Just Say No to the Second Largest Data Center in the Country

By John Lovegrove

When you think about Loudoun County and why you settled here, what comes to mind? Is it the Western Loudoun countryside filled with horses, rich Fall foliage and sweeping views? Is it the vibrant economy of Eastern Loudoun, the state-of-the-art schools, or the beautiful suburbs and mixed-use communities? For members of our Political Action Committee, Loudoun’s Future, our mission is to protect all of these advantages that make our county such a wonderful place to live.

But what happens when overdevelopment encroaches on our way of life, East and West? This is exactly what’s happening as the Board of Supervisors debates rezoning parts of our County for a data center at the Belmont Campus on the west side of Belmont Ridge Road south of Route 7.

The zoning of the property’s 111 acres is as follows: 41.5 acres zoned PD-IP for Industrial Park, 15 acres zoned PD-GI for General Industry, and 54.5 acres zoned A3 for Agricutural or Residential use. 

Data Centers are allowed on the PD-GI and PD-IP parcels. That means 56.5 acres are available, by right, for data centers. The developer can build a 1,344,150 sq. ft. data center on this land and is within his rights to do so. We have no argument with that, if we have the power capacity for the facility. But the applicant, through a requested zoning change and special exception, asks for more than three times the size of what he is allowed. 

At the next Board meeting on March 13, our elected officials can rezone part of this parcel for a nearly-five million sq. ft. data center, or they can refuse to bend to the pressure from big development and disapprove the rezoning. It’s that simple. But what’s at stake is critically important to the future of Loudoun County. 

Loudoun’s Future isn’t opposed to thoughtful development that pushes our County forward while paying tribute to our rich history. Similarly, we aren’t opposed to the data centers that are here today or new ones in the future. These centers provide help funding County initiatives, schools, and needed services through the taxes they pay. They employ our residents and have become a critical part of our county’s budget. We have welcomed them previously and have no plans to stop moving into the future.

What we are opposed to is rezoning current land set aside for other uses into more land for data centers.  We are wrestling with issues such as the power for these centers and the impact on nearby communities; the noise and sheer size of some of these buildings.  

We should not approve rezoning requests when we cannot accommodate the developments that are already approved.  We call on the Supervisors and the Planning Commission to pause these applications until the newly formed Zoning Ordinance Amendment group creates the regulations necessary to accommodate the needs of the industry without the destructive consequences we have seen so far.

The Belmont project’s proposed 4.8 million additional sq.ft. of data center bring with it a tremendous amount of problems that must be considered. For starters, the nearly-five million sq. ft. would make Belmont the second largest data center in the country. Regardless of any buffers or setbacks, a project this size would negatively impact many residents. There’s no denying its size and the impossible task of blending it into our community – by comparison, the largest office building in the world, the Pentagon, at six million square feet, is not much bigger than the Belmont deal. 

Are the residents of Belmont ok with 150 diesel generators—the backup power for this data center—starting up at any time of the day or night, and at least once a week for testing purposes?

With a project this big comes a massive need for power. Imagine the power needed for 600,000 homes – roughly 600 megawatts – that’s what would be needed for this project. Our area is already strained for power thanks to the energy needed to power our existing data centers in Loudoun County. 

The County and state don’t have the power available for a center this big, which means the additional power will need to come from across state lines, through new transmission lines. 

Hoover Dam, which powers the city of Las Vegas, would have to be 30% larger just to power this one data center!

Data centers pay a lot of taxes, but they bring problems like this: The Belmont project and others like it could wind up doubling Loudoun citizens’ electric bills.  We would be on the hook for paying for the controversial transmission lines that would be needed to ship in new power.  The cost of these new lines will be included in our electric bills.

All these negatives notwithstanding, at the crux of our opposition to the Belmont plan is the request by the developer to turn all 111 acres, about twice the area of The Vatican, into a data center that’s far larger than zoning allows. 

The County can simply say no to this proposal.  No justification or legal reason is required.  Zoning exists to balance the uses of the land so that all parties, not just developers, are well served.  

The land was zoned this way to create that balance.  Almost 56 acres of this woodland on the banks of Goose Creek are zoned A-3 by the intent of the people of Loudoun.

It is in everyone’s best interest to pause this project until the Board of Supervisors has more time to develop a comprehensive approach to data centers. We encourage a pause on approving this center until a new data center plan is officially approved by the County. The Board can just say ‘no.’

Show up at the Board Meeting on March 13.  

Y​ou can sign up to speak at the following website  www.loudoun.gov/4853/About-​Board-of-Supervisors-Meetings. You can ​
contact ​your Supervisor here:  www.loudoun.​gov/86/Board-of-Supervisors. 

Now is the time to Stop the Madness!

John Lovegrove is the President of Loudoun’s Future, a Political Action Committee dedicated to preserving our way of life in Loudoun County.  He lives on a farm outside Hillsboro with his wife Judith and six horses, three dogs, one bird, and five goldfish. Go to Loudouns-future.org.