The Law is a Drawbridge

Are you in favor of free speech?
Are you in favor of pornography?
Are you in favor of the Internet?
Are you in favor of insatiable monsters?
Are you in favor of guns?
Are you in favor of killing?
Are you in favor of data centers?
Are you in favor of libraries?

Same trap. Every time.

Those weren’t the real questions. The real questions were: Which library? Given what rules? Doing what? Overseen by whom?

The Town Council will soon take up a data center ordinance that sets rules for “Doing what?” and “Overseen by whom?”  And I expect we’ll hear the same false choice: are you for them or against them?

The same trap is coming again.

What we actually want to know is: which data center? Where? How powerful? How thirsty? How big? How noisy? How landscaped? Overseen by whom?

We have always had an oversight board that answers exactly those questions — for every property owner in town. It is called the Planning Commission. It is the uncontroversial “library board,” but for land use. Been there for decades.

Our Planning Commission spent nine months on measurable rules. Every bad thing about data centers, written down, quantified, and forbidden. Setbacks. Sound and noise limits. Water restrictions. Limits on glare, height, footprint, and landscape. Disclosure. Environmental review. An end-of-life plan.

They voted to recommend it to Council.

This is exactly how this is supposed to work.

Some will say: Don’t write the word ‘datacenter’ into our code. Leave it out, and they can’t come. It doesn’t work that way.

The word “home” is not included in our residential code. Look it up: Home isn’t in there as a thing. Yet homes get built every day — because the Residential Zone calls them “dwellings.”

True: the word “datacenter” doesn’t appear in our Industrial Zones. But since 2009, we have had Technology Business. Content Developer. Hardware Design and Assembly. Those words invite data centers as clearly as “dwelling” invites homes.

The problem with banning “home” while permitting “dwellings” would present the same problem as banning “Datacenter” while inviting “Technology Business.”

The Technology Business “gate” has been open since 2009. Developers know it. Their attorneys know it. Doing nothing doesn’t close the gate — it just means we greet whatever comes through without any rules in hand.

This new ordinance is the drawbridge. It lets us keep out the water hogs and the giant boxes, the glaring light and blaring noise.

But only if the Council adopts it.

I know this issue stirs deep feelings about what kind of town we want to be. Those feelings are real. They belong in the conversation.

But the law cannot just be One Big Feeling We Vote On, nor can it be a vote for Beauty. The law speaks in units. It doesn’t say don’t make it too loud — it says decibels. It doesn’t say don’t make it ugly — it says feet of setback, hours of operation, gallons per day. You don’t have to agree with your neighbor about beauty or noise or what Front Royal should feel like in twenty years. You just have to agree on the numerical limits on behavior.

This ordinance is the number.

Anyone who has been fortunate enough to have a mom and dad has been unfortunate enough to see them fight.

I feel that need for peace in our town right now. Not winners and losers. Not good or evil. Not am I loved. Not which side do you love more.  Just an agreement about how we will treat each other’s water, sleep, viewshed, and light.

That is what this ordinance is.  And here we can enact “blessed are the peacemakers” into law.

I hope Council will adopt it. And I hope those who care — on every side of this — will show up and say so.

Kevin Cuddeback
Front Royal, VA

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