Data Centers and Hugh Henry

The upcoming primaries in Warren County are subject to some unusual controversy, especially considering the Republican Party’s victories last year in electing Donald Trump president. One would think that after such a victory, a party could collaborate to bring about the new policy and politics that Trump’s election presages. Yet the Republican Party is reverting to old ways and beginning to feed on itself after victory rather than unify to capitalize on it.

Specifically, there is now a lot of acrimony surrounding the candidacy of Hugh Henry for the Fork District seat on the Warren County Board of Supervisors, resulting from Mr. Henry’s statements in favor of increasing residential development and bringing data centers to Warren County.

When Mr. Henry spoke of his desire to bring data centers and increase residential development in Warren County at the Warren County Republican Committee, he attempted to portray his proposals as so modest, moderate, and unthreatening that only a fool would disagree. In his language, he deliberately softened, obscured, or ignored practical concerns about his proposed projects’ impacts on Warren County and its citizens, essentially poo-poo-ing any naysayer as an alarmist.

I find Mr. Henry’s attitude unsettling because of the well-documented demand that data centers and residential developments put on a county.  Mr. Henry has so far failed to explain how constructing data centers and residential developments will not overwhelm Warren County’s already-at-capacity water system.

Depending on their size, data centers can consume anywhere from 50,000 to 4,000,000 gallons of water daily to keep the equipment within them cool enough to continue functioning.  Similarly, new housing developments will vastly increase both the use of water and the use of the sewage system in a way that will likely break an already overstrained system.  Mr. Henry provided no plans to deal with these practical realities that accompany his development proposals.

Another critical downside to opening Warren County to increased housing development and data centers is the economic nature of these developments.  Data centers employ very few people and do very little to increase the prosperity of the communities in which they are located.  They provide very little tax revenue as a result because they generate little to no employment taxes,  and no sales taxes, as they are not selling services in Warren County.  Consequently, the only taxes that data centers will generate are property taxes, which are usually put in abatement by local governments to attract new businesses.

A similar problem exists with new housing developments.  While new housing does, in fact, increase the tax base of the government of Warren County, the types of developments likely to result from Mr. Henry’s policies do not provide a concomitant increase in economic development or gross prosperity.

Under Mr. Henry’s policies, two types of development are likely to result. First will be the construction of public housing, charitably termed “low-income housing.”  People who reside in such housing tend to be under or unemployed and dependent on public benefits to maintain themselves. This sort of development will drain public resources but be very profitable to the companies constructing it.

The other type of potential residential development will be upper-middle-class corporate housing built for Beltway residents.   The more of them that come, the more Warren County’s economic system will turn the natives of Warren County into service employees for Washingtonians.  At least with the data center, the computers won’t be voting; when there are enough Washington cosmopolitans to reach critical mass, they will begin to vote to make Warren County into a place that is most comfortable for them – another rootless, Godless corporate reservation.

Maybe we’ll get a SweetGreen.

And where is Mr. Henry in all this?  Why is it important to him to build data centers and residential developments in Warren County?

To give the man the benefit of the doubt, one might say that, at best, Mr. Henry’s economic proposals are well-meaning but short-sighted.  At worst, he is a modern version of the carpetbagger, developing residential property and data centers that will personally enrich him and his fellow builders at the long-term cost of the community.

After all, once the developments have been built, the construction company owners will have more than enough money to leave if they find the Warren County they created unpalatable; they can “head back North,” if you will. The rest of us will have to stay and deal with the fallout—again.

Thomas F. Ranieri, Esq.
Principal, Ranieri & Associates, PLC
WCRC Shenandoah Magisterial Chair/Counsel
Warren County, VA

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