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The Prince William County Planning Commission on Wednesday began its highly anticipated public hearing on the contentious PW Digital Gateway data center project.
Commissioners will render recommendations on two rezoning requests by QTS Realty Trust Inc. and another by Compass Datacenters. The companies combined aim to build 23 million square feet of data centers on roughly 2,100 acres along Pageland Lane in western Prince William near Gainesville in what would become the largest data center corridor in the world.
The body spent nearly nine hours Wednesday afternoon into the late evening conducting three public hearings, grilling the applicants, county staff and energy officials on the fine details of each application.
Here are some takeaways from the hearings.
Flexibility vs. accountability
A tension between the developers seeking flexibility in how they build out the Digital Gateway and county staff seeking to hold them accountable for what is constructed and where its placed was central to many of the exchanges at the hearing.
Prince William County’s professional planning staff had rejected the applications largely because of the lack of information provided by developers and spent much of the public hearings working to outline to commissioners and the public why they rendered such searing opinions of the companies’ plans.
But representatives from the companies maintained they need that flexibility to meet the evolving needs of clients that will make use of space inside the data centers and allow them to adjust the buildings as they are built over the next decade to keep up with rapidly evolving cloud computing technology and the supplemental technologies that support it.
Staff want assurances from the companies to keep them in check to ensure they’re building data centers in alignment with what they proffered in the rezoning requests.
New and old applications
There was confusion over which version of the developers’ applications were being discussed at any given moment.
In the days before Wednesday’s hearings, the two developers behind the data center corridor submitted amended project applications to Prince William leaders in response to the county’s staff rejecting their initial plans.
The companies sought to assure officials they were committed to clarifying the imprecise information initially provided about the project’s layout and potential impacts on the surrounding area.
But because of the late arrival of the companies’ amended applications, county staff didn’t have enough time before Wednesday to render a new verdict, leaving members of the Planning Commission to review thousands of pages of new information and reach their own conclusions without the formal guidance of impartial professionals.
When speaking with commissioners, representatives from the company were speaking about compromises they said are included in the resubmitted applications, but staff were only available to speak about their opinions that were based on now-outdated documents.
When asked by a member of the commission whether they would back the updated applications, county planning staff declined to answer, saying they haven’t fully consumed them yet and aren’t willing to speculate.
Planning Manager Alex Vanegas said staff intends to independently verify the thousands of changes made by the companies and determine whether they address staff concerns before commenting.
Not enough time
Members of county staff who wrote the reports calling the Digital Gateway inadequate said they don’t have enough time before the planned Dec. 12 Board of County Supervisors meeting to fully review the amended applications.
The holidays between now and then complicate the timeline further, with several days where local government is closed.
“I spent probably a total of three weeks writing the staff report. I didn’t do anything else,” said Principal Planner Emilie Wolfson who oversaw the Compass application. “The amount of information we received … it’s unreasonable to ask staff to review that amount of information in a quarter of the time.”
Planner Christopher Perez, who oversaw the QTS applications, also raised concerns about the tight timeline.
Balance of power
Conservative commissioners representing western Prince William where the data center project is planned were much more critical of the proposal than those who represent the county’s more liberal eastern end.
It’s similar to the dynamic on the Board of County Supervisors, who appoint commissioners from their district. The board’s Democratic majority have signaled their support for the project.
The Planning Commission is the first body through which the rezoning applications must pass before going to the supervisors, which is scheduled in December. Planners will issue recommendations on whether the supervisors should adopt the applications, but the board is free to override the Planning Commission’s recommendation.
Lots of public comment
Opponents of the project, including elected officials, candidates and advocacy groups, have been pressing their supporters all week to turn out and use all of their speaking time to extend this meeting as long as possible.
Over 300 people signed up to speak for public comment, which began around 10 p.m. The meeting, which began at 2 p.m. Wednesday, is expected to extend well into Thursday.
Officials decided to have public comment time for all three public hearings run concurrently, meaning members of the public who have signed up to speak will have up to three minutes to speak for each public hearing, for a possible total of nine minutes if they choose to speak on all three. Those representing an entity or organization qualified under the commission’s rules will have up to five minutes to speak for each public hearing, for a possible 15 total minutes.
On Wednesday night, Chair Cynthia Moses-Nedd sought to maintain order in the board room and encourage people to be mindful of time so to not unnecessarily extend the meeting’s length.
In the lead-up to the upcoming hearings, some commissioners — most representing western Prince William — unsuccessfully pushed to instead hold the hearings on separate dates because all anticipate an exceptionally lengthy meeting.
