Falls Church, Virginia — The tech industry’s drive to connect the Virginia landscape with data centers may fail in Prince William County this week.
Residents of the state’s second-most populous region pulled off perhaps the biggest upset of a series of surprise election results in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, when political newcomer and data center rival Deshundra Jefferson defeated the county’s top elected official, Ann Wheeler. Gave.
Last year, Wheeler led a majority on the Board of Supervisors, which approved a plan to re-zon more than 2,000 acres (809 ha) of agricultural land to accept data centers, including large ones to support modern Internet use. Includes computer servers and hardware required for
The plan, called the Prince William Digital Gateway, sparked one of the region’s biggest land-use disputes in decades. It was approved despite vocal opposition from concerned residents that the data centers are noisy, unsightly and consume huge amounts of electricity that require the addition of high-voltage transmission lines.
“The loss of Ann Wheeler should be a jolt to the industry,” said Elena Schlossberg of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, one of several data center opponents supporting Jefferson.
Northern Virginia’s outer suburbs have a long history of fighting development projects. Most famously, county residents successfully derailed a planned Disney theme park 30 years ago, leading many to believe it was a done deal when the entertainment giant announced its plans in 1993. happened.
Now, Northern Virginia is home to the largest data centers in the world. Tech companies love to set up centers here, as the region’s proximity to the country’s traditional Internet backbone allows them to save nanoseconds on the servers of the data centers that need to support financial transactions, gaming technology, and other time-sensitive applications. are important.
While data center proposals have prompted opposition from neighboring residents, local governments have been reluctant to remove them because of the tax revenue they generate. In neighboring Loudoun County, the world’s largest data center now contributes 30% of the county’s general fund revenue and has resulted in significant reductions to the county’s residential property tax rate.
Jefferson took advantage of the data center discontent in his campaign, saying that Prince William was too eager to emulate Loudoun, and offering them concessional tax rates to entice the data centers.
“We are wooing these big data centers but we are not really taxing them appropriately. What benefits are we really getting? He said.
The morning after his election, Jefferson was on his regular commute to work, taking a commuter bus from Prince William County to his job in the nation’s capital, contemplating the consequences of the victory he had won. He admitted that he did not expect this.
“It was tough to beat an incumbent,” he said in a phone interview. “I wasn’t just running against him — I was running against the entire Democratic Party.”
He said he has heard from many voters who believe the data center issue is emblematic of a government that is more sensitive to corporate interests than citizen concerns.
“People were just expressing their anger and frustration because they just wanted someone to listen to them,” he said.
Josh Levy, president of the Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group, said data centers could make a compelling argument to local officials about the tax benefits that come from hosting data centers.
“The industry makes it a priority to maintain an open, proactive and collaborative dialogue with elected officials and candidates for office, their constituents and other community stakeholders,” he said in a statement.
The political upheaval comes as Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin embraced the data centers. Earlier this year, Youngkin and Amazon Web Services announced a $35 billion plan to invest in data centers across the state.
On a recent tour of Amazon’s new headquarters complex in Arlington, Youngkin said he still believes the data center deal is a good one. He emphasized that the agreement envisages setting up data centers across the state, not just northern Virginia jurisdictions, which are becoming increasingly resistant.
“We can have big economic development projects and we can have a great place to live,” he said.
Jefferson will now face Republican Supervisor Jeanine Lawson, another data center opponent, in November.
