‘This is ridiculous’: Clerical error postpones Fairfax data centers vote
The Board of Supervisors was not happy Tuesday. Neither were advocates.
A “clerical error” Tuesday forced Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors to postpone its public hearings until September — delaying a final vote on its polarizing new data centers zoning amendment.
Staff had failed to comply with a recent Virginia law about advertising public hearings and pending decisions, the county said. The same oversight applied to the board’s July 16 meeting, when it first delayed a vote on the data centers rules, meaning the board will have to hold that public hearing again, too.
Board Chairman Jeffrey C. McKay (D) said staff had discovered the error late Monday, but its implications Tuesday morning frustrated him and his colleagues and left them sorting out how they could proceed.
“This is ridiculous that we’re at this point now,” McKay said, as supervisors discussed the need for motions they hadn’t prepared. Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) said he shared McKay’s “disappointment and anger.”
Supervisors agreed to handle both the do-over hearing and the vote on Sept. 10, after their August recess, when McKay suggested more people would be able to follow the proceedings. The county apologized for the error.
“The county executive has assured me that he commenced a complete review of the County’s public hearing advertising processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” McKay said in a statement later Tuesday afternoon.
The snafu meant yet another hearing and yet another wait on the data centers proposal.
It also frustrated some advocates, who were left scrambling, too.
What’s in the new data center rules?
The Zoning Ordinance amendment that county staff proposed can be wonky to sort through. But it could change the rules around data centers’ construction in Fairfax in a few key ways:
Requiring new data centers to be at least 200 feet from residential areas and half a mile from a Metro station entrance.
Limiting the size of data centers in some lighter industrial districts, unless the developer obtains a special exception.
Subjecting new projects to a noise study before and after construction, to ensure compliance with the county’s Noise Ordinance.
Enforcing design standards to make future data centers less, well, ugly.
It’s not clear, though, what exact rules the Board of Supervisors might settle on in September. The staff report included both its recommendations and some other options for the board to consider, including increasing those distances to 500 feet from residential areas and a full mile from Metro stations.
Last month, as FFX Now reported, some members of the Fairfax County Planning Commission endorsed those longer distances instead.
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What are residents’ concerns?
Cynthia Shang, a local advocate who formed the group Save Pleasant Valley, said the concerns she hears most about data centers include:
Their massive electricity demands, which are booming along with the recent boom in AI.
Their impacts on resource-protected areas, air quality and the water that’s required to keep them cool.
The around-the-clock noise that data centers can generate. Some Loudoun County residents, Shang said, have reported hearing centers’ low hum from miles away.
Advocates want the county to enforce tougher restrictions to address such issues. (The staff report noted that a Zoning Ordinance amendment could not change the county’s separate Noise Ordinance and that Virginia, not the county, governs emissions standards.)
Tyler Ray, president of the Bren Pointe Homeowners’ Association, said size is another concern, with 70-foot-tall centers “often replacing buildings that are half the height.” It’s also all happening fast.
According to an April report from the Northern Virginia Technology Council, a trade group that represents tech companies, 4.4 million square feet of data centers were under construction in Fairfax as of February. That would more than double the existing inventory, the report said. The new regulations probably won’t slow that pace down, either.
What happens now?
McKay said the board would adopt the zoning amendment Sept. 10. Any application for a data center received after July 16 would be subject to the new regulations, he said.
But Ray disputed that the board had issued any official directive to that effect. He said residents in his community, near Alexandria and the proposed Plaza 500 project, worried that this latest delay would give developers more time to slip pending applications through, without needing to abide by the new restrictions.
Ray spoke at the July 16 hearing himself, and he plans to speak again in September, he said.
“If the board truly has to have a new notice and public hearing, they should expand the notice to include issues raised at the first one that were outside of the initial scope, like distance from schools, parks, etc.,” he said.
In the meantime, McKay said, he had directed county staff to reimburse applicants affected by the error, at county expense.