WOODBRIDGE, Va. — The battle over the so-called "Devlin Technology Park" in Bristow, Virginia will continue until at least March.
Neighbors who have been fighting this data center proposal rallied Tuesday as dozens of residents signed up to speak up against a housing developer requesting to rezone land for the project.
Stanley Martin Homes wants to rezone the land from residential to industrial. The project would focus on 270 acres that would house 14 data centers, such as big warehouses that hold computer servers.
Residents held signs outside of the James J. McCoart Administration Building ahead of the planned vote.
"Although the specific focus of the demonstration will be on Devlin Technology Park, the greater issue is how local government continues to be overly accommodating to data center development at the peril of its citizens," organizers said. "Site plans for a nearby project at the 'Hunter property' reveals insufficient buffers and the incompatibility of data centers with adjacent residential communities. Routine dismissal of resident concerns indicates what is in store for residents of Gainesville (watching the Prince William Digital Gateway rezoning process) and Warrenton (fighting a proposed Amazon data center) as runaway data center development threatens our environment and quality of life."
Residents at the protest were not happy about the proposed data centers' placement, which would sit along homes and schools including Chris Yung Elementary.
"Who wants to live by a warehouse?" one resident said. "Who wants to live by a data center? The adverse impacts would be terrible."
Another resident said, "My principal concern is the potential neurologic threat to our children and ourselves to be posed by near continuous data center noise."
Stanley Martin Homes, vice president of Land Truett Young, told WUSA9 the company initially held of pursuing plans in September 2022.
"We deferred the case while the county resolves the overarching noise issue and we hope to be a part of the solution,” Young said last year.
The deferral was considered a big win for residents who have raised concerns about Devlin Technology Park ever since Stanley Martin Homes submitted a Comprehensive Plan Amendment Application in February to pivot from the original plans to create a subdivision.
However, neighbors were surprised to find out a vote on the proposal would take place in early February, weeks before a special election to fill the Gainesville District seat.
A representative for Stanley Martin Homes said since late last year, the company decided to lower the height limit down to 80 feet, will add 100 foot buffers from certain roads, and a 50 foot landscape area along University Boulevard.
"That's garbage," one community member said during the public hearing. "It's unwelcome, undesired and unproductive. It's simply too close to residential properties."
Supervisor Jeanine Lawson of the district raised concerns about the noise impact and questioned why not enough studies have been conducted to determine the long-term effects.
"The noise doesn't go away," Donna Gallant, a resident of the Amberleigh Station community, said during the protest on Tuesday. "It will have adverse impacts on people for years to come."
With passionate residents at the public comment period of the meeting, the vote could be anything but routine.
The meeting lasted from 7:30 p.m. Tuesday to roughly 3 a.m. Wednesday. Instead of voting to either approve the rezoning or deny it, the board of supervisors deferred the vote until March 7.