ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A long-awaited vote over tightening regulations on data centers in Fairfax County has been postponed again.
After being pushed back for two weeks, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors was supposed to vote on whether to tighten regulations on data centers or not. Hours before the vote was set to happen, officials announced that the vote would not be happening.
"I literally wanted to scream," said Jeff McKay, of the moment he got the call Monday, that the vote couldn't happen. He's the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
"Unfortunately the County discovered that the clerk did not properly advertise the public hearings for July 16 or our public hearings for today. To be clear they were advertised, but there was a change in state law that took effect July 1," said McKay.
He says effective July 1, they are required by Virginia state law to advertise any public hearing twice. Previously it had to be advertised just once.
"I can never remember a time where as big a mistake happened with a member of county staff as this," he told WUSA9 in an interview Tuesday night.
"It's horribly frustrating. To say I'm angry is an understatement. This was straight up a clerical error," he said, describing it as an "egregious human error".
A spokesperson for Fairfax County wrote in a statement "We apologize to anyone impacted and will conduct a complete review of our public hearing advertisement process moving forward".
They also wrote that "due to a regulatory oversight related to new public hearing advertisement requirements effective July 1, 2024, all public hearings scheduled for the July 30 Board of Supervisors meeting have been postponed and will be rescheduled to Sept. 10."
The latest debate focuses on "by right" construction. It comes out of Alexandria where residents near Plaza 500, off of Edsall Road, want to have input and further approval before projects can come so close to homes, and be built in urban areas. In this particular case, the developer has already met the conditions for by right construction, though this is their second try.
The 400,000-square-foot project, planned to be approximately 70 feet high is going in about 250 feet away from homes, and not too far from the Van Dorn Metro station. Proposed regulations would include a noise study and equity impact study. Anything out of the standards would require approval. However, this doesn’t eliminate by right construction. In fact, in certain heavy industrial zones, it would still be fast-tracked.
"It would be a huge blow to this whole area and severely decrease our property values," a resident said.
Residents at the heart of the data center debate have been pushing their leaders to better regulate, if not stop, the construction. This is their second try. Neighbors won the first challenge, but the developer reduced the footprint to get by right.
Since they helped to bring attention to the issue, the last meeting two weeks ago was packed. Supervisors heard nearly five hours of testimony; mostly opposition, though some supporters see this as a way to defray property tax increases.
"This is my home," explained longtime Alexandria resident, and President of the Jefferson Green Condominium Association, Richard Newman. "I don't want to have to move out of this area but if they build this data center, I don't want to go into my golden years breathing diesel fumes, worrying about the noise, radiation."
He was one of the more than 60 people who testified on July 16.
He was looking forward to seeing how the board would vote and was concerned when he saw that it had been postponed.
Chair McKay says those who testified during that hearing don't have to re-testify but can if they want to.
"None of the testimony we got was lost on us. If folks already testified in July, we still have the record of that. We've recorded all of that testimony. it has been documented. However they have a right to testify again and they can retestify if they want," said McKay.
He says Fairfax County residents shouldn't be concerned.
"There's no risk in not acting today as opposed to acting on September 10, just from the standpoint that anything that came in after July 16 is going to have to live under the new rules that we pass regardless," said McKay.
But Newman is more concerned about the data center applicants who applied prior to the July 16 hearing, especially since the board members eluded that applicants who submitted prior to that date could potentially be grandfathered in.
"That's my biggest fear is that they're going to grandfather them and let them basically harm our community," said Newman.
Chair McKay says this will be fully investigated.
"We're going to go back and look at how this happened and frankly hold people accountable for what happened," he said.
The hearing is scheduled for September 10. For more information about the hearing and how you can sign up to speak, click here.