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Data Centers
Stafford County has canceled the Planning Commission meeting scheduled for Wednesday, October 14, after the applicant and county staff agreed to postpone public hearings on four large data center proposals along Kings Highway until November 18, 2026.
The county said the delay will allow further review and refinement of the applications so they are fully prepared for consideration. The projects were the only business on the October 14 agenda.
Sen. Russet Perry on Tuesday released draft legislation that would enact a three-year statewide moratorium on data centers, Loudoun Now reports.
SB843 would prohibit localities from approving data center applications that require a rezoning, special exception, special use permit, or site plan. It would also bar the state from issuing any permit, certificate, registration, license, or other approval for data center development, siting, electric distribution service, interconnection, on-site generation, or related services. The moratorium would take effect July 1, 2027, and sunset July 1, 2030.
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Stafford supervisors approved the Accokeek Center data campus in the Falmouth District late Wednesday, 4-3. The vote followed a failed attempt to delay it for revenue numbers, a fight over setbacks, and a proffer packet corrected the day of the meeting.
The land is on the west side of Richmond Highway (Route 1), about half a mile north of Eskimo Hill Road and Rupert’s U-Pull-It, the self-service yard at 1489 Richmond Highway. It sits in the strip between the highway and Interstate 95.
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Stafford County supervisors on Sept. 1 directed staff toward letters asking Gov. Abigail Spanberger for a special legislative session on data-center rules — and, if comprehensive legislation cannot pass quickly, a temporary pause on new large-scale approvals — then expanded the ask to the federal administration.
The board did not vote that night to approve or deny any campus. Supervisors said their own ordinance — which Chairman Deuntay T. Diggs, George Washington District, called the strictest in Virginia and Supervisor Crystal L. Vanuch, Rock Hill District, said includes among the largest setbacks in the country — still cannot stop river withdrawals, well impacts, or high-load power costs that land on ratepayers.
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 Stafford County Planning Commission recommended approval of the Accokeek Center data center campus in Falmouth after a packed hearing that began Aug. 26 and ran past midnight into Aug. 27.
On separate 4-3 votes, the commission recommended that the Board of Supervisors approve a rezoning with proffers, and a conditional use permit for the substation.
The family that has run Belvedere Plantation for nearly six decades went to Facebook this week to speak for itself.
The message was meant to be clear. The Fall Harvest Festival still opens Sept. 12. Field trips, the corn maze, and the pumpkin patch are not canceled. Nothing about this season changes. The Fulks family said it wanted customers to hear that from them, not from the rumor mill.