FALLS CHURCH, Va. — The tech business’s drive to dot the Virginia panorama with information facilities might have hit a glitch this week in Prince William County.
Residents of the state’s second most populous jurisdiction delivered maybe the largest upset amongst a sequence of peculiar election ends in Tuesday’s Democratic main, when political newcomer and information heart opponent Deshundra Jefferson knocked off the county’s high elected official, Ann Wheeler.
Last 12 months, Wheeler led a majority on the Board of Supervisors that authorised a plan to rezone greater than 2,000 acres (809 hectares) of farmland to simply accept information facilities, which home the pc servers and {hardware} required to assist fashionable web use.
The plan, known as the Prince William Digital Gateway, prompted one of many area’s greatest land-use disputes in a long time. It was authorised regardless of vocal opposition from residents involved that the info facilities are noisy, ugly, and eat large quantities of electrical energy that require the addition of high-voltage transmission strains.
“Ann Wheeler’s loss should send a shockwave to the industry,” stated Elena Schlossberg with the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, considered one of many information heart opponents who supported Jefferson.
The outer suburbs of northern Virginia have a protracted historical past combating improvement initiatives. Most famously, county residents efficiently derailed a deliberate Disney theme park 30 years in the past that many individuals believed was a achieved deal when the leisure large introduced its plans in 1993.
Now, northern Virginia is residence to the world’s largest focus of information facilities. Tech firms like to position the facilities right here, partly as a result of the area’s proximity to the nation’s conventional web spine permits the servers in these information facilities to save lots of nanoseconds which are essential to assist monetary transactions, gaming expertise and different time-sensitive purposes.
While information heart proposals have prompted opposition from neighboring residents, native governments have been reluctant to show them away due to the tax income they generate. In neighboring Loudoun County, the world’s largest focus of information facilities now contributes 30% of the county’s common fund income and has resulted in important cuts to the county’s residential property tax fee.
Jefferson capitalized on information heart discontent in her marketing campaign, saying Prince William was too desperate to emulate Loudoun, providing discounted tax charges to information facilities to lure them in.
“We’re luring these big data centers but we’re not really taxing them appropriately. What benefit are we really getting?” she stated.
The morning after her election, Jefferson was on her common morning commute to work, taking a commuter bus from Prince William County to her job within the nation’s capital, considering the ramifications of a victory she admitted she didn’t anticipate.
“It was hard to beat an incumbent,” she stated in a cellphone interview. “I was not just running against her – I was running against the whole Democratic Party.”
She stated she heard from quite a few voters who believed the info heart situation was emblematic of a authorities extra attentive to company pursuits than citizen issues.
“People were just expressing their anger and frustration because they’re just wanting someone to listen,” she stated.
Josh Levi, president of the Data Center Coalition, an business commerce group, stated that information facilities could make a compelling argument to native officers concerning the tax advantages that accrue from internet hosting information facilities.
“The industry prioritizes maintaining an open, active, and collaborative dialogue with elected officials and candidates for office, their constituents, and other community stakeholders,” he stated in an announcement.
The political upset comes as Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has embraced information facilities. Earlier this 12 months, Youngkin and Amazon Web Services introduced a $35 billion plan to spend money on information facilities throughout the state.
Youngkin, on a latest tour of Amazon’s new headquarters complicated in Arlington, stated he nonetheless believes the info heart deal is an effective one. He emphasised that the deal contemplates placing information facilities throughout the state, not simply in northern Virginia jurisdictions which are turning into more and more resistant.
“We can have great economic development projects and we can have a great place to live,” he stated.
Jefferson will now face Republican Supervisor Jeanine Lawson, one other information heart opponent, in November.
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