Technology Business Versus Data Center: Town Planning Commission Deep Dives into Definitions

“It will be important for them to prove that they are a technology business,” said Megan Marrazzo, vice-chairman of the Town Planning Commission, at a July 1 work session, in which the commissioners took up the task bestowed on them by the Town Council to prepare language that would support a prohibition of data centers, in contrast to a technology business. Her point was received as a reference to the need for a precise definition of “data center”, to eliminate a scenario in which a data center flies under the radar as a technology business. The focus, throughout the evening, was on scale.

The Town Planning Commission met for a work session on July 1. Royal Examiner Photo Credits: Brenden McHugh

Electrical power demand and aggregate floor space were among the considerations, as were infrastructure unique to data centers, such as their cooling systems. The commissioners’ review of these points seemed eerily reminiscent of the work sessions in which they developed a restrictive data center ordinance. Indeed, Chairman Allen Neel remarked that those work sessions were not wasted, as key points reappeared in this one. But now their focus is to prevent hyperscale and to welcome a computing enterprise with thresholds that reflect what the community is prepared to accommodate.

A technology business appears in a handful of ways. It may appear as electronic information operations and providers, businesses that assist other businesses in better managing their paper documents by putting them in an electronic database that can be easily viewed by a larger group of people. It may appear as an Internet service provider, a business that provides Internet service to businesses or residents. Perhaps as software design and development, businesses that design software or businesses that develop the design of specific software.

The list goes on. It could be computer and peripheral sales and assembly, businesses that assemble computers or sell the hardware associated with computers; content developers, businesses that design and build computer systems; Internet based sales and services, businesses whose primary trade is based on the Internet, be it sales or service providers; hardware design, manufacture, assembly, and development, businesses that manufacture, assemble, or develop hardware design for computers; telecommunications based video service providers, businesses that use videoconferencing or cable connections for employees to telecommute; and finally telecommunications equipment manufacturing, assembly, and service, businesses that build, put together or service telecommunications equipment.

Deputy Zoning Administrator John Ware presented the commission with an application for a mural exceeding 60 square feet.

Clearly, there are many ways computing power could be deployed in Front Royal without offending residents. At the same time, many of these uses convey the technology a data center developer proposes to deliver, putting the commissioners back in the cockpit to ask questions like: how big is too big, and how much is too much? Because this work resembles the months they spent developing restrictive ordinance, one might wonder whether they are now writing restrictive ordinance backward. But perhaps “technology business” is the focus they need to reduce the scale appropriately.