Data center battle shifts to Bristow: Residents vow to fight 14 data centers slated for Devlin, Linton Hall roads

The battle over new data centers in western Prince William County has migrated from the Manassas National Battlefield Park to Bristow, where housing developer Stanley Martin is seeking to rezone 270 acres near Devlin and Linton Hall roads for up to 14 data centers.

The proposed “Devlin Technology Park” has become the latest flashpoint in an ongoing war between Prince William County homeowners and landowners trying to sell their properties for lucrative data center deals. The project is near the communities of Amberleigh Station, Silver Leaf Estates, Lanier Farms, Sheffield Manor, Crossman’s Creek and Victory Lakes, as well as Chris Yung Elementary School.

The rezoning won a recommendation from the Prince William County Planning Commission in July and was initially slated to go before the Board of County Supervisors last September. But Stanley Martin pulled the rezoning from the board’s agenda after more than 100 area residents held protests along Devlin Road before the vote.

The project will be back on the agenda for the supervisors' Tuesday, Feb. 7, meeting but many residents are still opposed, as evidenced by angry comments made during three sometimes-raucous meetings hosted by Stanley Martin Vice President Truett Young last week.

Young came prepared with a presentation touting benefits to the county in tax revenue and jobs. He also said Stanley Martin had been working with county officials to write regulations into the project’s legally binding “proffer agreement” that would require the data centers to meet the county’s noise limits – which restrict noise to 60 decibels during the day and 55 decibels after 10 p.m. -- without exempting air-conditioning equipment. 

That’s important because the noise ordinance, written in the late 1980s before data centers were an issue, exempts noise created by heating and air conditioning units. The exemption has led to problems for residents living close to data centers. In Great Oak, outside Manassas, residents have complained for months about a buzz from four Amazon Web Service data centers. Amazon is said to be working on muffling the air-conditioning units but hasn’t solved the noise yet. Some homes are as close as 600 feet to the centers. 

At the Stanley Martin meetings, many Bristow residents expressed skepticism that the county could regulate noise through its zoning ordinance, which stipulates a maximum fine of $5,000.

Many also complained about living next to concrete buildings that could be as tall as 95 feet interspersed with at least three electrical substations, according to the application. They deemed the proposed buffers, at 100 feet between the data centers and homes, as insufficient.

Steve Hancock, who lives in Victory Lakes, complained that the Feb. 7 board vote took many by surprise. He had urged Young to delay the vote to give residents more time to learn about the project.

“We still don’t have all the answers and [you’re] ready to go full bore and ruin people’s lives? Their investment in their homes and their quality of life?” Hancock said to Young. 

DeAnne Lewis, also of Victory Lakes, told Young:  “Seriously, would you buy my house when this data center is built? No, you wouldn’t.” 

Young said Stanley Martin feels it has no choice but to rezone the land because it is surrounded by land zoned for data centers and is sliced by high-voltage electrical transmission lines. Stanley Martin initially planned to build up to 516 single-family homes on the property and won a rezoning for that in 2020. But the next year, the board rezoned to allow data centers on a neighboring 196 acres, an area surrounding Amberleigh Station and Silver Leaf Estates. Those 196 acres are next to another 262 acres included in the Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District. 

The entire area has long been known as the “Hunter property.” In 2012, the plan was for it to become a residential development of 1,600 homes known as “Stone Haven.” But residents opposed adding homes while schools in western part of the county were overcrowded. The addition of Gainesville High and Chris Yung Elementary, both near the Devlin Technology Park site, have eased that problem.

Young said Stanley Martin made the change in an effort to avoid building even more homes near data centers.

“There are numerous cases [around the county] … where this is going to be a problem,” Young said. “Which is why, for us, it felt like it was a reasonable time to set some parameters so that [data centers] would not impact the residents around them.”

Young said there are “actually seven schools” that abut the overlay district that county officials are going to have to “figure out how to deal with.”

“Don’t build them! Problem solved!” shouted one man from the audience.

“The bottom line is that you are asking all of us, and all the people in these communities, to trust you that all of this is going to be OK,” said Bethany Kelley, a resident of Victory Lakes. “You’re a little tone deaf to us because we don’t want it.”

“It’s not appropriate to surround a community with data centers. End of discussion. How can you possibly make that OK?” added Marilyn Karp, a Haymarket resident who has been active in the fight against the Prince William Digital Gateway. She filmed the meeting via Facebook live for residents who couldn’t attend.

In the end, Young was clear about Stanley Martin’s intentions. “We are not interested in deferring the case,” he said, adding: “There is no plan to build houses here. There is only one plan: to build data centers.” 

Protest planned before the vote

Since the meetings, residents opposed to Devlin Technology Park have launched a Facebook page, “Say No To Devlin Tech Park,” and are planning a protest at the county’s James J. McCoart Administration Building ahead of the board’s Feb. 7 meeting, which begins at 7:30 p.m. They are also leaving negative reviews on Stanley Martin’s website and are planning a lawsuit, according to Steven Pleickhardt, president of the Amberleigh Station homeowners’ association.

Pleickhardt said the communities are also considering a lawsuit to fight the data centers being planned on the former Hunter Trust property that was rezoned in 2021. Developer Chuck Kuhn, owner of JK Moving, bought about 180 acres from the Hunter Trust in 2021 for just under $48.5 million and is submitting site plans for data centers.

“It’s incompatible to have industrial development next to residential homes. You are going to have jackhammering 100 feet from our homes. Are you kidding me?” Pleickhardt said in a Jan. 28 interview.

“It’s rage and desperation,” he said of the community’s response. “We have no hope. We have no options. We’ve lost hope in our county supervisors to protect us.” 

Only Supervisor Jeanine Lawson, R-Brentsville, who represents the Bristow area, responded to emailed requests for comments from the Prince William Times this week. Lawson is planning a town hall meeting for residents about the Devlin Technology Park on Thursday, Feb. 2, at Chris Yung Elementary School.

To win her support, the footprint of the development would need to be “much smaller,” Lawson said in a Tuesday, Jan. 31 interview. She said she would prefer shorter buildings and much larger buffers, like those surrounding an older data center owned by Porpoise Ventures at 8217 Linton Hall Road near Holy Trinity Catholic Church.

“It’s not very tall. It’s quiet. You forget it’s even there,” Lawson said. According to property records, the building, on 32 acres, is 26 feet high and 227,000 square feet.

Lawson said she planned to appeal to her fellow supervisors to deny the rezoning application after the town hall meeting. “Honestly, I don’t see this project ever winning my support because I don’t see this project meeting my expectations or those of my constituents,” she said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount an LLC associated with Chuck Kuhn, owner of JK Moving, paid for about 180 acres of what was formerly known as the "Hunter property." The parcels were sold in October 2021 for $48.5 million.

Reach Jill Palermo at jpalermo@fauquier.com