LETTER: Data center decision ‘principles’ sound like damage control

April 28, 2022

The County Planning Office recently released “Principles of Decision Making” for the Prince William Digital Gateway proposal.  It is interesting how these weakened criteria differ from the “Proposed Principles and Strategies” previously developed for the data center overlay district comprehensive review.

The newer ones read more like “Principles of Mitigation”.  For example, the overlay district criteria states “Minimize negative impact to environmentally sensitive areas” while the digital gateway principles say: “Identify environmentally sensitive areas and areas that are incompatible with development”.  You can interpret the latter as “place a silt fence around Resource Protected Areas”.

The digital gateway principles say “Incorporate findings from relevant studies” but make no mention of conducting a water study recommended by multiple water quality experts.

The digital gateway criteria states “identify and minimize potential impacts to existing adjacent residential and other incompatible land uses”.  If the County acknowledges that building an industrial corridor adjacent to residential areas constitutes incompatible land use, they should reject it outright and not just mitigate its detrimental impacts after approval.

The criteria for the overlay district review suggests the Prince William Digital Gateway should never be approved, while the criteria for the digital gateway itself seems to assume its approval and then seek to minimize its expected negative impact. 

These are not the choices the public wants our leaders to make.  Decide whether you are going to plunder our area or preserve it.  Don’t just decide what type of shrubs should be placed around a reckless development we don’t want.

 

Bill Wright

Gainesville

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