The 'Digital Gateway' plan to build 27 million square feet of data centers in a rural portion of Prince William was the subject of a contentious 14-hour vote.
triggering the county’s largest land-use change in decades in an area that has seen the rapid growth of residential developments and tech centers.After an often-contentious 14-hour meeting that began Tuesday evening, the county board voted 5-2 to amend the land use plan in a portion of Gainesville where two technology companies want to build a “Digital Gateway” complex on a site occupied by more than 200 homes and small farms near the Manassas National Battlefield Park.
“You can’t possibly be that irresponsible,” Bill Wright — a resident of the sprawling 55-plus Heritage Hunt community near the site who has been a central figure in the opposition — told the board during a public hearing portion of the meeting that featured 262 speakers, with an additional 41 chiming in remotely.“Should you foolishly decide to approve this disaster, despite all advice to the contrary, it will forever stain your legacy,” Wright said.
Supervisor Kenny A. Boddye asked the county staff to work to install roundabouts and other speed-controlling measures on the expanded roadway “At the end of the day, it’s really fluff,” said Vega, who is running for Congress in Virginia’s 7th District. “The comp plan is merely a guide, something that advises. But it’s not legally binding.”
The site sits in what is known as the “Rural Crescent,” an 80,000-acre swath of the Occoquan watershed where development has been largely restricted to agricultural uses or one home spaced every 10 acres. That launched an ongoing effort to expand the overlay district into other parts of the county that has run parallel to the Digital Gateway project.
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