Chesapeake City Council closed a loophole in the city’s zoning code that could have allowed for data center development despite the eight-month moratorium on them the city adopted last month, but officials still have to iron out policy details.
Tuesday’s unanimous decision comes a year after council rejected a proposed 350,000-square-foot data center that faced public pushback — pushback that has cropped up in communities across the state and nation as large-scale data centers proliferate.
Last month, Chesapeake put a hold on considering applications for data centers so it could take the next eight months to craft regulations.
Also Tuesday, Virginia Beach City Council followed suit, voting unanimously to temporarily ban considering permits for new data centers. The pause in Virginia Beach will last 12 months or until the city addresses data centers in its zoning.
Chesapeake residents push for tighter controls
Data centers are a hot topic in Virginia, which is considered the data center capital of the world. Residents and officials in Hampton Roads cities hope land-use guidelines can manage potential data center projects, including large centers that have been controversial because of worries about resource consumption and other impacts.
A small crowd of around 20 people rallied outside Chesapeake’s city hall before the meeting. Their concerns spanned from water and electricity use, to noise levels, harm to the environment and property values. Passing drivers honked their endorsement of the message held up on posterboards: “No Chesapeake Data Centers.”
Linda Tindell of Chesapeake brought her donkey, Darla, to the rally as a symbol of what could be at stake if the city opens its doors to data centers.
“Darla lives on a farm,” she said. “If I don't have water, she can't drink, and (data centers) take up such massive amounts of land.”
During the meeting, nearly 40 people spoke in opposition to the recommendations by the planning department, which included considering the Fentress Airfield Overlay district for data center development. Most speakers argued the regulations didn’t go nearly far enough to protect the community’s character.
Council member Amanda Newins proposed a third version of the ordinance before the vote. Her proposal eliminated any by-right use in Chesapeake, which would have allowed data center developments in some areas without additional city approvals, conditions or public input.
“If a project has the potential to consume extraordinary amounts of electricity, water, generate significant noise, infrastructure demands, it should not be able to move forward without the community having a voice,” she said.
Her proposal also removed the area around Fentress Airfield from consideration and pushes off decisions about the specifics of regulations like setback distances and noise level limits. The ordinance also stipulated data centers cannot connect to groundwater for water supply.
That addition came in response to concerns that a data center would be developed on the Frank Williams Farm Tract, a 4,000 acre property in southeastern Chesapeake also known as the Coastal Virginia Commerce Park.
Praetorian Fund, an investor and developer, announced it purchased the Williams property last week. The company’s portfolio includes data center company Praetorian Data Solutions but hasn’t disclosed its plans for the Chesapeake property yet.
But because the site doesn’t connect to public utilities, the current moratorium applies to data center development there, city officials confirmed during the meeting.
Jeff Staples, a Chesapeake resident and former City Council candidate who has long pushed to protect the city’s environment and rural areas, said the decision was encouraging and a step in the right direction.
“I'd love to see all this come to a conclusion before early voting starts in September,” he said. “But it's not likely to happen that way.”
Five of the council’s nine seats will be on the ballot this fall in Chesapeake.
Virginia Beach pumps the brakes
In Virginia Beach, officials have not given a timeline yet on when they may regulate data centers by defining them in code and potentially requiring a conditional use permit process for such businesses.
Planning Commission Chair John Coston warned the council in a May letter that data centers could be developed by-right in industrial districts and current zoning doesn't define them. In June, City Council members said the city doesn’t want large-scale data centers. The temporary moratorium is meant to give the city time to study the issue.
“This is an opportunity for us to take a pause to give us a chance to consider this topic in a thoughtful way,” Councilmember Joash Schulman said before the vote, “and to craft policy that will help us avoid undesirable outcomes – especially by-right outcomes – that hit us by surprise.”
Some officials have noted the city wants to protect data center businesses such as those connected to the subsea cable landing industry here. The moratorium is not expected to affect existing businesses.
The city development authority last week voted to sell nine acres at Corporate Landing Business Park to Globalinx Data Centers, an existing cable landing and colocation data center business, for a future phase of its expansion.
