Several Bristow residents are joining forces to fight the controversial Devlin Technology Park data center rezoning in court, reports Cher Muzyk and Jill Palermo at Prince William Times.
“Commissioners will render recommendations on the two rezoning requests by QTS Realty Trust Inc. and another by Compass Datacenters in one meeting on Nov. 8, a day following the 2023 general election.”
The second scheduled public meeting about a proposal to build 20 data centers on 876 acres near the Manassas National Battlefield was canceled late today.
QTS, the firm proposing the complex, announced the cancelation of the public meeting scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn in Haymarket. It's the second time in two weeks that a public meeting for the proposed data center complex is scheduled in western Prince William County.
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However, as we reported Monday, April 17, a Prince William County school said the school was double booked with the town hall meeting and a back-to-school night for parents of rising 6th-grade students.
The school had inadvertently double-booked the schedule (human error). The organization is looking to find another location to host the meeting and that information will be shared once confirmed.
— Prince William County Public Schools spokeswoman Diana Gulotta statement to PLN
Residents opposed to more data centers had planned a demonstration outside the school before the event began.
In a statement to PLN following our story about the cancelation, QTS spokesman Nick DeSarno said it’s working to reschedule the event, that the firm had the event on the books since late last month, and only learned of the back-to-school night on the day before its scheduled event.
āQTS Data Centers was today notified by Bull Run Middle School that a conflicting event at the school would necessitate the cancelation of QTSā open house despite school officials last week confirming the QTS event. As a result, QTS is working to reschedule the event to provide the Prince William community with important information about the PW Digital Gateway project and its many benefits to the county,ā said DeSarno.
The April 18 QTS Open House event had been planned since late March. Throughout the planning process, QTS Data Centers (QTS) was never notified of another event scheduled for the same day or anything that may disrupt QTSā Open House event. The following timeline lays out the planning of the event, coordination with Bull Run Middle School staff, and the subsequent cancellation of the event.
- March 30, 2023: On March 30, QTS submitted a request to hold the event via the schoolās automated scheduling system, Community Use.
- April 3, 2023: On April 3, QTS received confirmation the event had been approved. Following confirmation, QTS coordinated with Bull Run Middle School staff to arrange a tour of the school and specifics of the event.
- April 13, 2023: On April 13, QTS toured the school and confirmed the logistics of the event with school staff.
- April 17, 2023: The morning of April 17, QTS received a notification from the Community Use scheduling system that the event had been canceled. That same day, the school calendar was updated with the event entitled, āRising 6th?Grade Information Night,ā scheduled for Tuesday, April 18.
The data proposed data center would sit on some of the more than 800 acres earmarked by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, approved last year, for Prince William Digital Gateway.
Residents opposed to more data centers in Prince William County, on track to eclipse neighboring Loudoun County for the most in the world, were planning a press conference to oppose the project “The attitude of Prince William County residents, and our message to QTS, is simple and concise: go away.Ā We are not buying their insincere overtures to placate us while they concurrently plot to destroy us,” they noted in a press release.
QTS already operates at least one data center in Prince William County, next to the George Mason University Science and Technology Campus near Manassas.
In November 2022, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors amended its comprehensive plan to allow 27 million square feet of data center space next to the national battlefield park, the site of two major Civil War battles, a national tourism destination.
The principal at Bull Run Middle School near Gainesville, the site of an open house for a proposed data center next to Manassas National Park tomorrow, April 18, 2023, canceled the event. We first reported the event on Saturday, April 15, 2023.
Instead, the school will host an open house for parents of rising sixth-grade students. “I am not sure of the mix-up, but it is corrected,” states school principal Matthew Phythian in an email.
The data center would sit on some of the more than 800 acres earmarked by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, approved last year, for Prince William Digital Gateway.
Residents opposed to more data centers in Prince William County, on track to eclipse neighboring Loudoun County for the most in the world, were planning a press conference to oppose the project “The attitude of Prince William County residents, and our message to QTS, is simple and concise: go away.Ā We are not buying their insincere overtures to placate us while they concurrently plot to destroy us,” they noted in a press release.
QTS already operates at least one data center in Prince William County, next to the George Mason University Science and Technology Campus near Manassas.
In November 2022, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors amended its comprehensive plan to allow 27 million square feet of data center space next to the national battlefield park, the site of two major Civil War battles, a national tourism destination.
The data center would sit on some of the more than 800 acres earmarked by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, approved last year, for Prince William Digital Gateway.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 18, at Bull Run Middle School, 6308 Catharpin Road, near Gainesville.
QTS already operates at least one data center in Prince William County, next to the George Mason University Science and Technology Campus near Manassas.
Saying Virginia needs to “tap the brakes” on the rapid expansion of data centers, state Sen. J. Chapman “Chap” Petersen and Del. Danica Roem have introduced three bills that would stop the controversial Prince William Digital Gateway and strictly regulate other data centers proposed near state and national parks.
Lawson, a Republican who represents a portion of western Prince William County, visited polling places in the east on Election Day, Tuesday, November 8, to encourage residents to contact their respective supervisors to oppose the digital gateway project, which plans 27 million sure feet of new server farms next Civil War battlefield.
Four Democrats representing residents in the east and At-large Board Chair Ann Wheeler voted to amend the land use plan clearing the way for more data center construction.
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Prince William County Supervisors voted to amend its comprehensive plan to allow up to 27 million square feet of data centers to be built next to Manassas National Battlefield Park.
It’s the largest, most transformative land-use case in county history.
The vote on the project, the Prince William Digital Gateway, came just before 9 a.m., following a marathon meeting lasting 14 hours and 20 minutes. The party-line vote saw five Democrats voting in favor, two Republicans opposed, and one Republican, Peter Candland, abstained.
Candland lives where data centers may be built and did not attend the meeting.
The vote clears the way to allow Prince William County to rival neighboring Loudoun County, which, today, has more data centers than anywhere else on the globe. Under the Prince William Digital Gateway Plan, 1.300 acres of land next to the national park would be used for data centers, 800 acres would be reserved for parks, and 10 acres would be used to mark historic sites.
Since the battlefield park is hallowed ground and the site of two major Civil War battles, there is a strong possibility that developers will find human remains buried on the site. Developers must conduct land surveys when submitting a rezoning application for new data centers.
The project will add to many data centers already in the area or are now under construction. The project’s supporters say the centers will generate more cash for government services like police, fire and rescue, and local schools.
Opponents say data centers will ruin the rural landscape next to the battlefield, and that cooling fans atop the 45-foot-tall buildings will produce unwanted noise. That stormwater runoff from the new facilities will pollute the Occoquan Reservoir, which provides drinking water to 1.5 million in Prince William and Fairfax counties.
The Prince William Digital Gateway comprehensive plan amendment was the only item on the Board of County Supervisors’ agenda. The meeting began at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 1, and ended at 9:50 a.m. Wednesday, November 2.
The Digital Gateway is the largest land-use case in county history. Brentsville District Supervisor Jeanine Lawson, who voted against the project, said it was the most significant case since Disney’s failed proposal to build a theme park in Haymarket in 1993 called Disney’s America.
Stay with us. This story is developing.
