A motley cluster of snowmen stood watch outside Fredericksburg City Hall Wednesday morning, one of which displayed a cardboard sign with a rather chilling warning.
“Where’s the transparency, where’s the democracy?” it read in all caps. “If you don’t listen to the public, we will recall and replace you.”
The “snowmen against data centers” were constructed in opposition to the establishment of a Technology Overlay District in the area of the city known as Celebrate Virginia South.
Tensions over the proposed TOD never fully thawed Wednesday night, even as the city’s planning commission devoted nearly six hours to the topic. Just before midnight Thursday, the commission voted 4-3 to recommend denying approval for four measures related to the TOD. A previous motion to recommend approval failed 4-2, with one abstention.
Board Chair Susanna Finn acknowledged that the planning commission “had been given a very difficult task” in crafting an ordinance but said she believed that the body had “met all of the key concerns about this type of use.”
While the city has been exploring data centers for years — with council first defining the developments back in 2018 — the public-facing process has accelerated over the past six months. City staff first unveiled the concept of a TOD at a December work session, and a joint work session between commissioners and city council followed in January.
On Jan. 22, the bodies jointly held a “public input session” to solicit comments from community members. During that session, several residents voiced concerns about the pace of the process.
Wednesday’s meeting featured yet more public comment, as well as updates from staff and the “NEON property” applicant, who was represented by Hirschler Fleischer attorney Charlie Payne. Payne argued that the minimum acreage required for a data center development within the TOD should be 150 vs. 75, as had previously been proposed.
A smaller minimum “is going to create inefficiencies, and it’s going to create impacts that we don’t intend for this project,” said Payne, who noted that his client had amassed between 171 and 176 acres for development.
Beyond campus size, commissioners asked questions about the effects of a TOD on a proposed river crossing, a long-discussed regional transportation goal with broad support. All four options currently being considered by the Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (FAMPO) are either in close proximity to or overlap with the proposed TOD.
They further debated impacts on the city’s trails system, setbacks, noise and the particulars of wastewater usage for cooling data centers.
But it seemed that no amount of discussion could yield a consensus among the commissioners.
“How do we feel about the premise of this whole thing?” Commissioner Dugan Caswell mused nearly five hours in.
That question must now be answered by city council, which will weigh the commissioners’ recommendations on the TOD before holding its own public hearing Feb. 25.
