ and that would be it,” Randall said. “Now I say, ‘this is what it does for your tax break.’ And they say, ‘I don’t care.’ I have people say, ‘I will pay more. Stop building these.’ At some point, we just cannot ignore the voice of the people.”