Amazon data centers have been built as close as 50 feet from residential houses in Loudoun County. Fairfax County hopes to avoid that scenario with zoning changes that, among other things, would require the facilities to be at least 200 feet away from the nearest residential property line.
The growth has prompted a board of supervisors vote Tuesday to amend the county’s zoning ordinance to restrict where and how data centers can be built — a step also occurring in other communities such as Loudoun and Prince William counties as concerns about noise and the massive amounts of energy consumed by data centers ripple across the region.
at least a half mile from the nearest Metro station, unless a special exception is granted for a shorter distance, with proof that they are in compliance with the county’s zoning ordinance. Not including it “would basically shut off any kind of opportunity that we would have to have a public hearing on this,” Tyler Ray, president of the homeowners association in the nearby Bren Pointe neighborhood of townhouses, said in an interview Monday. “The county isn’t doing anything to protect us.
power grid that includes Virginia, D.C., Maryland and 10 other states as data centers handle more energy-intensive artificial intelligence technology.Recently, the Dominion Energy utility estimated that the industry’s demand for electricity in its service area will quadruple by 2040 to nearly 14 gigawatts, or enough to power 11.2 million homes.