Protecting the Valley: Lessons from Prince William County’s Data Center Boom  

I am from Prince William County and have seen what data centers can do to a community. As Warren County and Front Royal residents face potential ordinances that would allow data centers, I want to share my experience so residents can better understand how heartbreaking it is to watch your hometown be transformed into something unrecognizable.

Prince William County was enticed by the promise of monetary gain. As Paulo Coelho wrote in The Alchemist (1988), “Greed blinds us from recognizing the true value of what we already possess.”

Prince William County believed it could learn from Loudoun County’s mistakes and control the data center industry, a monster.  I have heard those same sentiments echoed by our town and county officials.

Years ago, PWC created the Rural Crescent—approximately 100,000 acres of land protected by strict preservation zoning.

Slowly but surely, and then all at once, those protections were breached, and the Rural Crescent became not so rural. The Prince William Digital Gateway proposed 21 million square feet of data center space across 2,000 acres within the Rural Crescent.

As we learned in Prince William County, all it takes is one bad planning director, a few uninformed planning commissioners, or a couple of elected officials willing to accept large campaign contributions, and your community can become unrecognizable faster than you ever imagined. Parcels once thought to be protected were quickly rezoned, and in December 2022, the Rural Area designation boundary was removed altogether.

Remember this when you hear local officials promising to contain data centers to the North River and Shenandoah districts. Rules can change, zoning ordinances can be amended, and before long, Warren County’s rural boundaries in the Fork and South River districts could be breached as well.

The effects of allowing data centers as a permissible use in Prince William County have been immense. PWC residents have reported concerns about noise, air pollution, strain on the electrical grid (causing brownouts and expensive appliance damage), increased utility costs, environmental degradation, and water supply issues. Property values have also increased dramatically in some areas, making it more difficult for longtime residents and small businesses to afford the communities they once called home.

Lawsuits against PWC have been plentiful and ongoing across zoning and tax assessment disputes, brought by corporations and residents alike. The notion that making data centers a permissible use in Warren County will somehow prevent lawsuits is simply false. In reality, the opposite is true: adding data centers to the code is what invites an onslaught of legal battles.

I am writing this so that Warren County and Town of Front Royal residents can enter this debate with their eyes wide open. Listen to your friends and neighbors who moved to the Valley to escape the madness of Data Center Alley in Northern Virginia.

We need each and every citizen to get involved in the upcoming public hearings on legislation to permit data centers in both the Town and County.

The public hearing for the Town Council will be on June 22nd @ 7 pm (at the government center).  This will likely be our one and only chance to stop data centers in the town.  The County Planning Commission will hold its public hearing on July 8th (time and place TBD).  This will be the first opportunity to stop data centers before the matter heads to the County Supervisors in the near future. Messaging needs to be clear.  “Restrictive” ordinances are a Trojan Horse to invite data centers into our area.  NO means NO data centers.

Mark your calendars, share with friends, email your elected officials, and be willing to SHOW UP to keep our community data center free. Our area is too beautiful to sell out to data centers.

Melanie Salins
Warren County, VA

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