Chesterfield postpones vote on using data center money to lower car tax rate

The Chesterfield Board of Supervisors unanimously deferred voting on a proposal to use tax revenue from data centers to lower the county’s car tax rate during its Wednesday evening meeting.

The board moved the vote to its Sept. 23 meeting at roughly 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday night. The ordinance was posted with the rest of the meeting’s agenda in mid-August, but the county didn’t issue a press release or post about the proposal on social media until Tuesday afternoon.

During the proposal’s public comment period, attendees said the county didn’t give residents enough time to learn about the proposal and provide feedback before the board was scheduled to vote.

“Announcing an agenda item the day before and burying it — we’re looking at almost five hours — into a meeting is not a way to meaningfully engage with your community,” said Katherine McMahon, a member of the coalition Data Center Defiance.

Dale Supervisor LeQuan Hylton was the first to suggest postponing the vote, saying that if the board voted that night, “we get ahead of the people.”

“I don’t think we’re ready to make a decision about this this evening,” Midlothian Supervisor and Board Chair Mark Miller said before moving to postpone the vote.

The county said the decision would give residents a direct financial benefit from the increasingly unpopular facilities.

The current car tax rate in the county is $3.25 for every $100 of assessed value. According to a county press release, the data center dollars could reduce it to as low as $1.79 following the full build-out of Google’s three planned campuses.

The decision would impact existing data centers – the county has already indicated that it will not permit any new data center development.

If approved, the ordinance would kick in Jan. 1, 2027 and would apply to all cars, trucks and motorcycles, regardless of value.

Contact Eleanor Shaw at eshaw@richmonder.org. She is a Report for America corps member.