Chesterfield Board indicates it won’t approve any more data centers in the county
Google is developing three data center campuses in Chesterfield County, but the Board of Supervisors is signaling that the county has reached its limit. The county is now taking steps to restrict further data center development.
“I don’t want any more. We have enough. I’m satisfied,” Matoaca Supervisor Kevin Carroll said in July. “We’ve picked the right spots. We don’t need any more. We can manage these fine. We can manage the growth, manage the water, manage all of that.”
The existing data centers are here to stay — Google has received the necessary permits from the county, and has broken ground on its first campus.
But under the County’s recently adopted zoning ordinance — also known as ZoMod — data centers are among the uses that can no longer automatically be built by-right, which was allowed in certain areas under the old zoning rules. Without by-right permission, County Commissioners would have to vote to allow data center construction on a one-off basis.
“Either way, we wrote it into ZoMod that we’re not going to bring any more in,” Midlothian Supervisor Mark Miller said in August. “This is it.”
Clover Hill Supervisor Jessica Schneider agreed.
“The current board does not have an appetite for any more data centers,” she said last month.
The draft for Chesterfield’s comprehensive plan (which is open to public comment until Sept. 11) also updates its language on data centers. In the case of further data center development, the plan outlines that “Mitigation measures, beyond requirements, should be conditioned to ensure that excessive noise, vibration, and/or odor/emissions are not noticeable.”
“When reviewing proposals for data centers, impacts on public and private infrastructure systems such as water and power should be evaluated and determined to not degrade local infrastructure or resources,” the draft reads.
Lowering the tax rate to deter further data center development also isn’t off the table.
Chesterfield’s rate stands at an attractive-to-businesses 24 cents per $100 of assessed value, which the county promised to hold for Google through the entirety of its 30-year contract.
Henrico County recently increased its rate from 40 cents per $100 of assessed value to $2.60 per $100 of assessed value.
“I’m hoping that we can get our [tax] rate up,” Schneider said. “So that we don’t encourage any other ones to come here.”
Contact Eleanor Shaw at eshaw@richmonder.org. She is a Report for America corps member.
