Leaders in Loudoun County, Virginia, have taken the first step to potentially pause development on new data centers.
The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors approved a motion Wednesday to begin the process of pausing all data center applications, site plans and substations in the county until new zoning laws are approved.
Leaders said they’ve heard strong opposition from residents, who are concerned about ongoing data center development in the county, which has the largest concentration of data centers in the world. The 250 data centers in the county take up 53.3 million square feet, or more than 900 football fields.
“Loudoun became the data center capital of the world because data center development occurred with little oversight and before the full impacts of this industry were studied or understood,” Loudoun County Supervisor Juli E. Briskman said in a statement. “Loudouners are tired of the visual and noise impacts, the costs to our electrical grid and wallets, and the harm to the very air we breathe. It is time we stand up to the big corporations, take back control of land use decisions in this county, and pause all new data center development until we complete the work to establish a more balanced and responsible framework for considering data centers and related energy infrastructure.”
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Congressman Suhas Subramanyam, who represents part of Loudoun County, said he supports a pause.
“I will say that the county is becoming over reliant on data center revenue to the point where it’s going to be more than half of their revenue. So if the data centers have a bad year, like they did during Covid, that’s going to be a disaster for us. We shouldn’t be over reliant on one industry to this point,” Subramanyam said.
The board of supervisors will vote on the plan on Sept. 15.
