Board of Supervisors expected to vote in September
This text was taken from an email alert sent out on July 3, 2025. Sign up for email alerts ➝
Dear Supporter,
On Wednesday, June 18, the Fauquier County Planning Commission voted 4-1 to recommend that the seven-building, 2.2-million-square-foot data center campus known as “Gigaland” be denied. Thank you to the many people who wrote in or spoke at the meeting, letting the Commissioners know that the community still had many concerns about Gigaland. Your voice made a difference.
But we’re not finished!
Although the recommendation to deny is a positive result, the Board of Supervisors can still approve this project. We anticipate the public hearing will be at the regular Board meeting on September 11. We will send out a reminder ahead of that meeting. In the meantime, below, we provide an update on what we know as of right now.
We believe the Gigaland applicant is going to use the time until that September meeting to negotiate an approval with the Board of Supervisors. Already, the developers behind Gigaland seem to be focusing their efforts on leveraging their proffers to convince the board members to overlook the project’s inconsistencies and unmitigated impacts that would undoubtedly be disruptive, costly and damaging to residents’ quality of life locally and countywide. below).
Proffers
Proffers are a set of additional promises tied to a development. They often include monetary contributions to the locality or enhanced environmental standards to mitigate a project’s impact on the community. Proffers must be carefully created in order to ensure that they have a meaningful improvement in the quality of life experienced by residents.
Water System ‘Improvements’
We’re concerned that the applicant’s proposed improvement to the water system for Remington Meadows doesn’t actually provide meaningful benefit to the community of Remington. The applicant has made public claims that the project will improve the water quality for nearby residents by reducing certain contaminants. However, it is important to note that 1) the County water system currently already meets state and federal standards; 2) the existing water system that supplies the town is also fed by multiple wells, which the applicant has not proposed to treat at all; and 3) the applicant has also failed to commit to treat its wells beyond what is needed to meet the existing standards, so the levels of contaminants won’t actually be reduced below their current levels unless the applicant explicitly says it will meet a higher standard above and beyond state and federal law.
So the proffer, as written, amounts to merely meeting Gigaland’s own water needs for the site, which has little to no benefit for the rest of the community.
Conservation Easements
Established in 2002, Fauquier’s Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program preserves farmland (and limits incompatible development in the future) by purchasing conservation easements from landowners with working agricultural operations. The program not only protects the County’s farmland, particularly important in the southern end of the County, but also retains the agricultural industry’s critical mass.
After the Planning Commission rejected the Gigaland proposal, the project’s developers added a proffer that would give $15 million to the county’s PDR program.
A proffer that could expand the ability of the county to conserve lands in and around Remington and along existing and future transmission corridors is a step in the right direction. Over the coming weeks, the county should analyze the potential for conservation in Fauquier and address whether the proposed proffer is sufficient to mitigate the impacts of industrial development and the associated new transmission infrastructure in southern Fauquier.
We Still Don’t Know Who is Behind Gigaland
Gigaland’s developers have hinted that a “major data center company” is behind the project. However, they will neither say which company is behind Gigaland, nor provide proof that this is more than a speculative real estate gambit.
The developers promoting Gigaland, who are making promises on behalf of an unknown entity, will likely be long gone by the time this project breaks ground. We think that county residents deserve to know who they’re dealing with, especially given the impacts this project will likely have on Fauquier County and residents’ quality of life.
Too Many Unanswered Questions
The scale and scope of what is proposed is still too much. In addition to the already approved Remington Tech Park, Gigaland is the largest of four new proposed data center projects in the Lee District: Gigaland, SAMX, Convergent, and Remington Innovation Campus. Combined with the Remington Tech Park, the Gigaland site could threaten to overwhelm the little Town of Remington with industrial infrastructure, should the project be approved. The domino effect of other properties seeking to develop data centers in southern Fauquier is likely to continue if the County demonstrates a willingness to allow rezonings.
The energy usage, even for just one of these sites, would far surpass energy usage in the County and will likely require significant amounts of additional power generation and transmission infrastructure. The application for Gigaland still includes four substations, which appears to be more than is needed to serve the expected development. This raises questions about what the excess substations are for, exactly how many transmission lines will be coming into the site and what other private property they will need to cross.
👉 You can find additional details on the questions and concerns about the proposed Gigaland project in our previous email alert sent on June 13.
A Symptom of a Bigger Problem
These applications are all part of a broader problem of unregulated and unsustainable data center growth, which has already led to new transmission lines throughout Virginia’s rural landscape, delayed retirement of polluting fossil fuel power plants, and created massive jumps in residents’ electricity bills. The County should discuss the full range of impacts of hyperscale data centers on the community of Remington and the rest of the county. Approving more data centers will only exacerbate these cumulative impacts.
We will provide additional updates as we learn more and as the Board vote on Gigaland approaches. Meanwhile, visit our website and our data center page and follow us on social media (links in the footer of this email) to stay up-to-date on this issue and other issues pertinent to Fauquier County and data centers.
⭐ New PEC Contact: Finally, I’m excited to introduce you to Evelyn Eichorn, PEC’s new Senior Land Use Field Representative for Fauquier County. You may have already seen her out and about as she is an active volunteer in the community and is already attending local government meetings. Send questions to her at (540) 347-2334 x7046 or [email protected].
Thank you for your support on this important issue that affects the safety, health, and quality of life of Fauquier County residents.
Sincerely,
Sarah Parmelee
Culpeper Land Use Representative
[email protected]
(540) 347-2334 ext. 7045
