Fredericksburg City Council treated the Technology Overlay District as a political promise, not just a zoning map, when it voted 7-0 after midnight to keep a data center off the Hylton tract.
The Aug. 25-26 votes denied a rezoning and a height permit for 1500 Gateway along Interstate 95, between Plank Road and Cowan Boulevard. Council did not say the overlay text itself banned the site. Members who passed the TOD in 2025, and one who was not on the dais then, said they had already told residents where data centers would go.
The hearing ran past midnight. Planning Commission had recommended denial 7-0 twice. Council members praised how far the applicant moved on water, height, layout, cash, and a project labor agreement, then said the parcel still sat on the wrong side of the 2025 map.
What the overlay was sold as
Council unanimously approved the TOD on Feb. 25, 2025. The map is for a campus led by STACK Infrastructure and The Silver Companies: eight to 12 buildings in Celebrate Virginia South, near FredNats and Virginia Credit Union Stadium.
At-large Councilor Dr. Will B. Mackintosh said then the path could bring up to $60 million a year for schools, infrastructure, and stable property taxes.
1500 Gateway LLC, a Penzance affiliate, did not apply to join that overlay. Zoning Administrator Kelly Machen used the TOD only as a comparison. She said the campus is just over 83 acres against a TOD minimum of 150, with buildings at 75 feet against a TOD 100, and air-only cooling against TOD rules that allow temporary potable water and reuse water for cooling.
Staff said the project would raise city land “slated for data center uses” from 3.825 percent.
A bargain members said they still owed
Mackintosh said he felt bound by the 2024-25 process. Neighboring Northern Virginia jurisdictions, he said, are closer to 1.75 percent of land currently zoned for data centers. Fredericksburg’s 3.8 percent struck him as about right on a 10-square-mile city that still needs other land uses.
“I feel somewhat bound by that conversation,” Mackintosh said. “I think that we had that conversation. I think we arrived at that conclusion, and I think we landed in a good place.”
Ward 1 Councilor Matt D. Rowe was on the School Board when the TOD passed, not on Council.
“As a constituent, the impact it had for me was that it was a promise from the city to the residents of Fredericksburg that should data center development happen in the city of Fredericksburg, it happens in the technology overlay district and not outside the technology overlay district,” Rowe said. “Though the TOD doesn’t necessarily say that, but through the process and as someone that lives in Fredericksburg and heard the debate, that’s the way that I interpreted it.”
Mary Anne Diffin, speaking at the hearing, said a yes to the TOD implied a no everywhere else.
“A yes to the TOD implied that many, if not all of you, would be a no to data centers everywhere else in Fredericksburg,” Diffin said. She said a “ten billion dollar agreement for a data center campus within the TOD” should satisfy the city’s appetite.
Mayor Kerry P. Devine said the city spent about seven months building the overlay after community input. She told residents then she supported a data project in that mapped area, and that Council still needs to pursue it.
“We are only a ten square mile community,” Devine said. With the TOD project, she said, “Fredericksburg would be accomplishing a lot but not maybe overdoing it.”
Ward 2 Councilor Joy Y. Crump said the 2025 map established trust.
“I think that council asked the community to trust them, that this was a good move,” Crump said. “And I think we’re so close to having made that decision that I also feel like that’s something that we should really hold dear.”
What the unanimous no does not settle
Ward 3 Councilor Susanna R. Finn moved to deny the rezoning. Rowe seconded. Both the rezoning and the height permit failed 7-0. No member spoke for approval before the motions.
The vote does not rewrite the overlay. It does not, on its face, lock every future application outside Celebrate Virginia South. Members treated the 2025 map as the live bargain they still owed the people who sat through that fight.
Whether the next applicant outside the overlay gets the same answer is the question Council left on the table.
