Other Virginia Counties Are Hitting the Brakes on Data Centers. What Will Stafford Do?

Correction, September 29: An earlier comparison graphic incorrectly said Stafford data centers are not permitted by right. Stafford County’s 2023 ordinance lists data centers as permitted by right in the M-2 Heavy Industrial district and the ICTP overlay. Some proposals still require rezoning, conditional use permits for related facilities, or other approvals depending on the parcel and project. The inaccurate graphic has been removed.

Read Stafford Ordinance O23-24, Section 28-35.

For years, Northern Virginia's data center industry seemed to move in one direction.

More buildings.

More electrical infrastructure.

More land.

More investment.

More tax revenue.

But something is changing.

Some of the Virginia localities that experienced the data center boom first are now reconsidering the rules that allowed it to happen.

And Stafford County may soon have to decide how far it wants to follow them.

Loudoun County Is Considering a Pause

The biggest development may be happening in Loudoun County, the center of Virginia's data center industry.

On September 15, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted to move forward with consideration of a policy that could pause final Board action on certain data center and electrical substation applications requiring legislative approval for as long as 12 months.

It is important to be precise about what Loudoun has done.

The county has not enacted a data center moratorium.

In fact, Loudoun's county attorney concluded that a moratorium on data center approvals would not be legal.

Instead, supervisors are considering delaying final Board action on qualifying legislative applications while the county completes a major review of its data center policies and zoning regulations.

A final decision on that policy is currently scheduled for October 20.

That distinction matters.

Loudoun is not necessarily saying data center development must stop.

It is asking whether approving additional projects under today's rules makes sense while the county is simultaneously rewriting those rules.

Loudoun has already eliminated by right data center development, requiring data center projects to come before the Board through the special exception process. The county is also reviewing its grandfathering rules and broader policies governing where and how data centers should be developed.

For Stafford residents, that raises an obvious question.

Should Stafford continue approving projects while the rules governing this industry continue to change?

Prince William Has Changed the Map

Prince William County has taken a different approach.

Rather than simply debating individual projects, the county has been reconsidering the geography of data center development itself.

On September 22, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors adopted changes to its Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District. The new framework reduces and redefines the overlay and closes it to future expansion.

Outside the remaining overlay, new data center proposals in specified commercial and industrial zoning districts generally must go through the Special Use Permit process, subject to the adopted ordinance’s transition provisions.

The Prince William Planning Commission recommended approval on September 9. The Board adopted the changes on September 22. Qualifying parcels within the remaining overlay can still retain an approval path without a Special Use Permit; this is not a countywide ban.

The larger point is difficult to miss.

One of Virginia's largest data center jurisdictions is reconsidering where these facilities belong and how easily they should be approved.

Virginia Is Changing Too

The pressure is not coming only from county governments.

On September 18, Governor Abigail Spanberger signed Executive Order 22 and announced a statewide Data Center Accountability Framework.

The framework addresses transparency, energy costs, water consumption, environmental impacts, backup generators, noise, grid reliability and local control.

Some provisions can move forward through executive action and state agencies. Others will require legislation during the 2027 General Assembly session.

Among the Governor’s proposals for legislation is eliminating by right approval for data centers using more than 25 megawatts of electricity and requiring local approval instead. That proposal is not yet statewide law.

The framework also calls for stronger water use standards, expedited noise regulations and changes intended to place more infrastructure costs associated with large electrical loads on the facilities creating that demand.

Whether every proposed legislative component ultimately becomes Virginia law remains to be seen.

But the direction of the debate has clearly changed.

Virginia is no longer discussing data centers primarily as an economic development issue.

The discussion increasingly includes where they belong, who pays for their infrastructure, how much water and electricity they consume and what protections surrounding communities should receive.

Stafford Has Already Tightened Its Rules

Stafford has not ignored the issue.

Under Stafford’s 2023 ordinance, a data center is a permitted by-right use in the M-2 Heavy Industrial district and the ICTP overlay, subject to applicable development standards and site review. A proposal on land without the required zoning may need a rezoning, and associated infrastructure can require additional approvals or a conditional use permit. By-right status therefore depends on the parcel and does not mean a project is exempt from all review.

The County adopted specific data center zoning and development regulations after previously having a definition for data and computer service centers without comparable development standards.

More recently, Stafford supervisors have gone further.

At the September 1 Board meeting, supervisors directed staff toward letters asking state leaders for additional action on data centers. The discussion included requesting a special General Assembly session and, if comprehensive legislation could not be enacted quickly, consideration of a temporary pause on new large scale approvals.

Supervisors also discussed concerns that cannot necessarily be solved through setbacks alone, including electrical infrastructure, water resources and potential costs affecting utility customers.

So Stafford is asking many of the same questions being asked elsewhere in Virginia.

But Stafford also has projects moving through its development process.

And that is where the debate becomes much more complicated.

Accokeek Shows How Divided Stafford Has Become

The proposed Accokeek Center provides one of the clearest examples. Its status should be checked against the County’s current application record before treating a commission recommendation as a Board approval.

The project calls for approximately 590,000 square feet of data center and accessory uses on 121 acres in the Falmouth District between Interstate 95 and Route 1.

It originally proposed three data center buildings and approximately 100,000 additional square feet before being reduced.

When the Stafford Planning Commission considered the project in August, more than 50 people spoke at the public hearing, with most speakers opposing it.

The Planning Commission ultimately recommended approval by a narrow 4 to 3 vote.

Supporters pointed to changes made to the proposal, potential economic benefits and money that could be available for county projects.

Opponents raised concerns involving setbacks, environmental effects, land use and surrounding communities.

The debate illustrates the problem Stafford now faces.

The County wants commercial investment and additional tax revenue.

But residents are increasingly questioning what Stafford receives in return for permanently changing large areas of land and accommodating the infrastructure required to operate these facilities.

This Is Bigger Than the Data Center Building

A data center proposal cannot necessarily be evaluated by looking only at the building shown on a rezoning map.

Large data centers require enormous electrical capacity.

That can mean substations.

Transmission infrastructure.

New utility corridors.

Backup generation.

Water infrastructure, depending on the facility's cooling system.

Road improvements.

And potentially decades of infrastructure surrounding the original development.

This is one reason the conversation has expanded beyond setbacks and architectural screening.

A building may sit hundreds of feet from a house.

The infrastructure serving that building can extend for miles.

That distinction is particularly important in Stafford as the county simultaneously deals with major electrical transmission proposals associated with growing regional power demand.

The Financial Question Still Matters

There is another side to this debate that should not be ignored.

Stafford needs commercial tax revenue.

Residential property owners provide a substantial portion of the County's General Fund revenue, while schools, public safety, transportation and other services continue to become more expensive.

Data centers potentially offer something traditional residential development generally does not: substantial taxable investment without adding large numbers of students to Stafford County Public Schools.

That economic argument is significant.

It is one reason data centers have been attractive to local governments across Virginia.

The policy question is therefore more complicated than whether Stafford should simply be "for" or "against" data centers.

The more useful questions are:

How many should Stafford accommodate?

Where should they be located?

Which projects, if any, should qualify for an approval path without a Board vote?

How far should they be from existing neighborhoods?

Who should pay for the electrical infrastructure necessary to serve them?

How should water consumption be evaluated?

What should happen when transmission infrastructure extends far beyond the data center property itself?

And perhaps most importantly:

Should Stafford approve projects today that might face substantially different requirements if they were proposed a year from now?

Stafford Is No Longer Making These Decisions in Isolation

What happens in Loudoun and Prince William matters to Stafford.

Those counties are further along in the data center development cycle.

Their experiences provide Stafford with something those communities did not necessarily have when their first major campuses were approved:

A preview.

Stafford can see what happens when data center development expands rapidly.

It can see the tax revenue.

It can see the infrastructure.

It can see the transmission lines.

It can see the land use conflicts.

And it can see why some of the jurisdictions that welcomed the industry most aggressively are now revisiting their rules.

That does not automatically mean Stafford should copy Loudoun or Prince William.

Stafford has different land, different infrastructure, different finances and different development pressures.

But their experiences give Stafford information it did not have a decade ago.

The Question Has Changed

Several years ago, the question facing many Virginia communities was:

Should we attract data centers?

That is no longer the entire question.

Now it is:

Under what conditions should we allow them?

Virginia is proposing further statewide standards, while Executive Order 22 directs immediate executive branch actions.

Prince William has changed where data centers can locate and how many future proposals are approved.

Loudoun is considering delaying final action on certain applications while it rewrites its policies.

And Stafford's own supervisors have asked state and federal leaders for additional protections while data center applications continue moving through the County's development process.

Stafford still has an opportunity that some Northern Virginia communities no longer have.

Much of the County's data center landscape has not yet been built.

The decisions being made now will determine whether Stafford eventually resembles the massive data center corridors farther north or develops a substantially different model.

That makes the next question one Stafford residents and elected officials will likely continue confronting: What will Stafford do?