The Campbell County Board of Supervisors will host a hearing Tuesday to act on a petition to review the zoning approval granted to a data center proposed in the Concord District.
In October, MESH Capital LLC’s data center concept plans were determined to meet the criteria of the county’s local zoning ordinance and the proposed parcel’s specific proffered site plan after legal review and final approval from zoning administrator Karissa Shrader. On Nov. 25, Ashby Smith, a Campbell County resident who lives adjacent to the proposed project, submitted a written petition to review Shrader’s determination, according to the hearing notification letter.
At Tuesday’s 6 p.m. work session, the board will hear Shrader’s report on how and why the zoning determination was made and Smith’s summary of why the decision should be reviewed, according to the meeting agenda. The board will then vote to reverse or affirm the project’s zoning approval.
The work session will be conducted as a fact-based hearing, not a public hearing at which residents could share their thoughts with the board, said Sherry Harding, the county’s director of public and employment relations, in an email to Cardinal News. The meeting will be held in the Haberer Building Board Room and livestreamed on Zoom.
The parcel being discussed covers about 57 acres on Cabin Field Road. It is bordered on one side by U.S. 460 and on all other sides by properties zoned for agricultural use, according to the county’s GIS system.
The parcel is zoned for heavy industrial use. In that zone, data centers were permitted by-right at the time of MESH Capital’s proposal, according to a county press release.
The discussion of the Cabin Field Road project comes in the midst of a larger conversation about how the county will zone for data centers in the future.
On Dec. 2, the board of supervisors adopted an emergency ordinance that removed data centers from the list of by-right uses in heavy industrial zones and put them instead on the list that requires special-use permits — and hence board approval and resident input. Because the change was adopted as an emergency ordinance, it needs to be readopted by the board to become permanent.
The readoption discussion came to the board on Jan. 6. Supervisors voted 4-3 to delay the decision by 120 days while extending the life of the temporary, emergency ordinance. Altavista District Supervisor Tom Lawton, who introduced the motion to have additional time, said the decision to make special-use permits a permanent facet of data center development in the county required “slow, thoughtful conversation” and additional education.
Several county staff and board members sought out that education at the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance’s Jan. 14 data center summit, Harding said. “The summit was a helpful opportunity to learn more about this industry,” she said, adding that the board has already directed staff to convene a work session to discuss zoning as it relates to data centers.
At the summit, industry experts said data center developers keep a close eye on local zoning debates. Vince Barnett, who serves as the industry leader for data centers at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said developers look at two top factors when it comes to choosing a site for a new data center. The first: how much power they can get access to, and how quickly they can get it. The second: how much they can mitigate the risk of a project never getting off the ground.
“To mitigate risk, the data center operators are looking for by-right zoning,” he said. “It provides a certainty to the data center operators that, yes, you can do this. You don’t need to worry about it coming in and failing due to a zoning process.”
Barnett, along with other speakers who participated in summit panels, said data center operators will likely not stop seeking out sites in Virginia. That means it’s up to communities to determine how they engage with the industry — not if.
As for Tuesday’s discussion in Campbell County, “it is important to clarify that this is not about a specific data center,” Harding said. The hearing is about the underlying zoning of the parcel and if it can serve as a possible site for a data center. If the board upholds Shrader’s zoning decision, then the process of submitting official data center project plans can begin.
If Shrader’s determination is overturned, MESH Capital retains the right to develop the property in any other way, under the heavy industrial zoning designation and within the proffered conditions, Harding said.