Death by a thousand little cuts?
If we don’t hold the line (protecting rural Prince William County), we’ll lose the line entirely.
Current Proposals and Other Things to Know
Updates
Planning staff recommends denial ahead of the Public Hearing for the Planning Commission, on Wednesday, Nov 8th, 2023.
Overlay
What’s the Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District and Why Does it Matter?
The “data center overlay district” was created to encourage development of data centers within areas of Prince William County where existing infrastructure can adequately support data center needs. Prince William County’s Board of Supervisors first adopted its Data Center Overlay District in 2016 with approximately 8,700 acres it deemed well positioned and ideally suited for data centers.
What’s happening now?
On May 18, 2021, the Board of County Supervisors initiated a review of the current data center overlay district with the intention of amending the zoning ordinance and expanding the district. The board’s resolution initiating this review lists several issues to be addressed, including the conservation of open space, use of green technologies, and impacts to environmental resources, cultural resources and National Parks.
So, why are we concerned?
So far, the review process, being conducted by County staff, has included zero study of any land use, open space, environmental impacts, infrastructure needs, cultural or historical impacts, or associated taxpayer costs associated with expanding the Overlay District. Rather, it has focused solely on economic development aspects, covering:
data center market demand and analysis
data center industry emerging trends
best practices local economic development
economic impact of data centers
We are concerned that the review process and potential expansion of the Data Center Overlay District will continue to de-emphasize and ignore land use, environmental, and infrastructure impacts of data centers near our National Parks and our rural service areas.
Plus, according to the County’s own data, the current Data Center Overlay District still has 2,493 acres suitable for future data center development. Specifically, 1,120 acres are already owned by data center developers, another 634 acres are considered “site-ready” for data center development, and 739 acres in smaller parcels can be combined to accommodate data centers. These 2,493 remaining acres within the existing Overlay is equal to Loudoun County’s entire Data Center Alley, the largest concentration of data centers in the world.
SAP
The Independent Hill Small Area Plan puts industrial development in a semi-rural area at the headwaters of Quantico Creek
On March 16, 2021, the Board of County Supervisors voted 5-3 to approve the Independent Hill Small Area Plan, partially within the Rural Crescent. This Small Area Plan amended the county’s Comprehensive Plan by re-designating roughly 544 acres mostly within the Rural Crescent for industrial, commercial and data center development.
We remain concerned about the Plan’s undesirable location for development — in a semi-rural community adjacent to a national park and sensitive historic area and lacking connection to jobs and transportation.
Prince William Conservation Alliance hosted a People’s town hall to discuss the issue. Watch the Town Hall meeting here.
Techpark
A Potomac Technology Park could devastate Prince William Forest Park and Quantico Creek
With the adoption of the Independent Hill Small Area Plan, Arlington-based developer Plaza Realty Management Inc. filed applications for a rezoning (REZ2022-00015) and special use permit (SUP2022-00016) on January 6, 2022 for a Potomac Technology Park project. This proposed data center complex would go on about 51 acres within the legislative border of Prince William Forest Park.
Prince William Forest park is the largest green space in metropolitan Washington, D.C. and has been identified as the second-most pristine forest among national parks in the eastern United States, as well as home to one of the most intact interior forest bird communities.
Prince William Forest Park protects the South Fork of Quantico Creek, as well as 80 percent of the Quantico Creek Watershed, one of our highest quality streams and a baseline for water quality throughout Northern Virginia. This Potomac Technology Park proposal would have devastating impacts to the Park, nearby historic resources, and Quantico Creek.
The County responded in March 2022 to the initial applications with comments for the Applicant to address.
The Applicant has yet to identify a building location or how it would look
Impacts to the on-site cemetery and adjacent historic resources are still unclear
Significant water supply issues - the project will most likely require significant upgrades to water supply system along Dumfries Rd.
A planning commission hearing has yet to be scheduled. Read PWCA’s comments here.
Read more about PW Forest and this proposal here. Additional key documents:
Gateway
A Prince William Digital Gateway/Industrial Corridor Right Next to a National Park and State Forest?
The area around Pageland Lane is a predominantly agriculturally zoned area within Prince William County’s planned Rural Area that also serves as a primary route into Manassas Battlefield National Park and Conway Robinson State Forest.
Early in 2021, a group of landowners along Pageland Lane initiated conversations with County Planning Staff around changing the long-range land use designation for 2,133 acres along Pageland Land from the Rural Area to Technology/Flex, with the intention of developing data centers. This area has taken on the name “Prince William Digital Gateway.” To make this change, the county would first need to amend its Comprehensive Plan, developed with broad community input.
Because of this area’s rural location within the Occoquan Reservoir watershed that provides drinking water to Eastern Prince William and over half of the County’s population and adjacent to a national park and state forest, so important to recreation and tourism, such a change would have devastating effects on both parks, drinking water quality, agricultural lands and traffic.
On July. 20, 2021, just before the Board of Supervisors’ 5-3 vote to initiate this comprehensive plan amendment, we held a press conference highlighting the potential damage data centers could pose to our national and local resources. Still, the Board of County Supervisors moved forward. This coalition then hosted a panel discussion with experts outlining the far-reaching impacts of this proposal - from the Occoquan Reservoir to a potential Bi-County Parkway and more on Jan. 6, 2022.
The Pageland Lane landowners and their representatives (the Applicant) submitted the proposed amendment to the county’s planning staff in late 2021. In January 2022, the applicant and the County underwent a series of submissions and responses. While some issues were addressed, others have arisen and others are still outstanding. Throughout the review process, several have come out in opposition including the County’s own Watershed Management Department, the National Parks Service, which highlighted inadequate protections for historic resources within a National Register District, and Fairfax Water, who highlighted their strong concerns for the impacts of sediment and impervious surface associated with Digital Gateway on the Occoquan Reservoir and the need to conduct a study on those impacts.
The Digital Gateway Comprehensive Plan Amendment comes with three Rezoning Requests
Three rezoning applications accompany the Comprehensive Plan Amendment; they are called Digital Gateway North and Digital Gateway South, and Compass. They were filed with the County in early March 2022 by QTS, a Kansas-based data center company and in May 2022 by Compass. Now in their third round of submission, these applications continue to fall short in protecting our natural and cultural resources. The applications are vague and fail to address any specific building locations, design elements, or planned actions to mitigate negative environmental impacts.
The Applicant’s most recent submission included a sight line analysis suggesting that certain screening measures could protect the Manassas Battlefield’s priority viewsheds. However, the Applicant is delaying a more detailed analysis of the viewshed impacts at the time of rezoning, AFTER the surrounding area is re-designated for data centers. We believe that any views of data centers, regardless of where in the Park they are seen, would have devastating impacts on the quiet, somber experience of history people expect to get at the Battlefield and that approving the Comprehensive Plan Amendment based on that analysis would enable these impacts to occur.
CompPlan
Pathway to 2040 Comprehensive Plan: Proposed Comprehensive Plan Land-Use chapter eliminates Rural Area entirely
Prince William County is continuing to pursue an update to the comprehensive plan amendment. The draft Land Use Chapter of the Comprehensive plan and draft Long-Range Land Use Map of the Comprehensive Plan were made available for public review and comment in January 2022. This draft was presented to the Planning Commission during a work session on Feb. 2, 2022 and shared with the community during the Community Meeting on Feb. 10, 2022.
The draft Land Use Chapter proposes a number of new land use designations, including the Agricultural and Forestal Designation, which would replace the rural area designation. The new designation would double the allowable density for roughly 75,000 acres in the western portion of the county from 1 house per 10 acres to 1 house per 5 acres.
The draft Land Use Chapter would also introduce new rural place types such as ‘Villages’, ‘Hamlets’ ‘Residential Clusters’, and Village/Hamlet Mixed Use which would further increase the density allowances on approximately 10,200 acres previously designated for the rural area.
The proposed plan also designates about 1,800 acres along Rt. 28 in Nokesville for industrial employment use, further encroaching into the rural area and creating the potential for increased traffic.
These three land use policies contained in the comprehensive plan update pose an existential threat to the Rural Crescent urban growth boundary, which has played a major role in ensuring balanced growth in the County since 1998. If approved, they would open the Rural Crescent up to suburban sprawl, requiring the extension of services and infrastructure at a significant cost to the County. A Planning Commission work session on the comprehensive plan amendment is currently scheduled for Apr. 6, 2022. A planning commission hearing has yet to be scheduled.
Who’s Prince William County planning for?
Aside from the recent rezoning applications and the overall Comprehensive Plan Amendment Associated with Digital Gateway, two separate requests from property owners between the northern and southern Digital Gateway rezoning areas are applying for a change in the long range land use designation of their properties as part of the comprehensive plan update. Both requests would re-designate land that was previously designated as rural to a designation that would allow data centers. These requests will be approved en masse along with several other requests from individual landowners for a designation change with the comprehensive plan update anticipated in May 2022 without a separate public hearing. If approved, a rezoning is not indicated to accompany the request.
View map of long use land use change requests here
By considering these numerous requests along with major rezonings to accommodate data centers outside of the Data Center Overlay District, the County is undermining its own planning process and allowing instability and uncertainty to spread as data center developers make promises of prices upward of $1 million an acre wherever they see fit. If the Comprehensive Plan is, in fact, the overarching document guiding the County’s growth, any decisions regarding the Digital Gateway or any other data center in need of a rezoning should be delayed until the comprehensive plan update is complete. After all, any proposal can be found to be consistent with a comprehensive plan that was brought forward to justify it.
FarmHouse
House Farm Data Center Application would put data centers in residential Nokesville
On May 11, 2021, the Planning Department received a landowner-driven request to change a long-range land use Comprehensive Plan Text Amendment request to convert rural land into a new category called the Data Center Edge District. The Comprehensive Plan change is currently being considered, with a Board vote planned for Summer 2022.
The land in the request consists of 279 acres in the Rural Crescent, sandwiched by residential gravel roads, located in a floodplain with an Environmental Resource long range land classification, and without access to public water or sewer. An approval of the request would enable the development of a data center on a substantial property in the rural area and outside the Data Center Overlay District. The request indicated that a concurrent rezoning application would follow the Long Range Land Use designation change request.
Read here for further details.