At the Nokesville town hall meeting last week, Deshundra Jefferson, chair-at-large of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, expressed the board's distaste for new data centers, saying the climate has changed from even three years ago.
This is a good thing. What is even better, is that today after 2 p.m., the board of supervisors will vote on whether a Special Use Permit [SUP] should be required for any company seeking to build a data center in the county.
Should the resoultion - made by Brentsville Supervisor Tom Gordy-R - pass, no longer will proposed data centers be built By Right. their developers would have to come before the Board of County Supervisors to receive a hearing and a vote, with the exception of those applying to build within a very reduced data center overlay district.
The resolution would also require that all data centers have at least a 500-foot buffer (possibly a 2,500-foot buffer) between residential neighorhoods. This is something residents have been asking for.
Why is this good? We know the issues with data centers. They are big, loud and use up an immense amount of energy intended for homes and businesses. If they go down for any reason, they run on back-up diesel generators that poison the air we breathe. They require more infrastructure, meaning high-voltage transmission lines, new substations (some of which would be powered by forever chemicals), and rising electricity costs for homes,.
That is why I was shocked that Barbur Lateef, our school board chair at-large, made a plea against the proposal in Prince William Times. He argued that data center revenue supports the public schools.
He said that in 2024, data centers paid $293.7 million in local taxes. Whereas a dozen years earlier, that figure was about $6 million. I am grateful we have this new information upon which our supervisors can base their decision, and it is an impressive amount of monty. Still, it does not negate the fact that we should act more deliberately regarding data centers. If anything, it indicates that our schools are now in a more comfortable financial position, and the county can be less desperate for tax revenue and more discriminating about where it comes from.
It is not wise to think only about the short-term gains and ignore all the multiple ways data centers negatively affect our community. Do we want to live in homes that hum from data centers, causing us headaches, insomnia and distraction? Do we want transmission lines to cross every green space we have? Do we want power outtage, and polluted air?
This is not to say that school board members should stay out of the data center debate entirely. Just the opposite. They need to be involved when data centers want to build within 200 feet from our schools or when transmission lines would cross over school campuses.
Our representatives also have the freedom to advocate for data centers. That is their right, but it does not match the opinions of the people I talk to.
The residents I talk to are concerned about data centers encroaching on our neighborhoods. They have no problem with them in the right places. However, they now are also considering the need for more transmission lines to follow the data centers, which they also do not want encroaching on their property, schools and green spaces.
And let us not forget there are reasons the resolution is needed.
Over the past decade, we've witnessed horrible zoning ordinances for Prince William data centers. First, we have an insufficient data center overlay zone that still allows for data centers to be built near schools like Chris Yung Elementary in Bristow. Then, communities have been tricked into thinking the centers were compatible with residential areas, such as Amberleigh Station, also in Bristow.
We have also seen a number of our local politicians ignore thousands of citizens telling them not to build the world's largest data center campus in our rural crescent near the Manassas Battlefield in Catharpin. Because they did not listen, it hastily passed. As a result, the county spent millions in tax dollars to legally defend a position that very few of us agreed with, until it all fell apart.
We know data centers donate to our politicians, and our elected representatives often have personal reasons for supporting them. In that case, their positions often do not align with the majority of their constituents, nor with the common good.
If the supervisors vote that the vast majority of data centers developers in the county will have to stand before them for a hearing and vote to be approved, they are doing the right by their constituents.
We should also consider that the entire nation is now concerned about "AI data centers" and how they will transform our landscape, use our water and energy.
On the macro scale, the more data centers and high-power transmission lines we build, the more we give the green light to AI. Just this week, its own creators said has a very real possibility of ending the human race within 10 years. Let that sink in.
When faced with such an existential threat, I am reminded of the movie "Don't Look Up." We look away because we feel powerless. Maybe if we look away, it will sort itself out.
But there is something our supervisors can do, however small it might be. They can slow down data center development in Prince William County, just as AI creators have decided to slow down AI development.
Slowing down the process to take time to think things through is a big win for western Prince William residents.
So, let the onus be on the data center industry to show us they can do better: That they can be good neighbors. Because I believe if we encourage the rapid building data centers, we do so at our own detriment.
It is not to say we will never build another data center, but it does take some of the power away from the data center industry and the energy companies, and gives it back to the people.
Prince William residents have proven that they can stand strong in defense of our way of life. We have made so many strides in the right direction, over the past six years. I believe we can take one more and pass this resolution.
Support Bristow Beat - Donate Today!