I work in Loudoun County and live in Fairfax.  I laugh at the slam of Fairfax County and your reference to the open spaces in LC.  When I am heading back to Fairfax County to sit on my .75 acre lot that backs up to a beautiful park I see all the LC residents not enjoying the open spaces but sitting in the parking lot you call roads reading the person in front of you vanity plate. 
Maybe the tax dollars earned will help to build more roads and hopefully one day provide you a metro station so you can sit and enjoy what is left of your open spaces instead of reading vanity plates on the gridlocked roads.

People move to Loudoun for open space.  If we wanted congestion, we could have stayed in Fairfax.  If the tax rate is a bit higher because of it, so be it. 

Instead, the tax rate is still going to go up because of mismanagement and the BoS will bow to the often false promises of developers time after time. 

Don’t be surprised when this project ends up being more “commercial office space” than data center.

@Drew Blank: By open space you mean one house per 20 acres, right? That’s permitted pretty much anywhere in the county, IIRC. Or a conservation easement preventing any development on that property?

I would ask, though, where do you plan on folks going if they can’t go to Loudoun? In ever-increasing towers in Arlington? In Warren/Frederick?

Did any of the Catoctin County folks ever do a study on what Catoctin County taxes would be? I’m going to imagine you guys get more money per student for transportation, but less dollars per student for Head Start and other poverty-based programs. It’s not cheap living in your rural paradise.

(Also, since when was land along the Greenway Western Loudoun?)

@the Snowman: You’re right, residential lots under a few acres or so don’t really pay for their services unless they’re worth $1mn or more. OTOH, it just seems to me a large number of the anti-development folks moved to Western Loudoun in the past 20 years, live in 0.5-5 acre lots, and then proceed to oppose any further development now that they’re in. I grew up in Warren County which has experienced several of those growing pains although nowhere near as much as Loudoun.

Open space may be great. But business and non-residential development has to go SOMEWHERE. Otherwise, taxes will keep going up up up.

IIRC, isn’t this lot bordered by the airport, the Greenway, and across Sycolin from Bolen Park?

Millions of square feet of datacenters means a hundred or so employees tops.  These facilities are “lights out” meaning only a skeleton crew.  My company has less than 800 employees globally and operates a couple million sf of DC space.

That said, the demand is driving this.  NoVA is one of the top places in the world for datacenters and we can’t keep up with demand.  Ashburn is the locus.

@Snowman

I agree with you.  I live in western Loudoun & pay a ton of taxes, getting nothing in return.  I’ve been living in the same place for 40+ years - from when the whole county was rural.

No crime around here, like in Sterling -  so we never see a cop.  I built & pay to maintain my own water well and septic system - no municipal water & sewer.  My road in gravel - no road improvements or maintenance.  Also no cable or internet service, and electric service that goes out for hours or days once a month or more, thanks to the county letting utilities have their way.  Not many schools. No libraries or hospitals.

Eastern Loudoun suffers the strip malls, crowded development & illegals, but they also consume a lot of services for their tax dollars.

At least we’re getting our own data center and power plant ;)  That should fund more cops and social services for eastern Loudoun.

If western Loudoun became its own county (which it never will), at least I’d be taxed in return for services that I get.

“It’s been a day and folks still haven’t commented what they’d actually like to see on the site instead of a data center park.”

Umm, how about open space - like the land use plan designated it….

Shawn, I agree with you to a degree, but hear me out.  Western Loudoun is, by and large, residential, with very little non-residential tax revenue producing (paying more in than it receives in services out).  As residential, though, much of it (the big old propertys, not “subdivision” lots) would pay taxes that exceeds the cost of services to them (esp. if on well and septic, which is probably most of them). However, the huge “farm” properties are probably getting ag exemptions from taxes, and thus, don’t pay very much at all…but they don’t “get” much back for their taxes either, they just don’t need it. Even all those A-3 lots (built and un-built to date), which probably do “use” more services, may pay more in taxes than the cost to service them. And then, the relatively (but growing) small amount of denser/suburban housing (ie, in and arround the Towns) are the ones busting the bank and not paying for themselves w/ their prop. taxes (ie, kids = schools). And it’s common knowledge that all of residential suburbia in Eastern Loudoun doesn’t pay for itself in services…so deamonizing the West in the argument of tax income vs. cost to serve them is, IMO, kind of hollow. They don’t necessarily help the whole County situation as the balance of tax revenues, but they don’t kill it either. It is our great imbalance of bedroom communities that lack the adequate off-set of non-residential that is the curse of the popularity of Louduon and the thing that draws people to live here…yet, for dozens of reasons who could on about for days, the development pattern has not kept pace to balance the residents and the businesses.  And when the Board makes decisions that caters to and favors residents over businesses (ala the LVE II rezoning earlier this year), they don’t ‘help’ the situation. However, approving a project like Stonewall is a step in shifting the balance, and w/ it (inadvertently, or not, ha) changing the future of a portion of the County long looked at as good for nothing but large lot residential…whcih as I detailed, in and of itself, is pretty neutral on the fiscal bottom line of the County. It’s the denser, 100% residential rezonings (and I’m talking SFD/TH, not apartments) you gotta look out for.

@the Snowman: Well, that’s fine, I guess they would want to put an easement or whatever on the property to prevent its development. But then they can’t bitch and moan about taxes since they don’t seem to mind residential development (as many Western Loudouners live in houses under 20 years old).

taht’s because they didn’t even know where this area was until this application got the light of day at the Board level. Most folks don’t know the area, because you can’t get back into it,you just see it from either side via Sycolin or 267. They argue on principal of slowing/no’ing growth, that’s all. Their alternative is, every day w/o new development is better than a day WITH development. It’s all about the obstruction.

It’s been a day and folks still haven’t commented what they’d actually like to see on the site instead of a data center park.

I understand that the county’s economic development staff said this was a very unique development with the power plant next door. I haven’t heard the county’s economic development staff push a development before so I’m going to believe that there is something pretty unique about this.

And I’m disappointed in Supervisor McGimsey for talking a big game about economic development but then passing up a huge opportunity. We sure will miss Supervisor Buckley’s wisdom on the board. She talks about economic development and backs it up.

On tax revenue: There’s nothing wrong with development for tax revenue - just build it where the zoning in the county plan is set up for that. Why do a plan, if it gets ignored?  Don’t change the plan & use designated open space.  That smells of political influence.

As for western Loudoun being a new county, those of us in western Loudoun would love that, but politics would never allow it. There was an attempt at that a few years back. If it was put to a vote by the voters in western Loudoun, becoming a new county would pass by a landslide.  Fairfax blight is creeping west.  With this rezoning, it just jumped a diving line set up in the zoning plan.

As for promises from developers, they can promise anything, build & take out their profits, and then let the shell company go Chap-11.  Every new development gets a shell company set up for just that reason.  The only proffers that count are those the are required before first occupancy is granted.

Dear “Bruce Davis,” the Supervisor from Leesburg votes to increase spending at all opportunities. She caters to every whim of the PEC. In this case she votes against data centers, which don’t create a demand on our infrastructure. And why? Because her vision would have homes built on this site, adding kids to our schools. This sounds like a tax positive project. What Burk wanted here, residential, would be tax negative. But make no mistake, her campaign funds will grow because of her no vote.

Sure you can build a “secure” site anywhere Round Hill.  Put up some fencing, razor wire, access controls with a guard booth, cameras, etc. and you are all set.  I’ve worked at “secure” sites.  Some are even leased.  Its not a tough thing to do.  I am sure One Loudoun had plenty of space available that they would be willing to part with. 

Too bad they didn’t build it in Round Hill instead.  Then I am sure you’d be even more enthusiastic about it.

Maybe the supervisor from Leesburg actually was responding to her constituents who don’t want this project approved?  Maybe they felt there was enough traffic already, and didn’t believe the developer’s “promise” that trips would be “minimal”.  That was other supervisor’s concerns as well, but I guess they just have short memories.  I am sure its hard to believe someone voted in the best interest of their residents when the “representative” from Catoctin voted for it and it impacts her district directly.  Of course, she isn’t up for re-election, so what does she care? 

This proffer was weak and details were vague.  There is too much wiggle room to change the type of land use.  Traffic was hardly addressed and environmental was the bare minimum.  Hence why the Planning Commission said no.  Andrews greased the right wheels I guess. 

I guess I am the only idiot who moved to Loudoun hoping to not live next to this kind of development.  I ought to just move back to Fairfax and have more stable property values and a shorter commute.  The way the BoS keeps approving things, property values may only go down.

Interesting that 4 of the 6 voting in favor aren’t seeking reelection and the 3 that voted against are running and receive the vast majority of their money from the PEC, which was fighting this application.

I’ll take the judgment of the 4 supervisors without political interests over the 3 who surely were pandering to their donors who oppose 50M in tax revenue.

What would the folks opposed to this want to see there? Houses on 1/2 acre lots? Yeah, it’s not like we don’t have plenty of those? The land put into some sort of permanent conservation easement? Fine, but you sort of lose the right to complain about high taxes when you want that in too many places.

As usual, we elect supervisors and they wake up in bed with developers every time. For a price.

Why is it meant to buffer the east from the west?  The article itself is divisive.  Can we get another article that explains why we need to buffer the east and the west?  I thought the west was rural and farms etc.  Why does business think it’s in the west?

So how about Western Loudoun succeeding from Eastern Loudoun.  All the rich, land hoarders with their escalating ppty tax rates can live in the west, while the innvoative, growing, hard-working contributors to the US economy can live in the east and promote businesses that create local jobs (re: less traffic and commuting) and tax revenues.  Everyone wins.  Data center is a great concept, I do agree that some major business (especially cloud vendors like Carpathia, TimeWarner-NaviCloud, Teramark, etc) that are committed to utilizing the center would make everyone feel more confident…but it beats more houses and Target strip malls.  Oh…the turtles will be ok.  In fact, maybe some of the 20 acre estate owners out west could put some on their property.

Wow, you folks don’t let the facts get in the way do ya.  Doesn’t anyone look up anything before they start complaining?  There’s about 25 pages of proffers and a concept plan that dictate exactly what they can and can’t do on the property.  And it runs with the land- so it doesn’t matter who owns it, they still have to follow it.  The proffers also require that before they build more than 250,000 sq’ feet of non data center uses, they have to build atleast 500,000 sq’ of data centers- and then keep building 2 times as much data center as other uses.  Even if the land sits empty, the tax assessment will be alot higher than it was.  Property zoned for 4,000,000 sq’ of office and data center is worth ALOT more than land zoned for houses on 10 acre lots.  And for anyone who doesn’t know, Loudoun already has about 4,000,000 sq’ of data centers and about 2,000,000 more planed or under construction.  And very little of it is “secure” because there’s no “secured” industrial parks anywhere in the county.  You can’t just buy a couple lots in an existing park and put a guard gate on an existing public road- it doesn’t work that way.  All of this ignores the reason why they think this is a good spot for data centers- arguably a better site than anywhere else in the County- on the site they have major gas transmission lines, major electrical transmission lines (the big giant ones that cross Route 7 near the new Wegmans), a power plant (which is there for the same reasons) and access to recycled water from the Town sewer treatment plant that they can buy cheaper to use for cooling- they need alot of cooling.  Personally, when it’s all built out, I don’t then people are even going to know it’s back there- and I’d rather have the taxes from that than 20 or 30 or 40- or more- new houses.

I’m so excited, more developement. Great! Let’s cut down some more trees so we look more like Fairfax. Can;t wait.

$50,000,000 I doubt it. We have been scammed yet again by our elected officials and their developer buddies.
So long Western Loudoun.

VOTE THEM ALL OUT

Is there anything that holds the developer to what he says here?  Or was the land just rezoned and the developer can now claim “business changed so I’m going to put in whatever I can”.  It sounds good, I mean who wants a house need high-tension power lines, but I am very skeptical about the real use of this land.  Surely if companies were demanding this type of facility, another developer would have come along and converted any existing, low occupancy business park already.  Hope this isn’t smoke and mirrors…...but then again we’re talking politics here, so I’m guessing it was.

This won’t be a data center and won’t garner the tax revenue John Andrews says it will.  Here’s why:  Data Centers won’t be built on the location and the revenue that might have been generated by a data center will be far less than that which would be generated if the property remains as simple industrial use.  This was a typical bait and switch application.  Apply for a change in zoning based on a low overhead, high revenue business such as data centers, and then develope it for the worst possible use that new zoning would allow.  Leesburg will be lucky if it doesn’t get an adult video manufacturing plant or something like that.  Tax revenues will be much lower and the property will be sold off to individual owners as it gets developed.  Now a HORRIBLE precident has been set AGAIN in the Transition Area.  IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE FOLKS, have you seen that the Republican candidate list is largely being funded by REAL ESTATE DEVELOPERS and the like?  I’m glad the real Democrats on the Board voted against this project.  The revenues will never be there as they suggest and THE SUPERVISORS WERE FOOLED AGAIN.  Note: York voted in favor of developing the citizen supported transition zone, it was not the first time in recent history he’s done this.

@Glenn King: yeah, it’s not like Sycolin/Ashburn Farm/Farmwell/Waxpool isn’t clogged already with traffic. If you want to pay extra for your rural fantasy, don’t burden the rest of us with higher taxes.

As for the carry-out restaurant, what sort of business park *doesn’t* have a deli for breakfast/lunch purposes?

As I work in IT as a sysadmin, I like the idea of massive data centers close to home. But that’s just me being selfish.

OTOH, I do agree with Outraged, if this is just going to be another empty development, the tax revenues won’t be as much as advertised. Will it cost the county $$$ to let it lie fallow for a few years?

If so, maybe we can have a moratorium on new office/business type developments until our vacancy is down in the single digits, or there are signed tenant contracts for say 60% of the planned retail/office.

Yes, it brings in revenue…MAYBE.  No proof it will ever be occupied, no requirement to build the data part until a percentage of regular office, restaurant, bank etc is built.  And when does the power plant get built???  John Andrews has the zoning and now he will sell it at a great profit. This is how he will manipulate the taxpayers if he is elected to the school board. Nothing about this ever was for the taxpayers benefit - it is all about John Andrews becoming richer and richer.  Don’t put our kids at risk by electing him to the school board!

WHAT ABOUT US TURTLES?
We’ve been living in the bogs and woodlands for a long time.  Now I hear that the trees will be torn down and the bogs covered with dirt. I am not going to amble up to the first human I see and expect to be given a new home.  Where is this home?  What about my turtle friends who don’t get the message that it’s time to move?  You won’t hurt them, will you?  Please make sure that we’re safe!

“Glenn King”, just about all the stuff you’re talking about (the houses, the big church) is in the Town of Leesburg- The County didn’t have anything to do with it.  The park and ride lot is in the County, but the Town had alot to do with the approval since it adjoins the Town and uses Town water/sewer- and it mainly serves the Town of Leesburg.

As for this new project- I’m all for it.  Tons of tax revenue with very few employees (at least for the data centers).  And since they are going to have a large power plant onsite (previously approved)it’s going to be a really interesting market nitch. btw- I think the “carry-out restaurant” is probably more along the lines of allowing some onsite food service for the people who work there- cafeteria, deli, coffee shop, whatever. 

Comprehensive plans are guides.  They are the best thoughts and directions of the people in charge at the time it’s written.  But things change and evolve- thats why the comprehensive plan is required to be revised and updated every 5 years.  Personally, I’d be alot more concerned about the traffic from the 7 million square feet of development that can go in the Crosstrail site between the Town airport and the Greenway- by-right.

this whole BOS including York needs to go and bring in people who can work to keep what is left of Loudoun. Millions of square feet near the Greenway only mean more traffic…what a foolish decision based only on what “might” be…if they had half a brain they would plan better than jumping for this…money money money…only 2.5 years in this self-exploding county and then we are gone to a place that reveres its beauty, not pave it over.

Go move to Fairfax “bring it on” if you want denser development in the name of tax dollars.  Personally, I’d rather pay a higher rate than deal with industrial development in my backyard and traffic clogging the intersections even more than they do now. 

South of Leesburg has quickly turned into a disaster due to the typical reckless behavior of the BoS.  First was all the homes.  Second was the Park and Ride.  Third was that mega church being built on the corner of Sycolin and Battlefield and now this.  Despite the Board acting concerned about the amount of office space during the original meeting and about traffic impacts, they still approve it over the objections of the planning commission?  Just sounds like more of the same reckless development Loudoun is known for.

$50 million. And we have some fools saying we should have left it alone. What planet are you on?

I certainly hope Loudoun doesn’t waste any money doing a Comprehensive Plan ever again.  The never use the darn thing, so why bother?

Editor’s Note: Vote corrected to read 6-3.

So much for planning & zoning.  Money talks.

I guess that those ugly developments just west of there that got put in after the last rezoning can now serve as “the buffer”.

A 9 member BOard votes 7-3…hmmm.

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http://www.loudoun.gov/controls/speerio/resources/RenderContent.aspx?data=6a3daccfffc8460ba05a9f8cfcdd5b64&tabid=327&fmpath;=/Planning+Commission/Annual+Reports -

Looks like PC denial recommendations that the Board approved number 2 (Belmont Estates, LVE II I know the Board approved), but there are many that were sent to the Board level in 2011 and active after the report…

A carry-out restaurant!!?  How did that slip in there?  That wasn’t even on the original plan.  Disgusting.

Disgusting.  Same old BS that turned Loudoun in the mess of traffic it is today.  This project was half-baked and everyone who votes Yes should be shown the door.  I don’t even know why I bother writing my supervisor.

Hey LTM.  How often does a rezoning get approved despite the Planning Commission not recommending it?  Does it ever happen?  How much money changed hands to make this happen?  Earn another journalism prize next year, here is your chance.