Virginia Beach City Council voices support for citywide ban on large data centers

Virginia Beach City Council has a message for data center developers: Look elsewhere.

The council unanimously agreed Tuesday to direct staff to draft an ordinance prohibiting large-scale data centers and hyperscale facilities within city limits, while allowing certain colocation facilities and subsea cable landings sites to seek approval through the conditional-use permit process.

“At this point, you know, I would really recommend an ordinance just banning data centers in Virginia Beach,” said Mayor Bobby Dyer. His statement drew applause from city residents in attendance.

The mayor’s comments followed a staff briefing on data centers. Planning and Community Development Director Kathy Warren said the discussion stemmed from an April 8 Planning Commission meeting, during which several commissioners raised concerns about the infrastructure demands, land-use impacts and noise generated by data centers. The commission subsequently sent a letter to City Council requesting an ordinance amendment to regulate those issues further.

Director of Information Technology Peter Wallace said there are four categories of data centers: subsea cable landing sites, colocation facilities, traditional data centers and hyperscalers.

Subsea cable landing sites are the points where undersea fiber optic cables connect to terrestrial networks and serve as critical gateways for international internet traffic. Virginia Beach is home to several such cable landings connecting the United States with Europe and other regions.

Colocation facilities allow multiple tenants to house servers and networking equipment in a shared facility while relying on the operator for power, cooling and connectivity. Virginia Beach currently has two colocation facilities — Globalinx and Telxius — at Corporate Landing Business Park.

Traditional data centers and hyperscale facilities, by contrast, are large campuses that provide cloud services and data storage and and enable the operation of artificial intelligence. Wallace said those facilities typically require substantially more land, electricity and water than either cable landing stations or colocation facilities.

“If you have a need for AI, the hyperscaler is what’s going to get you there,” Wallace said.
Currently, Virginia Beach doesn’t have large data centers.

City Council Member Stacy Cummings believed the council should treat the different categories of data centers differently, not lumping in subsea cables and colocation facilities with hyperscalers. Council Member Michael Berlucchi said he was “100%” in support of requiring conditional-use permits for data centers, which would give localities more control over them.

“What I’ve heard loud and clear is that the public wants some assurances and regulation related to any potential data center use within our city,” he said. “And I think that’s appropriate. I think we should respond to it, and I think we need to do it quickly. We cannot wait for this technology to outpace our zoning regulations.”

He noted that the city doesn’t seem to be trying to attract hyperscalers and that the zoning regulations “could and should reflect that.”

“Time is of the essence,” Berlucchi said. “We don’t have a lot of time, because we’re seeing the proliferation of these around the country that’s causing alarm among the public, and we need to be responsive.”

Deputy City Manager Amanda Jarratt noted that the city is not actively recruiting data centers or hyperscalers and doesn’t plan to, due to the acreage requirements, power demands and water usage needs.

“It’s not a highest and best use of the property that we have available in the city, and so this is not a target industry in any way for our economic development team,” she said.

Dyer suggested an ordinance banning data centers and hyperscalers, saying they are “not good neighbors” and he “wouldn’t want to live near one.” He added that the city doesn’t have enough land to meet the needs of large data centers.

City Council Member Cal “Cash” Jackson-Green noted that he has more than 13 emails in his inbox urging the council not to allow data centers in the city, and said he would support a ban for that reason.

Ultimately, the council asked staff to draft an ordinance banning regular and hyperscale data centers in the city, while requiring conditional-use permits for subsea cable landing sites and colocation facilities.

Once drafted, the amendment will go before the Planning Commission and then later the City Council for a final vote.