Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Public Hearing, Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 6h 10m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7626
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7626

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-19. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:07:55] Do they know that?

[00:07:56] Good evening, supervisors.

[00:08:58] Good evening, staff. And good evening, what I suspect is just about all of Loudoun County today. I'd like to call to order the March 13, 2024, Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Public Hearing. This room has a hearing loop. If you need a hearing assistance, please switch your hearing aid to the teleco mode.

[00:09:17] If you need a headset, we have those available as well. Please see the clerk to request one. As a reminder, all members of the public who are addressing the board this evening, you may only sign up to speak on matters that have been advertised for the public hearing.

[00:09:32] Due to the broadcast delay, if you are not in the boardroom and you wish to address the board on items one, two, four, five, seven, and eight, which are on our consolidated hearing agenda, please look at the numbers scrolling across your screen at this time.

[00:09:49] If you have signed up to speak, You will be allowed at two and a half minutes. If you are in the boardroom, we ask when your name is called, please come to the podium and state your name for the record. The timer on the podium will indicate your remaining time. When your time has expired, please yield the floor to the next speaker.

[00:10:08] If you are providing your comments via telephone, I'm going to ask that you time yourself because you can't see the clock in the boardroom, and I'm not going to stop you when you get to two minutes because it interrupts your flow, but I will stop you when your time is up at 2 1⁄2 minutes. When taking input for items, I will first ask if there's anyone in the boardroom wishing to speak, then I will go to the moderator and ask if there's any speaker via online.

[00:10:33] And please note that there's a slight delay between the broadcast and the boardroom. Our moderator this evening is Lisa Kennes. Lisa, can you hear me? Good evening, Chair Randall. Yes, I can hear you. Wonderful, wonderful. Before we go on, I would like everyone to please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:10:58] Under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Okay, there's a couple of things, a couple of statements I have to make before we start today.

[00:11:21] So the first thing I need to do is address some misinformation that has come to our attention. We have received several emails today from the public and from the business community that have talked about whether or not the county board is going to implement a moratorium or slowdown on data center applications.

[00:11:49] Let me be very, very clear. We are not sure where that came from, but it is simply absolutely not true. A motion to or an effort to do a moratorium or a slowdown is literally not legal.

[00:12:05] It is illegal to do those things. We are not allowed to do it legally. But even more clear, we're not just acknowledging that it's illegal. We are not engaging in it. We believe as a board, and I believe I'm speaking for the entire board, that each application that comes before us should be considered independent on its own merits, whether that's a housing application, a business application, a data center application.

[00:12:30] So that is just not true. If you have put that in your remarks, you will have time. I'm giving you time now to maybe change that, but there is no discussion, no will there be a moratorium or a slowdown from county staff or the county board.

[00:12:47] We will have a press release that goes out in the morning that states this and says this, so that it is, we know, and if we're asked again, my colleagues and I will just refer everyone to that statement that is going out in the morning.

[00:13:03] So I hope that clears that matter up. Supervisors, obviously there are a lot of people in the room tonight to speak on at least three different items. I would ask us to try to keep our remarks tight. And if you need not make the remarks or you don't think you have to speak, not everybody has to speak on every issue.

[00:13:24] So let's try to keep things a little tight tonight because we want to get through everything. We do have two items that we're deferring, item 10 and item 12. Item 10 is LEGIE 2023-0069, the filament fire and rescue special exception 2023-0014, and item 12 is LEGIE 2023-0017, Village of Clear Springs, ZMAP 2021-0008,

[00:13:58] special exception 021-0028, special exception 2021-0029, special exception 2021-0030, special exception 2022-0044, ZMOD 2021-0035, ZMOD 2021-0036, ZMOD 2021-0091, two more, ZMOD 2022-0036, and ZMOD 2022-0037.

[00:14:27] They have been deferred to the April 10, 2024 public hearing. Due to these items being advertised as deferred, we will not take public input on these items tonight. Supervisors, please know that the reason I deferred those items is because our agenda tonight is so full.

[00:14:43] The Village of Clear Springs did ask a favor when I deferred them. They asked if I was going to defer them, can they go first at the April meeting? I told them I could do that. So they would be our first at the April meeting. Okay, we're now going to adopt the following as a consolidated agenda.

[00:15:03] To remind everyone, a consolidated agenda items will be considered because there are no outstanding issues. Staff has recommended approval. The applicant waived the presentation and no public speakers have registered to speak in advance. The consolidated agenda is as follows.

[00:15:20] Item number one, proposed amendment to the codified Wednesday Loudoun County Chapter 848-2-0 2-3-A-1, Criteria for Open Space Use Qualifications, Historic Resources Protection. That is a county-wide item.

[00:15:35] I will make that motion. Item 2, Proposed Amendments of Existing Ashburn Residential Permit Parking District. That is the Ashburn District. Mr. Turner will make that motion. Item 4, Legi 2023-0098, Loudum Sprouts Home Daycare, Special Exception 2023-0032.

[00:15:55] That is in the Algonquian District, Vice Chair Briggsman will make that motion. LEGIE 2023-0110, Mount Sterling Water Pumping Station Landscape Buffer Modification, Special Exception 2023-0043, that's in the Sterling District.

[00:16:11] Mr. Sains will make that motion. Item 7-2023-0019, Review and Renewal Modification or Termination of the New Catoctin South Ag and Forest Road District, Catoctin District, Mr. Kirshner will make that motion.

[00:16:28] And then the last one is Leji 2023-067 Goose Creek Retail LLC Special Exception 2023-0011. That's, again, in the Aspirin District. So, again, Mr. Turner will make that motion.

[00:16:46] Mr. Turner, I'm sorry, will make that motion. I apologize. We'll make that motion. Board members, please refer to your documents entitled Consolidated on Motion Sheets, of which I don't know if I have one of those.

[00:17:07] I do not. Does anyone have that I can borrow? Yeah, for the first one. I shouldn't do the first one. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on anything on the Consolidated Agenda? Seeing none, we're going to close the consolidated agenda, and I will go to motion number one.

[00:17:29] Yes. Just a quick request. I thought we were going to have one person speaking on item number two. We do not. Check to make sure. I just checked. Okay. Does anyone want to speak on any motion on the consolidated agenda, including item number two? I called it for the call.

[00:17:45] Thank you. Okay. For item number one, I move the Board of Supervisors approve motion 2B for approval of the proposed amendment as provided in March 13, 2024, public hearing item number one, staff report. Motion made and seconded the discussion on that motion.

[00:18:05] Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 9 to 0. Item two is in the Ashburn District. Mr. Turner. I move that the Board of Supervisors approve motion 2B for approval of the proposed amendment as provided in the March 13, 2024 public hearing, item number one, staff report.

[00:18:24] The item has been made and seconded by Mr. Crony, a discussion on that motion. Mr. Turner, would you like to discuss the motion? No, ma'am. All right, seeing none, all people say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passed 9-0. Item four, Mrs. Vice Chair Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:18:41] I move that the Board of Supervisors approve motion 2B for approval of the special exception as provided in the March 13th, 2024 public hearing. Item number four, staff report. I'll make a, okay. Mr. Sainz, second that motion, discussion on that motion?

[00:18:57] Sure, I just want to praise the owner of this home childcare center. She's bumping up the number of seats she has in her childcare center. And any more childcare seats are good for all of us. And I'm also excited that this center is kind of right across from Bless Park.

[00:19:15] So I hope they are enjoying that. Thank you. Wonderful. Anybody else? All in favor to say aye. Any opposed? That motion passed 9-0. Number five is the Sterling District, Mr. Sains. I move that the Board of Supervisors approve motion 2B for approval of the special exception as provided in the March 13th, 2024 public hearing item number 5 staff report.

[00:19:39] Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor Bricksman. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor to say aye. Any opposed? That motion passed 9-0. Item number seven, Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Item seven, I move that the Board of Supervisors approve motion to be for renewal of the AFD as provided in the March 13th, 2024 public hearing item number seven, staff report.

[00:20:02] Motion made and seconded by Supervisor Tacroni. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all of them please say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 9-0. Item number eight, Mr. Turner, again, please. I move the Board of Supervisors approve motion to be for approval of the special exception.

[00:20:25] as provided in the March 13, 2024, public hearing item number eight, staff report. Motion is made seconded by Supervisor Glass. Discussion on that motion? Seeing none, on 50, say aye. Aye. Wow, that was a weak aye.

[00:20:40] Aye. There we go. Any opposed? That motion will pass 9-0. Okay, that is a consolidated agenda. We're going to go first to eye number three, which is a passage of an ordinance to partially vacate subdivision plant parts of vacation of Swiftwater Drive.

[00:20:57] Now, let me say this before we get to that item. Mr. Kirshner has a motion on the dais to suspend the rules and pass this. I do not believe that there will be great objection to that motion, to be quite honest. I think that motion will do just fine.

[00:21:14] So when these things happen, I say that if people want to speak on these items, you absolutely can. You're welcome to, and I would never say that you couldn't or try to stop you. However, you should know that you're probably going to, that it might not be, Mr. Kirscher is going to make a motion to suspend the rules and make the motion to pass the item.

[00:21:33] And I don't know that there's any objection on the dais. So I will say that in advance. And now I will ask the staff, do they have a presentation they'd like to do? And my computer is just a presentation you'd like to do. Yes, Madam Chair. Yes, please. Yes, please.

[00:21:51] Yes? Yes, yes. Thank you. There we go. It came back.

[00:22:08] Good evening. My name is Hillary Russo, and I am the Land Development Planning Team Lead. Tonight, I am joined by Ronald Dunbar, Land Development Planning Division Manager, Betsy Smith, Director of Building and Development, Scott Berger, Deputy Director of Building Development, and online, joined by Jason Hobby, Senior Assistant County Attorney, and Marie Pham from the Department of Transportation and Capital Infrastructure, to discuss RDAB 2023-0002, Passage of an ordinance to partially vacate subdivision plat to complete a partial vacation of Swiftwater Drive.

[00:22:48] Next slide, please. The purpose of this application is to consider adoption of an ordinance to partially vacate a subdivision plat in order to vacate an unimproved section of dedicated right-of-way pursuant to Virginia Code Section 15.2-2272.

[00:23:06] The application for vacation was requested by the Moreland's Homeowners Association, also known as the Raspberry Falls Homeowners Association. Next slide, please. The process for vacation of subdivision is outlined within Virginia Code Section 15.2-2274.

[00:23:26] Should the board approve the ordinance and it is recorded after the 30-day appeal period, the force and effect of the original recorded plat, SBRD-2000-092, or portion of the plat that is vacated is destroyed, the title of that vacated portion and for the entire width shall vest in the abutting plot owners next slide please the subject area for vacation is a site where is an unimproved section of dedicated right-of-way located at the terminus of Swiftwater Drive within the raspberry Falls subdivision this

[00:24:04] proposed vacation was petitioned by the Moreland's homeowners Association also known as the raspberry Falls Homeowners Association who are adjacent property owners next slide please this view provides an aerial view of the location of the proposed area for vacation from the terminus of the cul-de-sac bulb to the property line next slide please and this graphic provides a greater context look to the surrounding area including Morvan south to the Morvan Park to the south and James Monroe highway to the east please the proposed section for

[00:24:41] vacation is a 50-foot wide unimproved dedicated section of right-of-way and is also located within the limestone overlay district. Next slide, please. Staff sent the proposed application materials to multiple agencies, both internal and external to the county, to receive referral comments on the proposed vacation. While most agencies support approval of the vacation, staff received comments from the Department of Transportation and Capital Infrastructure, DTCI, and Virginia Department of Transportation of similar nature. DTCI stated that the intent of the subject section for vacation is for interpartial connection

[00:25:19] to the adjacent parcel to the south and is planned to be a secondary access on active preliminary subdivision plat sbpl 2022-0005 vdot shared the same concerns and noted that the vacation be approved should the vacation be approved that the applicant for sbpl 2022-0005 would need to create an additional point of access off Tut Lane to meet access requirements.

[00:25:48] Next slide, please. Staff recommends the Board of Supervisors approve RDAB 2023-0002 as it meets the standards of Virginia Code Section 15.222-2272. Next slide.

[00:26:05] That's a lot of twos. Yes. Staff's available for any questions that the Board may have. Supervisors, do you have questions? No. Very good. Hi, how are you? Are you from the HOA?

[00:26:22] You're from the HOA. You all look nothing alike. Can you come to the table, please? So it is our understanding, because normally an HOA is not a, quote, applicant, unquote, but because you all asked for the proposed vacation, from what I understand, did you have a, I was told, did you all have like a one-minute video to show us?

[00:26:45] Is that true? Madam Chairman, I had two small video, short videos to show, but I'm happy to- You can do that. You can absolutely do that. Do we already have them? Yes, ma'am. We're going to go in and do that. However, after that, what's going to happen is I'm going to let Mr. Kirshner state what he's going.

[00:27:07] Before I ask for public comment, I'm going to let Mr. Kirshner state what the motions he's going to make, and then I'll ask for public comments. Madam Chairwoman, I'm happy to get my presentation from the table here, unless you'd like me at the podium.

[00:27:24] No, that's fine. Where you're at is just fine, sir. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, members of the Board of Supervisors, Mr. Hemstreet, good evening. My name is Zainas Talley with the law firm Whiteford, Taylor & Preston. I'm here tonight on behalf of Moreland's Homeowners Association, the HOA for Raspberry Falls neighborhood, which is generally located, as you all know, where Route 15 and Route 655 meet.

[00:27:47] Raspberry Falls is a beautiful, tight-knit community, but a sizable one, composed of about 200 single-family homes that are situated around the Raspberry Falls Golf and Hunt Club. A well-respected, award-winning golf course where if you golf like me, you ought to pick the last tee time just so you don't hold anybody up.

[00:28:06] Despite that, the golf course anchors this beautiful neighborhood whose intimate and secluded design attracts a homeowner who is invested in the community in which they live. And members of the board, that is why the HOA and this application is before you tonight. The HOA and the golf course ask you all, this board, as staff, as a scribe, to vacate a 50-foot-wide, unimproved public right-of-way.

[00:28:27] It exists over less than an acre strip of land at the end of Swiftwater Drive. And I believe you can see just a video from the position there at the end of the road. But let me, oh, happy to play it now. Members, you can see just how narrow this street is as it moves toward the right-of-way.

[00:29:00] So we're just trying to show us here how narrow the street is. Right, right. Okay. I'll continue. The applicant, along with the property owner, the golf course now makes this request to vacate this right-of-way for three principal reasons.

[00:29:21] The public use is no longer necessary. The proposed use of the right-of-way as a connector access to a planned high-intensity residential development threatens the safety of the community along Swiftwater Drive, as you can see from the video, which I will further explain in a moment.

[00:29:37] And the public necessity, convenience, and good planning practice councils for vacation of this public right-of-way. If I may, I would like now to further elaborate on these three propositions, either of which alone we submit would be a sound basis to vote favorably for this application.

[00:29:53] As to the first point, 22 years ago, the golf course had somewhat just opened, and this portion of the course where the right-of-way now exists was not yet fully developed. Today, however, the right-of-way, as you all were able to see in the presentation from staff, is smack dab in the middle of holes 16 and 17, two par-four holes that are home to some of the most difficult sand bunkers I've ever tried to escape out of.

[00:30:19] To now use this public right of way as an access road to the proposed new development marked as SBPL 2022-0005 by Wright Field Estates would intrude unnecessarily on the current use of the land, disrupting, to some agree, the golf course's present operations.

[00:30:37] The second point, and critically, as you all saw from the video, the safety hazard that would be created should this public right of way be used as now proposed. Swiftwater Drive is a minor residential road that maintains no sidewalks, as you saw, and poor lines of sight.

[00:30:53] This road simply should not be transformed into a main access road for the significant Wright Field Estates development that's now planned to the southwest of the right-of-way. You all saw those videos depicting how narrow the lines of sight is, and this is just a second video to show you, too, how narrow the roadway is.

[00:31:13] And as you can see, it's unimproved with any sidewalks on either side of the road.

[00:31:25] As you can tell from this video and from the, oh, there it goes, I'll continue as it plays, that this road cannot become a main access road to Wright Field State's planned development. The safety of pedestrian and vehicular traffic would be greatly risked if this right-of-way is not vacated.

[00:31:46] To the third point, public necessity, convenience, and good planning practice counsel for the approval of this application for the reasons I have stated. So, too, I know that staff recommended approval of this application. To realize the now proposed use of this right-of-way would uproot the current layout out of a part of the golf course.

[00:32:04] It exacerbates safety concerns to those living on Swiftwater Drive, and it would create inconvenience to any current or future users of Swiftwater. The application before you is a simple one. It asks that this board protect the safety and purposeful design of the Raspberry Falls community. Nearly every single resident of the Raspberry Falls community supports this vacation.

[00:32:24] The owner of the land where this right-of-way exists, the golf course, supports this vacation. and all the reasons I have noted here counsel this board to vacate this now unnecessary right-of-way. I'll stop there and ask to hold the remainder of my time for rebuttal should there be further public comment, and I thank you all for your time and happy to answer your questions.

[00:32:44] What's your name? Zanis Talley. Okay, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. We probably will have questions, but I'm going to take the time off whether there's rebuttal or not. Thank you, ma'am. Questions for the HOA, which is, in this moment, the applicant.

[00:33:04] All right, so before I call on speakers, this is what's going to happen. Mr. Kershner is going to make a motion to suspend the rules. If that passes, he can then make another motion, and I'm going to let him read what that motion is.

[00:33:20] And then after you guys know what's about to happen as far as the motions, then I'll see if people still want to speak, okay? Mr. Kirsten, would you like to tell people what motion you'll make after you suspend the rules? So thank you, Madam Chair. And yes, so obviously people are here to speak on both sides of this issue.

[00:33:36] They're absolutely welcome to do so. Absolutely. I will just want to inform those who are speaking in my intent. So if you do want to speak, you're welcome to use all two minutes, but certainly can shorten it. And from my perspective, maybe the other supervisors want to hear on this particular thing. But I've heard from both sides, both the attorneys.

[00:33:53] Mr. Kirsten, which motion are you making? You actually make the motion right now, Madam Chair? No, I have to-- I'm going to move to suspend the rules. You can't do that yet. I just tell them what-- you can't make motions until I ask for public speakers, so you can't do that yet. Just tell them what motion you're going to make. I'm going to make a motion to suspend the rules.

[00:34:10] And then? And then I'm going to make the motion to adopt-- it would be 2B, to approve and adopt the passage of the ordinance to partially vacate the subdivision plan. OK, so those will be the motions he makes when we get there. But what I have to do right now first is ask for public speakers on this item.

[00:34:26] What I always do is ask for the speakers to come like three people in advance so you know that you're going to be next. And on this item, our first speaker is Robert Ward, followed by Sherry O'Neill, followed by Larry Winnock. Good evening.

[00:34:46] And then Sherry O'Neill and Larry Winnock would be the next two speakers. Good evening, board, and good evening, Chair Randall.

[00:35:05] Congrats on your re-election. Thank you. I'm happy you're here tonight because I know you're all about safety. Last year I spoke about the CPAM, which passed. I mentioned that my kids were globally rare. They still are. Meet Alex. He's my 14-year-old son.

[00:35:22] Alex has Down syndrome. We moved to this street, especially because it has a cul-de-sac, and the adjacent street, Swiss water, also has a cul-de-sac. Alex has therapies every day, school, home, clinic.

[00:35:38] He has demands put on him from sunup to sundown. The only time that relaxes him is his 20 minutes of either riding his bike or his electric car. Alex and I will go to the stop sign at Raspberry. He'll look both ways, which is a teaching moment, and then he crosses Raspberry Drive to go all the way up to Swiftwater Drive.

[00:35:56] At the top, he goes round and round in a circle, smiling and laughing, then back down the street and stops to say hi to a friend walking their dog. He'll pet the dog, and, of course, he will ask for hugs. Then he gets the hugs from whoever says yes. He goes back across Raspberry Drive, where the few cars impede his progress, and back home.

[00:36:16] These 20 minutes are invaluable for him and our family. If you are not entrenched in the special needs community, you won't understand. These little moments are monumental. Now I hear this might go all the way because someone wants to add 880 extra vehicle trips commuting through the neighborhood.

[00:36:33] Did I mention there are no sidewalks in this community? The roads in our neighborhood are narrow. I measured swift water. It's 18 feet across, so two cars passing each other barely can fit, and there's no sidewalks. If this is allowed, kids can't ride their scooters, bikes, go for a walk, go to the creek to snag tag poles, go to the pool, or a friend's house. Adults can't walk the dogs anymore or go for walks to exercise. The entrance off Route 15 into the neighborhood is terrible.

[00:37:00] There's so many accidents from people trying to get in and out, I can't even imagine how many more you'll have with the huge backups that this will cause. This is a safety nightmare. Narrow streets, no sidewalks, now thousands of cars in and out all day long. For Alex's sake, for the residents of our community's sake, for safety's sake, for Wrightsville new residents' sake as well.

[00:37:23] I urge you to please vacate the unused county right away behind the cul-de-sac off of Swiftwater Drive. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Oh, well, thank you, Mr. Ward. Loudon, we have on this board a rule that there's no clapping nor jeering, and that is because both those things can get out of hand really quickly.

[00:37:51] So I'm going to ask that you don't clap, that you don't, there you go. If you want to express your approval, you can do jazz hands. If you want to express your disapproval, we don't have anything for that. We have nothing for that.

[00:38:06] But feel free to jazz hands. Our next speaker is Sherry O'Neill, followed by Larry Winnock, followed by Paul Gibson. Thank you, ma'am. Our next speaker is Larry Winnock, followed by Paul Gibson, followed by Susan Davis. Okay, I'm a little confused now.

[00:38:26] Thank you, and you're obviously Susan Davis, very good. Okay, there we go, we're jamming here. Our next speaker, so we've gone through, just make sure, Robert Ward, Sherry O'Neill, Larry Wenlock, Paul Gibson, and Susan Davis.

[00:38:45] Our next speaker is Nick Albu, followed by Eric Howe. Thank you. - Good evening, Chair Randall, District Supervisors. My name is Nick Albu, I'm an attorney in Leesburg, and I'm here on behalf of DRB Homes to speak in opposition to the petition to vacate Switchwater Drive.

[00:39:06] Board members, DRB Homes is a contract purchaser of 418 acres adjacent to Raspberry Falls as well as the end of Swiftwater Drive. The facts here are pretty simple. About 20 years ago, when the board of supervisors approved Raspberry Falls, it required the owner to dedicate Swiftwater Drive to the county.

[00:39:25] Why? To provide inter-parcel connection in contemplation of future development. Fast forward to today, my client DRB Homes, as well as the owner of the property, Andrew Wright, who is also one of my clients, but will speak on his own behalf, submitted a development application that proposes using Swiftwater Drive as a secondary, not primary, secondary access point to provide interparcel connection with Raspberry Falls, which is the exact reason why the Board of Supervisors 20 years ago dedicated Swiftwater Drive in the first place.

[00:39:54] I'm sure as this board is aware, secondary access points like this serve a vital safety purpose. Specifically, they provide an alternative means of access in the event of life-threatening emergencies. Currently, Raspberry Falls does not have a secondary means of access, which has proven to be a problem for emergency responders, as this board is probably aware.

[00:40:16] Swiftwater Drive and my client's plans to connect to it solve that problem. In addition to the detrimental impact on public safety that would result from vacating Swiftwater Drive, the owner of the adjacent 418 acres would be irreparably damaged. And that's a big deal. That's a very big deal.

[00:40:31] It's a big deal because under Virginia law, the board does not have authority to vacate this right of way or any right of way if any owner of any lot shown on the vacation plat will be irreparably damaged. Now, the proposed ordinance that's in your packet states that there are no owners that would be irreparably damaged.

[00:40:50] That is 100% false. If you look at the proposed vacation plat attachment 4 in your staff report, you will see that Andrew Wright's lot is shown on the vacation plat. And what the staff report does not tell you is that both Andrew Wright and DRB Holmes have a preliminary subdivision plat that as a matter of law was required to be approved weeks ago.

[00:41:07] And what the staff report does not tell you is that the county is unlawfully withholding approval in the hopes that this board will take quick action tonight by suspending the rules without any study as to the impact of vacating this right away and without any consideration of the irreparable damage that will be caused by vacating this access point that was dedicated by the board of supervisors 20 years ago. On behalf of DRB Homes, I ask that you take some time to actually evaluate and study.

[00:41:34] Mr. Abel, your time is up. Thank you. I appreciate the time. Thank you so much. Eric Hall, followed by Sally Henry, followed by David Goodrum. Yes, hi. I am Eric Howell. I was going to defer until I just heard that. And I just want to say that safety in this matter trumps every other consideration.

[00:41:56] I was going to make a little joke here and say it also binds it, but I'll skip that. It's a stupid dad joke. So very quickly, two things. One, I have 10 grandchildren, and they like to play when they visit on the street.

[00:42:14] I take them down to the creek, and we look at tadpoles and frogs. That's not going to happen anymore. I'm probably not going to be able to walk my dog down the street anymore. I wouldn't let the kids out there. They range in age from 1 to 10.

[00:42:31] I'd have to keep them in the yard, constant surveillance. The other thing I want to mention is I see carts around dusk going past, I live off of the 16th hole, going past from the green at 16 to the tee at 17.

[00:42:51] And as the hours get longer, the days get darker later, so people are out there and in good weather. And a lot of these people in these carts are young men. And a lot of them are visiting the beverage cart along the way, and they're hitting dusk.

[00:43:10] And if this is not vacated, they are going to have to really look at whether or not they can get across that area, while there are rush hour commuters trying to get across going the other direction or perpendicular to them.

[00:43:27] Too big a safety risk. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Sally Henry, followed by David Goldron, followed by Elaine Barakova. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here to ask you to vacate the right-of-way beyond the cul-de-sac on Swiftwater Drive.

[00:43:46] Consider all the safety concerns that are being raised today. They're facts. Families with children, special needs children, senior citizens, no sidewalks for pedestrians, nor for children walking to the bus stop that exists on the end of Swiftwater, on a very narrow road with limited sight lines, limited room for emergency vehicles, as it is.

[00:44:09] Swiftwater is a Class C road built to serve 25 homes or less, no more. To be exact, we have 13 homes. The county's FSM and VDOT standards play safety and current usage as a key element to be considered. Not abandoning this right-of-way is in favor of allowing interconnectivity by increasing traffic from 130 vehicles per day to more than 880 from all predicted sources of traffic.

[00:44:39] This fails to consider the safety issues I and others have raised. Lastly, according to Loudoun County's Article 5, page 140, the requirement of a secondary ingress and egress can be waived by the development applicant due to evident safety concerns.

[00:44:54] There is no harm to the development applicant in waiving nor to pursue an alternate solution based on these safety risks. What you can't recover from is knowing that usage of this right-of-way for interconnectivity could cause additional injury or death, and it could have been prevented.

[00:45:16] Thank you. Thank you. David Goodrum, followed by Elaine Barakova, followed by Andrew Wright. Good evening. Thank you. Hi, my name is Dave Goodrum. I'm a resident of Raspberry Falls. I'm also the current president of the HOA. You might recognize me, as I've spoken up here many times in the past with regards to Route 15 traffic.

[00:45:36] As a result of my involvement with Route 15, I'm very familiar with the many accidents and near misses that have occurred in other neighborhoods when you have traffic cutting through a narrow road that was never intended to handle that type of capacity. I'm here to urge you to please approve the vacation of this piece of land. The thought of this type of traffic coming through what is currently a quiet cul-de-sac is crazy.

[00:45:56] I can't believe it would even be considered by anybody, including the developer. The traffic from the new neighborhood is going to increase with water from its current usage of less than 100 to almost 1,000. And it's not just the other neighborhood that's going to be cutting through. It'll be more. So on some days, you could be introducing thousands with an S to this quiet cul-de-sac.

[00:46:16] So if you don't support the vacation of this right-of-way, it's only a matter of time before somebody is killed. The developers of the Wright State Development are trying to take advantage of a right-of-way that was never intended to be used in this manner. The developer, which you just heard from, doesn't care about the lives of the people who live here. the developer doesn't care if they hurt anybody the developer doesn't care if somebody gets killed they just want to build their houses and make their money and they could care less who they hurt to do it as the current president of the HOA I can tell you they didn't even reach out to talk to us about this we found out literally by by luck they tried quietly to get the development approved hoping that nobody would notice what they were doing and how they were doing it and

[00:46:53] hoping that nobody would notice that they were taking an existing cul-de-sac and turning it into a thoroughfare they have the option to have a second entrance through tut lane but it's cheaper for them to try to cut through this tiny road. So that's what they're going to try to do. So please approve the vacation of this right away and save somebody's life. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Elaine Barakow, followed by Andrew Wright, and then followed by Richard Wright. Good evening, Chairman Randolph, supervisors. Thank you. I'm going to be very brief because you've heard some of the safety concerns. You saw the video demonstrating how narrow the street was. I want to say that I live on the cul-de-sac of swift water. Like David said, I only learned about this through happenstance.

[00:47:32] No one from Rice Farm, no one from the developer contacted me. You've heard from the developer that they need the right-of-way to move forward with their planned development. You've heard that their planned development, which should have been approved, quote-unquote, is being held up because of this.

[00:47:49] It's also being held up for other reasons that I'm sure staff could address, including the plat not being approved. The truth is the developer does not need this right-of-way. That is the easiest and cheapest way for them. It is at the expense of my safety, my family's safety, and my neighbor's safety.

[00:48:06] In reality, the developer has additional options for access. If the right-of-way is not abandoned, I ask you, what options would the residents of Swiftwater Drive and Raspberry Falls have? None. Maintaining the right-of-way will result in safety risks that are irreparable at best and will end in tragedy at worst.

[00:48:25] Thank you for your support of the application. Thank you. And our last two speakers are Andrew Wright and Richard Wright. Good evening. Hello. Hello, Chairman Randall and Supervisor Kirchner and the board. My name is Andrew Wright. I'm a farmer.

[00:48:41] I've been on this property that we're discussing for four generations. I've farmed thousands of acres between Leesburg and Percival over the years. The subject property, Wrightville Estates, has a significant historical manner on it. As regards to Raspberry, I used to make hay at Raspberry when I was a child.

[00:49:03] Raspberry used to have a landing strip. It was the first time I flew in a single-engine airplane was off that strip. My dad's first wife is from Raspberry, and she passed away, and he met my mother. This is where my father and she grew up.

[00:49:21] She was a Lipscomb. I've spent my childhood Christmas and Thanksgiving at Raspberry as well. I made the decision to sell a portion of the property to afford to authentically restore the historically significant manner to ultimately share with the public. The thoughtful decision to develop I based on, one, the conclusive decision to widen Route 15, two, the right-of-way, which leads directly into my property at Swiftwater Lane, and three, the future adoption of the Comprehensive Plan.

[00:49:50] This project met all my requirements and the counties for a normal by-right development, so I followed through. I do remember discussions long ago with Raspberry personnel to have an inter-parcel connector at the end of Swiftwater Lane.

[00:50:06] It was proposed and encouraged by the county, perhaps required at the time. At that time, the zoning was even denser than it is today, one house per three acres, which Raspberry is. The right field project is less at one house per five acres, not high intensity, as the Raspberry letter suggests, and it also conforms with a comprehensive plan.

[00:50:31] Again, high intensity. It's not high intensity. A handful of you also just voted in favor for the new comp plan. If you plan to undo the requirements of the previous board deemed necessary, there should be at least a study into the safety, amongst other things, to see if RDAB even makes sense.

[00:50:59] From what I understand, vacating it wouldn't be consistent with the county policies. Is this an effort to make a few residents happy, I ask? Instead of making an emotional judgment, I have to study the proposal.

[00:51:15] Thank you so much, sir. Our time is up. Richard Wright would be our last speaker. Good evening. Good evening, and I am not related to the other Wright, just obviously. I live on Raspberry, sorry, on Swiftwater Drive, and at the end of the day, I'm not going to talk about the school bus drop-off at the end of the block.

[00:51:39] I'm not going to talk about the children that are up and down. I'm not going to talk about the big wheels to the scooters that go up and down that. I'm not going to talk about just the elevation of that road where it's a 30-degree drop when you come off of it. So you don't see down or up at the end of it when you're coming up.

[00:51:56] You don't know what's there. I'm only going to talk about two personal instances that I have gone through with regards to safety. Unfortunately, twice I've had EMS, Emergency Medical Services, come to my house, once for me because I had strained a tendon, which is, at my age, a big deal.

[00:52:17] And they went by the house in the smaller ambulance, and without that cul-de-sac, it would have been a back and forth across trying to turn around and make a U-turn going down. The other time, more serious, my wife went into cardiac arrest, and the big ladder came down that street along with an ambulance.

[00:52:36] And that ladder went by my house at night, and without that cul-de-sac would have been doing this crazy back and forth to turn around another five minutes. While I'm on a 911 call, and it's recorded, I can give you dates and times and data, saying, okay, how do I go and resuscitate?

[00:52:54] That is nothing short of a safety hazard, when you can't have your fire ladders able to turn around without a cul-de-sac, even if you widen it 10 feet, doesn't matter. That's a pretty big ladder that was coming. The ambulance behind it went by and couldn't turn around, and so I had to go up into another driveway and back up.

[00:53:14] Now, I sat there going during those what seemed like hours to me, but five minutes on the phone with 911 saying, okay, if this roadway does go down that path, what are the options for my wife's safety, for anyone on that block's safety?

[00:53:32] I couldn't come up with any. Maybe there's some miraculous overpass or some widening of the street or addition of sidewalks or some other method in civil engineering that you can have that kind of access to allow for safety and response times to be nominal so that you can actually protect the citizens that this board represents. I haven't come up with that option. So I'm looking forward to seeing how we can vacate that cul-de-sac to avoid those kinds of things. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:54:03] So advisors, I'm going to go to Mr. Kirshner for a motion, but Mr. Kirshner, do you have a question for Mr. Rogers before I go to you for a motion. Yeah, I can ask a question, Madam Chair. I did. There were a number of different accusations that were made by council in this particular matter, specifically as to our right to vacate this. Two council in the room, so you may want to say. Yeah, council for the right farms.

[00:54:28] Could you address those, Leo, if possible? Mr. Kirshner, members of the board, we're operating under 15.2 2272, which is the vacation of a plat or feature they're on after the sale of a lot.

[00:54:44] The code section refers to lots on the subdivision plat. So it's not adjacent property owners for which there'd be irreparable harm. It's the lots on the subdivision plat. So the statement that an adjacent property owner might be irreparably harmed is just not accurate.

[00:55:00] I mean, that's just not the standard that the board's to use or the court. Thank you. Mr. Kirsten, would you like to make a motion? I do. I move that the Board of Supervisors suspend the rules. Second.

[00:55:12] Discussion on the motion for suspension. Seeing no unfilled, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 9-0. Mr. Kirshner would like to make another motion. Yes, Madam Chair. I move to the Board of Supervisors approve and adopt the passage of an ordinance to partially vacate Subdivision Platt partial vacation Swiss Water Drive as provided as attachment 1 to the March 13th, 2024 Board of Supervisors public hearing staff report. Second. Discussion on the motion. Mr. Kirshner. Yes, Madam Chair. And I thank everyone on both sides of this issue who came out and spoke tonight.

[00:55:42] Obviously, from my comments I'm about to make, I respectfully disagree with those who would oppose this vacation. I've talked to both parties on both sides. And when this was first brought to my attention sometime last summer or so, I usually take things pretty impartially.

[00:56:07] And so I went out and I actually looked at what the issue was that the alarm had been raised. And I was, quite frankly, alarmed that there was a proposal to use this particular cul-de-sac, as we saw from the video. The video actually depicted it quite well as a secondary or primary, depending on how you view it and what your perspective is, right away to a future development on the other side.

[00:56:35] I do believe that this development may have other options, but this is a really bad option. And the truth of the matter is, I agree with a lot of the residents of Raspberry who have come forward and said, hey, this is a significant safety issue. We want our children, we want our folks to be safe in our developments.

[00:56:55] And I know there was some talk about interparcel. I've looked at documents over pretty well, and I don't really see any of that interparcel discussion. And quite frankly, the interparcel, any reference was actually for future growth of Raspberry and not a future development from another party or a separate HOA, et cetera.

[00:57:15] So I don't really think that argument holds a whole lot of water in this particular case. The other issues that really alarm me are the fact that, you know, we know Route 15 and how difficult and tough it is. This is just going to attract additional traffic through this neighborhood if there is a pass-through.

[00:57:33] And so I think the right thing for us to do as a board is to ensure that this safety issue doesn't continue, doesn't become a safety issue as is suggested here. And I think the proper thing to do is to vacate this particular easement, and I ask my board members to support me on that matter.

[00:57:49] I would associate myself with my colleagues' comments, And I would say that I am never going to make the accusation that somebody wants somebody else to be hurt or damaged, or even that they don't care.

[00:58:04] I would never make that accusation. But unintended consequences do happen. And the possibility that the unintended consequence is a child being hurt or an adult being hurt or whomever can never be one that I live with. Safety has always got to be the guiding issue that we live with on this board.

[00:58:24] If we're not doing that, if we're not, then what are we doing? And so I will be, I was happy to second the motion. I'll be happy to support the motion. Mr. Kirshner, would you like to have a closing? No, Madam Chair. All right. Mr. Kirshner, make the motion. I second the motion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

[00:58:39] That motion passed 9 to 0. Thank you. We're going to go. There, you all got it. There you go. Thank you, Madam Chair. To the next item. I should have said before I started that normally I try to do the items that are going to clear the room out fast because there's a lot of people in the room but because there's so many people basically for kind of one item um i'm i'm i'm not doing it that way tonight and so the belmont innovation item will not be heard until last i apologize there's never a right way to do this because someone's always going to be in here longer than they want to and i'm it's always a

[00:59:14] struggle how to do it and so you know i apologize that if you're here for belmont innovation we are going to hear that that last but i just want to let you know that in advance right now we're going to go to item number six, which is the Stone Ridge section in the Dulles District. For staff, please come to the table. And as far as I know right now, there are no speakers on this item.

[00:59:39] Mr. Christian, want to turn your light off? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I thought we had to. I thought we had to, but it's not. Yeah. Good evening. Good evening. Okay. We are ready when you all are.

[01:00:04] Good evening, supervisors. For the record, my name is Bryce Johnson. I am the county project manager for the Stone Ridge Section 40 application. The property subject to this application is split into three separate land bays located in the Dulles Election District. Going from north to south, these are identified as Land Bay O, Land Bay F, and the Shaw Cross property. These land bays are located south of Tall Cedars Parkway and west of Gumspring Road, either within or immediately adjacent to the existing Stone Ridge community. These land bays are subject to the same application because they are either within or proposed to be annexed into Stone Ridge.

[01:00:43] Land Bays O and F are within Stone Ridge today. The Shaw Cross property would represent the southern boundary of Stone Ridge if the proposal is approved. Stone Ridge generally represents the existing development on the west side of Gum Spring Road with the exception of Providence Glen and Westview Estates, which are labeled on the screen.

[01:01:04] I will cover the application in three parts for each land bay, But I will note that overall, the application would allow up to 144 single-family units into Stone Ridge. First, for Land Bay O, the applicant proposes a zoning concept plan amendment, or a ZCPA, to revise the Stone Ridge proffers to change the designation to common open space.

[01:01:25] This land bay is located adjacent to the intersection of Tall Cedars Parkway and Gumspring Road. The designation change would allow for complementary structures and improvements, such as a storage shed, to be located on the site. These structures are not specifically called out on the CDP, but would generally be permitted outside of the required setbacks in a proffered buffer adjacent to nearby townhomes and an adjacent HOA.

[01:01:48] Next, we have land bay F. For this, the applicant proposes another ZCPA to remove a designation for church use. By doing so, the designation change would allow the site to instead develop with residential units within Stone Ridge. The applicant specifically proposes 23 single-family detached units on this land bay.

[01:02:09] These units are shown on the concept development plan in yellow. You should also note that this land bay is located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Stone Springs Boulevard and Greenstone Drive. Finally, we have the Shaw Cross property. For this, the applicant proposes a zoning map amendment, or ZMAP, to rezone the approximately 27-acre site to the planned development housing 4, or PDAH 4, zoning district, administered as the single-family, or R8 zoning district, to allow for residential uses.

[01:02:39] This is the same zoning district as the existing Stone Ridge Community. For this site, the applicant does propose 121 single-family units, consisting of 42 single-family detached units and 79 single-family attached units. Here's an excerpt of the applicant's concept development plan, or CDP, for the Shell Cross property.

[01:03:00] The site is located on the west side of Gumspring Road, south of Mercer Middle School. The proposed detached units are shown in yellow. The proposed attached, or townhouse units, are shown in the orange. A proposed community center, or at least the location for one, is shown as Lane Bay S2 as the blue.

[01:03:18] The applicant also proposes a few modifications to the zoning ordinance standards, which are summarized on the screen. I won't go into detail, but I will note that these are generally consistent, or rather they are consistent with the 2019 general plan and support integration into Stone Ridge. For tonight, I want to highlight a few policy issues identified by staff.

[01:03:38] These are listed on the screen and detailed in the staff report. The first issue pertains to building design. the general plan anticipates building design standards to ensure compatibility with adjacent uses. The applicant has proffered to architectural design guidelines for the proposed residential units and for Lane Bay O.

[01:03:57] However, the proffered design guidelines for Lane Bay O lack specificity, such as by listing permitted or prohibited building materials or detailing specific building features. Therefore, staff is recommending that these be revised to ensure that they can be enforced if accepted by the county.

[01:04:16] Next, I want to discuss identified issues pertaining to the proposed pedestrian infrastructure. The countywide transportation plan generally anticipates 10-foot-wide asphalt shared use paths along the site's various road frontages. The applicant proposes a mixture of solutions to address this planned infrastructure, but generally does not propose the full width or anticipated asphalt material in a few locations.

[01:04:37] For Greenstone Drive, Stone Springs Boulevard, and portions of Gumspring Road, the applicant proposes six-foot-wide sidewalks rather than the anticipated 10 foot wide shared use paths. The applicant also does propose to extend these sidewalks offsite into either existing right of way or onto HOA owned property to complete nearby missing links.

[01:04:58] The applicant requests a credit against the regional road contributions for these offsite connections. The CTP does permit a credit for regional improvements, which these would count as, as offsite improvements. However, staff would recommend that the improvements be constructed per the CTP, would require the larger widths finally staff has identified issues with anticipated contributions related to attainable housing here being defined as those housing units attainable to households earning below 100 area median income the general plan anticipates capital facilities contributions

[01:05:34] for all units exempting only adus or affordable dwelling units the applicant also proposes six workforce housing units or whus but is not proposing to provide capital facilities contributions for those units additionally the countywide transportation plan or ctp anticipates regional road and transit contributions for all units including the adus and whus however the applicant is not providing the contributions for these units in january the planning commission forwarded the application to the board with the recommendation of approval subject to revisions listed on the

[01:06:10] screen this includes committing to building design for a structure permitted on lane bay o restricting left turns from the Shawcross property going on to northbound Gumspring Road, providing a shared use path along Lane Bay O's frontage with Tall Cedars Parkway, and addressing some other administrative issues such as correcting the number of proffered bus shelters. Staff notes that the applicant generally incorporated the commission's guidance. However, as I noted before, staff continues to note that the additional building design proffer lacks the detail necessary to be enforceable. Staff also continues to work with the applicant to make sure that the proffers can be

[01:06:45] approved a legal form. That said, the proposal is consistent with the suburban neighborhood place type in which the project is located. Therefore, staff generally supports approval pending resolution of the identified issues. I have Bev Tate with public schools available as well as Lindsay Marford with the Department of Transportation and Capital Infrastructure available online. How about Ms. Tate? Oh, they're online?

[01:07:08] Lindsay is. Bev is in person. Ms. Tate, were you going to come into the table because you know you're going to be asking questions in just a little while. Thank you. And we're going to go to the Dallas District Supervisor first, Mr. Letourneau. Thank you. So first question for staff. Pretty late in the process, the applicant was asked to add a natural surface trail at the western edge of their site, but the trail doesn't connect to anything on the other side, on the Stone Ridge side, and it would effectively take out a tree save or an existing group of trees, plus interfere with the installation of a berm.

[01:07:45] So I'm kind of failing to see the logic behind that request. I'll defer to Lindsay to speak to that. Lindsay, are you there? Lindsay, can you hear us? Oh, hello.

[01:08:04] I just got back in after technical problems, so I'm going to have to defer to Marie if I can or ask to repeat the question. Okay, we'll be happy to repeat the question. Can you stop my time? Yes, can you stop his time? My question was, very late in the process, the applicant was asked to add a natural trail to the western side of the property, but the trail doesn't connect to anything and it interferes with existing trees and would prevent installation of a berm. So I don't, I'm asking what the logic was behind that request.

[01:08:36] Okay, we'll start this time again. Sorry. Sure. DTCI had requested throughout this process to ensure there was some connectivity to the south. We wanted to make sure that there was pedestrian connectivity up to the school. The applicant has proposed a pedestrian facility along Gumspring Road that would connect to the south. DTCI cannot fully support that because it is not CTP compliant.

[01:09:12] In the event that that facility was not approved, we had asked if there was another connection that could be made. This was the applicant's proposal. Okay, so it's not CTP compliant because it's not 10 feet is that but isn't it true that the entire existing neighborhood is all six feet including the sections that do exist of sidewalk along gum spring road uh the there are 10 foot facilities along parts of gum spring road other parts of the neighborhood do have generally

[01:09:48] five or six foot sidewalk as they were built up prior to the 2019 ctp okay so the issue here is 6 feet versus 10 feet. But in doing the 6 feet, the applicant is also adding a significant amount of sidewalk that is not required and not part of the actual application, right?

[01:10:10] That's correct. Okay. That's it. Thank you. Okay. Wonderful. Mr. Crony? Yeah, thank you, Chair Randall. Put your microphone a little bit closer. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Sorry about that. I have a question for Bev Tate. So, Bev, I'm wondering why I saw the Shaw cross property would not be going to Mercer, even though Mercer is right next door, and I believe the applicant's going to have a path going to Mercer from that property.

[01:10:38] I know you always say that the school board will eventually change the boundaries, but I'm kind of wondering why Willard and Light Ridge, which is a distance. Thank you for the question. When the attendance zone for Light Ridge and Willard was established by the board, The Shaw cross-property was basically a vacant.

[01:11:02] It was a single. And so the boundary was drawn as it was. And as you've said, I will say that the school board will address it as they get. I feel confident that they will look at this boundary if and when the application is approved.

[01:11:20] And we will move forward with that because we have all talked about the capacity issues at the secondary level. So that is something on our radar that we will address. Okay, and there is a path, right, going from the shop? They are providing a path up to the middle.

[01:11:36] Okay, great, because connectivity is important. Yes. You know, we have like 1,000-plus sidewalks, crosswalks, trails that we have to complete in Loudoun County. So I believe if we can get connectivity, it's really important to get it now because otherwise it just never will come, or it will come 10 years from now.

[01:11:59] So that's great. And then this is for staff. So are there going to be any crosswalks proposed to get to Mercer from, I think, F?

[01:12:16] Oh, to Mercer? Well, the applicant is proposing a crosswalk to cross Greenstone Drive at that intersection. That would be subject to a crosswalk warrant study. Okay. So the church site, I'm just wondering why.

[01:12:33] You know, I know a lot of our churches have, they have a lot of services now in the schools. I'm wondering, was it because they just couldn't find a church to locate there, or what happened with that? I'll defer to the applicant to explain that once it's their turn.

[01:12:49] Okay, yeah, if we could go through that. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Ms. Brixman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I did go through sort of the long list of applications related to this property, But one thing I couldn't really tell is, is any of this, any of those three parcels, were they ever proffered to be open space for the neighboring developments?

[01:13:18] You're saying the three different land bays? Yes. So, Land Bay O was proffered as open space. Just, again, changing the designation, the type of open space under those original proffers. Land Bay F was, as far as I recall, always the church site Shawcross that does not have existing proffers.

[01:13:35] Okay. All right. Thank you. I have had folks in my district try to use land that was proffered for open space to develop on, so I just wanted to make sure. And does staff have any issue at all with the Z mods and the specs?

[01:13:50] They're asking to reduce the rear yard setback and the front yard setback on the single-family dwelling units, so they're asking to shorten the yards on both sides. Staff can support those. Again, we found that's consistent with the general plan, and it also, the applicant can better explain the variety of lot types they're proposing, but it does allow for integration into Stern Ridge as well as a variety of unit lots.

[01:14:16] And the density on this proposal? Overall, well, I'll break it down by Lane Bay. For Shaw Cross, it's 4.55 dwelling units per acre, and for Lane Bay F, it's 5.24 dwelling units per acre. Okay, and do you know what the density is around this area in general?

[01:14:35] um so they're lower for stone ridge lane bay e which is uh north of lane bay f it's at 2.75 units per acre for stone ridge lane bay lm which is east of lane bay f they're at 2.76 units per acre providence glen which is south of lane bay o is at 3.47 units per acre and westview estates which is south of shawcross is at a little under one unit an acre at 0.96 units per acre Okay. And for place types, suburban neighborhood, suburban compact neighborhood, what are the envisioned densities for those?

[01:15:14] So it's four units per acre or up to six units per acre for infill. Is this considered infill? It looks like it. So staff didn't evaluate it as infill, but rather as part of the overall Stone Ridge. I read that. Stone Ridge, I forget the number off the top of my head, was above, well above that four units per acre.

[01:15:33] This proposal actually brings it closer to the envisioned four units per acre, and that's why staff is comfortable supporting that. Okay, thank you. So on slide four, where it shows the ZCPA to remove a church designation, is that solely a house of faith designation?

[01:15:52] Can that be for any other community use? Can it be a community center or anything else, or does it have to be a church? It's proper specifically for a house of faith. Correct. Okay. That's weird. That's unusual, actually. Okay. We have time with this application. We're not suspending the gross line, so I'll ask other questions at another time. Good evening. You all have 10 minutes. You can stay sitting there or speak at the podium. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening. Denise Harrover with Van Meter Companies. I have with me Mike Rhodes, the president of

[01:16:29] Stone Ridge HOA, as well as Roy Barnett. Appreciate your time this evening. Bryce does a fantastic job. So if you could just go to sheet three, I'm going to hit a few highlights. You have a full house tonight, so we want to answer your questions and move this along. Chair Randall, you asked the question about the church site. In 1994, when this zoning was approved, there was no civic definition being used in the zoning ordinance. So daycares were specifically notated, as were churches. That is why we're asking for a proper amendment in this particular case to change the

[01:17:07] designation from church to allow for up to a pdh4 zoning um miss briskman i believe you were asking about crosswalks i did want to point out there is a crosswalk that will go across greenstone and that crosswalk excuse me that trail will take you all the way to mercer middle school supervisor to crony i'm sorry you asked about that so yes there is a crosswalk that's proffered and a system to get the students all the way to Mercer Middle School in a walking fashion.

[01:17:40] A few items that have changed since we originally met with the Planning Commission. In particular, on this site, Shawcross, we made a write-in, write-out only. This is of particular concern in this area because of the traffic along Gumspring Road.

[01:18:01] We had a memorandum updated that showed that this turning movement could be accommodated further south along Gumspring Road. And in further conversations that we've had with Supervisor Letourneau, there were some considerations regarding the current school enrollment capacity issues in the middle school and the high school.

[01:18:24] In our discussions, we have agreed that we would include a proffer that would limit the number of units that come on in a particular time frame. So on Shaw Cross, technically, we can build up to 26 units by right. We're looking at about 26 units being delivered by spring of 2026.

[01:18:47] We're asking for a total of 86 units that could be delivered by May of 2027. We are asking, 27, 28, I'm sorry, thank you, Roy. We are asking that the affordable units not count against those numbers.

[01:19:06] If we could go to slide four, please. Land Bay O, the proffer that has been provided requires that the HOA would actually build or construct whatever use they see fit for Parcel O that would have to be in keeping with the look and design of Stone Ridge.

[01:19:35] Stone Ridge has a very unique look. Since this parcel is actually owned by the Stone Ridge Homeowners Association, it goes without say that they would have to follow their own design guidelines to make sure that their residents are happy with anything that they would provide the community to be used in that particular area.

[01:19:55] If we could go to slide seven, please. VTCI is concerned with Gumspring Road. We have written a proffer that stipulates that we will be happy to build, whether it is a six-foot sidewalk or a 10-foot asphalt shared-use path along Gumspring Road.

[01:20:16] The intention is to put this facility within the VDOT right-of-way so VDOT will have to maintain it. That keeps us having to go to every property owner and getting them to sign easements and agree to maintain sidewalks or shared-use paths.

[01:20:32] The problem is, is keeping it in the right-of-way, the right-of-way is not one consistent width, all from Greenstone Drive down to Destiny Drive. Since the width changes, the standards for VDOT may or may not allow a 10-foot asphalt path.

[01:20:49] What we do know is certain sections where the 10-foot asphalt path can be built, VDOT will probably approve to be built. But there is the real possibility there are sections that VDOT will only approve a six-foot-wide concrete sidewalk.

[01:21:07] We're happy to build whatever VDOT will approve. If they approve waivers to make it a six-foot asphalt path, we're happy to do it. If they give us the approval to do 10-foot, we're happy to do it. We're not arguing the fact that the comp plan wants 10 feet of asphalt shared-use path.

[01:21:24] We're just at the mercy of VDOT at the end of the day. And for that reason, we do feel that this is an off-site regional improvement, and the credits still should apply, regardless of how we get there. If we could go to slide eight, please.

[01:21:41] Stone Springs and Greenstone Drive. Currently, there is sidewalk that will be connecting all along Stone Springs Boulevard to Pepper Bush. So there's existing sidewalk in this vicinity of this land bay that we're looking to develop within Stone Ridge.

[01:21:59] A 10-foot shared-use asphalt path doesn't exist in Stone Ridge today because the standards when we built in 2002 and 2003 weren't 10 feet. So there's no 10-foot shared-use path anywhere in Stone Ridge.

[01:22:15] What we'd like to do is bring a sidewalk because it's consistent with what we'll be connecting to, all down Stone Springs, turn the corner on Greenstone Drive, and make a connection to an existing 6-foot asphalt trail. i believe those are the outstanding issues roy would you like to add anything oh my last item

[01:22:51] the specs um if it was not her time but that's cool um this am i out of time no you're good you're good okay uh the specs request uh if if you could go back to slide three please bryce i can walk them through this um if you look at the uh land bay f where we have the blue units that are along stone springs boulevard those units will actually front on stone springs boulevard and will have a lead walk from the unit to the sidewalk that is where one of the specs is requesting a modification

[01:23:26] to the front yard only based on the fact that we have to shift the right the right away in order to get the sidewalk within it and that's taking up some of our front yard the rear request is because it's a private alley that the the units will be rear loaded so we're asking for just a slight reduction in the rear uh to make those units work happy to answer any questions okay wonderful thank you let's go to questions i will go to the district supervisor first mr mr uh eternal um yeah let's go back to that natural trail which you can barely see if you look at the the brownish kind of thing

[01:24:05] there was that little connection there um you added that as a way to kind of address the concern if the connectivity did not exist on the eastern side. But it is fully everyone's intention, including, we believe, the ascent of the Westview Estates HOA, to allow that easement for a sidewalk on the eastern side of this property, right?

[01:24:30] That is correct. The connection that we were hoping for would be from Gumspring Road to the end of Kudo Court. Right. We would prefer to extend the berm and the landscaping that we're proposing between this Stone Ridge and Westview Estates all the way to the Tree Save area.

[01:24:49] It's a 42-inch berm with evergreens 20 feet on center. But at DTCI's request, we showed this alternative use. We have no issue with removing it from the park. Right. And you've spoken with the HOA president at Westview Estates, Mr. Ramadan, and he has indicated that he would prefer that not be there as well because they would prefer the berm to be extended.

[01:25:12] That's correct. As a matter of fact, I've met with several of the Westview Estates homeowners. They were looking forward to the berm and the landscaping. Okay. Yeah. So we would not want to interfere with the berm and the landscaping between the existing neighborhood and the new neighborhood. So how much additional off-site sidewalk are you adding?

[01:25:32] Do you know by quantity? It's a really significant amount. It's significant. It goes from Greenstone all the way down to Destiny, south of Destiny Drive. Yeah. So we're probably talking maybe... The total distance is 5,500 linear feet minus the frontage that we would have to provide along the Shawcross.

[01:25:51] You know, I know I pushed you on making that sidewalk connection, so I appreciate being there. And we can talk in the motion about the 6 versus 10. And then the civic use site, or the old church site, so that's been vacant and looking for a church for 15, 20 years?

[01:26:09] It was actually purchased by a church back in 2008. And at the time they purchased that, they were hoping to put a building on the site. I believe what's happened is most church uses have evolved not only to offer faith-based services, But daycare or educational facilities and community activities, this site would not be large enough to accommodate that building and the parking that would be required.

[01:26:36] However, I will ask the history here. When you first proposed this application, you proposed all townhouses in that land bay, which was not consistent with the surrounding neighborhood. And I asked you to change those to be consistent with the unit type that was in the neighborhood. Is that correct?

[01:26:52] No, that is not correct. There was a gentleman who had a pre-app who actually showed all townhouses. Our first reiteration had some towns and some singles. So your memory is correct, but a little... I see. Thank you. Is correct, but a little incorrect.

[01:27:11] Mr. Crony? Yeah, thank you. And I'm glad to hear that you reached out to Westview Estates and that you have single-family detached along there because I know that they're a lower density. And so will you be providing a connection between the two neighborhoods?

[01:27:31] Yes, there will be a connection. The Gum Spring Road sidewalk slash trail that we are proposing will come south. And then at the end of Kudo Court, thank you, Bryce, Kudo Court, actually there is an existing driveway cut and fire public access easement for like a drive aisle for a fire truck.

[01:27:53] What we're going to do is put the asphalt trail along that public access easement and Westview Estates has indicated they'd be happy to sign the easement so that their folks could walk down Kudo Court and make that connection to Gumspring because currently they have absolutely no connection to Gumspring.

[01:28:12] They have to go all the way down to Destiny. Right, right, they don't. Yeah, they're kind of an island. Yeah. And then what is being proposed for the community center? I saw that you're dedicating that land bay to the HOA. So what's being proposed there?

[01:28:28] We're still figuring that out. So we'll be in the process of doing that, and we'll probably go to site plan with the rest of the development. Are you thinking a pool? We're a building and possibly a pool. Okay. Okay.

[01:28:44] Thank you. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Do you have an estimate on what size the single-family homes will be? We actually have three, one, two, three different size lots. We have 58-foot wide lots down to 41-foot wide lots.

[01:29:02] And I believe, Rory, would you like to tell her what that square footage really equates to? The larger homes are similar to what we're building right now off Braddock Road that averaged somewhere between 2,800 and 3,000 square feet. Okay. The middle-sized lots are somewhere in the 24 to 2,600-square-foot range.

[01:29:20] Okay. And then the lots in the blue in Land Bay F are our rear-load, alley-load product that ranges somewhere between 2,000-square-feet and 2,400-square-feet. Okay. And what percentage is attainable housing on this? 17% overall.

[01:29:36] 17%. Okay, great. I'm a little worried about the yards because it sounds like you're trimming on both sides. are these are the are they going to have any yard the the yards the only the waiver or the specs that you're referencing is only for the rear load alley load products which has a driveway in the rear oh to the garage it's not for the single family detached it is a single family detached rear load single family detached the garage sets off the alley in the back okay so it's more of a neo-traditional design with an alley in the back with a deep garage that can either be attached or

[01:30:12] detached and so you have a driveway there and the driveway typically is 20 feet and we have the alley and in the middle of those two driveways and then in the front it's whether the sidewalk the we could either put the sidewalk partly on right away or or all on the lot if we moved the sidewalk all on the lot then we wouldn't be asking for a waiver or a reduction in the front yard but we could put put the sidewalk in an easement what we're prefer to do is keep the sidewalk close to the street dedicate some right away which then allows gives us a lesser room for that the front yard okay all

[01:30:49] right i i would like to see the 10 foot um paths 10 foot asphalt paths in as an option and if you can't do it per v dot you can't do it because we are in our ctp trying to have some consistency on that what we have there and we've shown along gum springs road that the existing right away when gun springs where it was designed it was envisioned that all the sidewalks or trails pedestrian ways i know i understand that i'm gonna run out of time so um the other thing that i wanted to talk about was the church lot was considered civic space even though we didn't have the definition of civic space so kind of to my question before about the proffered open space this was proffered civic

[01:31:29] space that's now going to housing we subsequently after the original proffers actually dedicated 10 acres of additional civic space that was not included oh great and then why why would the HOA want their shed all the way over there in that corner like it just seems like nobody can get to it but that's the only thing otherwise we can't do anything with it and it will sit there so I'd like to know for the schools what would which three schools are we talking about elementary middle middle school which three schools would be served there's six schools that would

[01:32:05] be served there are six the Shaw cross property is served by Pinebrook Willard and Lightridge High School presently, and the other two land bays, which the shed probably won't have children, the land bay F is served by Arcola, Mercer, and John Champ. Did I hear you all say that you will build in phases so as not to overwhelm the schools? That's correct. We had long conversation with Supervisor Letourneau, and very similar to a case I did about 10 years ago,

[01:32:41] actually right down the street from this one, where we agreed that we wouldn't deliver any more units than what the buy right amount of lots would be on this, which is 26. And we have that, that we have a gap that until May of 2027, we won't deliver any more than 26 lots. And then in the next 12 months, we won't deliver any more than 60 additional houses. And both of those numbers do exclude any ADUs or workforce units and we feel like the building like that the schools could accommodate the growth yes yes ma'am it's about and we project it build out so that's

[01:33:21] about 10 elementary students five middle and seven roughly with the first 26 units okay all right thank you we do have one speaker on this he is on the web he's remote his name is Jonathan Hedge sir um we're ready for you hi my name's john haggie i live in stern ridge my property does face the shop property just wondering if they could some of the trees there like a 10 15 foot buffer instead of cutting down everything because i think it really enhances the beauty of the

[01:33:58] community plus the additional privacy of these um that's all thank you for your time thank you so anyone else would like to speak on this item seeing mr latour would you like to make a motion Yeah, I'm just a question before I do we have this in the packet going to May 15th Is there a reason I couldn't go to April and that's following the standard. I guess the new April public hearing. Yeah, yeah, please don't okay. That's fine. That's why I'm asking I move the Board of Supervisors for legy 2023 double zero 42 Stone Ridge section 40 Z map

[01:34:36] 2022 double zero 19 ZCPA 2021 triple zero three ZCPA 2022 triple zero six Special Exception 2023-0012, Special Exception 2023-0034, ZMOD 2022-0066, and ZMOD 2022-0067 to the May 15, 2024 Board of Supervisors public hearing for action.

[01:34:56] Motion is made in second with Ms. Brixman. Discussion on the motion. Mr. Letourneau. So I know there weren't a lot of speakers here tonight, but there have been a significant number of community meetings and there has been some concerns from some of the existing residents in Stone Ridge. I've been working with the applicant, I think, to the extent that we really can to try to mitigate those concerns.

[01:35:15] There are some where, quite frankly, there's just the nature of infill. And I do think this is similar to infill development, even though it wasn't technically considered as such because it's part of an existing master development where you're going to have some of those concerns, where you have a property that is open for a long period of time and now it's being filled.

[01:35:34] I live in this neighborhood. My house is quite visible on that map. I'm not going to point out where, because that would be not very smart in a room full of people that may not be happy with me at some point for various reasons. But I'm very much part of it. This is my area. I know it very well. The sidewalks here, the disconnected sidewalks, are a very big deal.

[01:35:53] I've been trying to get those done in the sidewalk and trail program, but they are very far down the list, so this is going to accelerate them. This is one of these please don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good conversations, because I understand our general plan says 10 feet. However, the reality of the right-of-way along Gumspring Road is that really in some of those stretches, as Ms. Herover said, six feet is what we can do.

[01:36:16] I do not want to delay these sidewalks to eternity while they're trying to do specific negotiations with a whole bunch of property owners to try to get to where we need to be on this. And you just don't know how that's going to go, and that is how we have sidewalks like the infamous Ashburn one that Mr. Bonas started and finished in year eight that take absolutely forever.

[01:36:36] So this gets it done and it gets us the connection that we don't have on both sides. And then on the other side, it fits into what it's already there. So it really doesn't make sense to require one little stretch that's larger and then you get into a smaller stretch.

[01:36:51] I do wanna talk for a minute about the schools. So I do have concerns over the capacity at both clusters. I do believe that, although it is not official, that in time the school board will probably move this into the Champ, entirely into the Champ Mercer cluster.

[01:37:06] since it is literally adjacent to Mercer, and we made sure there was a connection there. My solution to that, and Mr. Barnett referenced it on a case 10 years ago, which I was here for, and then had a similar negotiation, was to limit the number of units until HS14 comes online.

[01:37:22] So I know we've talked about HS14 a lot. It's a 2028 coming online. We don't know for certain what's gonna happen, but I believe that it's fairly likely that parts of the CHAMP zone are going to be rezoned into HS14, which is gonna create capacity in that cluster.

[01:37:38] And so I've asked them to slow as much as they can and until for the first two years, slow only until they're by right in order to allow time for that and then limit the number of units they're building for that additional year. Will it be perfect? It will not be perfect, but I don't think it will overwhelm the schools, which is a major concern of mine.

[01:37:56] I have children in this cluster as well as a lot of residents here, and it's a reasonable approach where the applicant is slowing down a little bit in order to accommodate the capacity that we have. - Thank you, anybody else? Ms. Letourne talking about closing, wonderful.

[01:38:12] All in favor, the motion was to send this to the May public hearing. Motion is made by Ms. Letourneau, seconded by Vice Chair Bricksman. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass nine to zero. - Thank you. - Supervisors, we're gonna keep moving along to the Tillots View item.

[01:38:29] The Tillots View item has already had the presentation by the applicant, so there will not be a second applicant presentation. So if staff will come to the table to give us any updates and information, I would appreciate that.

[01:38:51] Are you guys ready? We're ready. And we don't need to – this is just for updates. We'll need to do the whole – Yeah, I can jump straight to the updates. Okay, that'd be great. Thank you. Okay. So the applicant has made several revisions to the application following the January public hearing.

[01:39:10] These updates are summarized on the screen. The applicant has committed to an additional unmet housing needs unit. Additional seating and a historic marker adjacent to the pollinator gardens. The applicant has also committed to additional architectural commitments for the single-family attached and multifamily stack units.

[01:39:28] This includes additional brick and stone materials for the front facades and a commitment to use brick and stone materials for the ground-level portion of the side facades, which face public streets or adjacent development. The applicant is also now committing to a 10-foot-wide Type A buffer along the eastern property line adjacent to existing development.

[01:39:50] They are also proffering to an expanded notification survey area before any blasting that may occur as part of site grading and to repair any recorded damage that is directly attributable to that blasting. They are also committing to additional street lighting along Black Angus Drive and Waxbolt Road.

[01:40:07] They've also made a number of revisions related to the transportation impacts. This includes a revised commitment related to the proffered improvements at the intersection of Waxpool Road and Truro Parrish Drive. The applicant now proposes a $300,000 share of the anticipated $500,000 cash in lieu associated with the proffered traffic signal.

[01:40:33] This does mean an increased cash in lieu as well as a reduced regional road credit that is being requested. Staff does continue to identify that credit as an issue because county policy does not support a prorated share. The applicant is also committed to install an innovative intersection improvement if VDOT recommends that instead of a traffic signal.

[01:40:54] Staff does consider that innovative intersection issue to be resolved. The applicant is now also committed to a traffic signal warrant study at the intersection of Belmont Ridge Road and Black Angus Drive, a bus shelter along Belmont Ridge Road, a bus shelter easement along Waxpool Road, and to adhere to the parking standards of the newly adopted zoning ordinance rather than the previous ordinance.

[01:41:20] That's it for the updates. Similar with the last application, DTCI and Bev Tate are available as staff support for this. Wonderful, wonderful. All right, this application is in the Broad Run District, so I will go first to Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[01:41:39] Staff, thank you for the update. My one question is, are there aspects of the general plan and suburban compact neighborhood place type with regard to transition techniques that this application does not fully utilize? So the general plan does specifically recommend the use of transition techniques to address compatibility of development within the suburban compact neighborhood place type in this instance additional techniques that could be utilized to fully address that compatibility would be to reduce the perceived scale of development such as either by like limiting

[01:42:16] the number of units per building specifically the multi-family stacked and single-family attached units thereby reducing the scale of each individual building as well as reducing the permitted height of the multifamily stacked units, which would be permitted to be taller than the adjacent development. Thank you. That's all I have, Chair. Dins. Mr. Crony. Yeah, thanks, Chair Randall.

[01:42:41] So I still have questions about school overcrowding, which I know... Ms. Tate, can you come back to the table? Yeah. Thank you, Bev. So it seems like you're going to be putting in trailers, or not trailers, you're going to be expanding Eagle Ridge Middle School 27 28 so you have a nine classroom addition but this also goes to Briar woods and is your

[01:43:18] anticipation that with HS 14 Briar woods could accommodate the additional housing it would be yes ma'am it would be anticipated that the Briar woods Woods, Eagle Ridge attendant zone would be looked at at the same time we are establishing a boundary for HS14.

[01:43:40] So if there were capacity issues at that time, they would be addressed. The addition that is in RCIP for Eagle Ridge is to actually make that middle school comparable in size to Briar Woods because Briar Woods for a number of years had 10 modulars.

[01:43:57] The school board and board of supervisors funded in addition and so those modulars were placed with brick and mortar classrooms. And so it's just to make them comparable in size, should we need additional capacity down the road. Did I answer your question, or did I answer that?

[01:44:16] Yeah, yeah, I just think HS14 is like the magic bullet for everything, and that's in my district, and so I do have concerns about HS14 being the magic bullet for everything. Attendance zones are never fun, but they need to be done.

[01:44:34] Dependence is overcrowded, so I just want to throw that out there to everybody. Okay, and that's pretty much it. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[01:44:50] You made a comment that you felt the regional transportation credit was not in compliance with policy. Can you clarify that for me? So we would still recommend that the applicant provide the full, or be responsible for the full cost of installing that traffic signal.

[01:45:07] That means that there's no regional road credit, and in the event of a cash-in-lieu, the applicant provides the full $500,000 instead of the $300,000. This is suburban compact neighborhood, and they're at the minimum density for the band within suburban compact neighborhood place type, correct?

[01:45:22] Correct. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Brooksman? Thank you, Madam Chair. So staff's only issue is over $200,000, basically. Correct. It's in compliance with the CTP.

[01:45:38] Okay. And the staff did not say anything in the item about the lack of transition techniques being an issue for staff. Correct. Okay. And, in fact, community planning in their third referral said the proposed medium density walkable residential development is consistent with land use policies and design characteristics envisioned within the suburban compact neighborhood place type.

[01:46:08] And the maximum density they could be doing is what? 24, 8 to 24 units per acre. They could do up to 24 units per acre, and they're doing 8? Correct. Okay. The $200,000 for the traffic signal, if the applicant were to agree to that, would staff then have no issues with the application and recommend approval?

[01:46:35] Correct. Okay. I think, oh, and on the schools, the referral from LCPS, it said LCBS anticipates sufficient school capacity with the addition of Eagle Ridge and an additional high school in the Dulles North Planning District, correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. So I think what Ms. Brixman just said bears repeating. The Suburban Compact Neighborhood density can be 8 to 24 units, 8 at the low end, 24 at the high end. This applicant is saying they're going to do the lowest we allow, eight.

[01:47:12] Is that correct? Correct. Okay. I just think that that needs to be repeated. I've said many times that we need to re-look at how we do this because staff has two options. They can recommend approval or denial.

[01:47:28] This is when we need to have a bigger, what's the word? No, a span. So you would say like in between one and a rating, a rating, thank you, rating so you know if one means the application is perfect let's not let's go with it and be great and 10 means the application is a hot mess and we're never going to approve that on that on that grade this would have to be about a three this is a very very good application but staff has no choice but to say deny when we have one issue that's a two hundred thousand dollar issue that's

[01:48:06] that's just really very illogical to me we talk about a bit about the the intersection right now Now, it's a failing intersection as it is, is it not? Correct. And if the fixes that the applicant is suggesting happens, what would put that intersection at?

[01:48:22] It would be passing. Do you want the exact? Yeah, if you have that. So it goes from a failing intersection to a passing intersection. That is correct, right? Correct. All right. It's failing now. They also have said that they would put a walking path to the middle school.

[01:48:40] Is that correct? Correct, along Maxwell Road. And that is not there now? Correct. All right. Yeah. So really, we're talking about a 90% credit. That's correct. That's all we're talking about.

[01:48:55] That is the issue. That is the reason for the denial. That is the remaining policy issue. That is the remaining policy issue. Can I ask a question in your time? You may not ask a question in my... No, no, please. No, no, no. There will be a motion.

[01:49:12] There will be a motion, yes. I am a rural follower, just like you. All right. We do have speakers on this item. I'm going to call your name. Try to give them three in advance. Gary Struzik, followed by Shanning Ditling, followed by Cherique Misra.

[01:49:34] I'm sorry, Mirzra. Okay, thank you. Please say it correctly when you come up. Good evening, sir. Good evening. My name is Gary Struzik. Thank you for your service to Loudoun County. A great concern that we do not believe has been addressed by the developer, nor emphasized in any of the prior hearings is the danger and congestion that will result from Tillett's view on the portion of the small nine-tenths-of-a-mile stretch of a two-lane, windy section of Waxpool Road that joins Belmont Ridge Road and Truro Parish Drive.

[01:50:11] These are entrances, or there are entrances, I should say, to two neighborhoods on Waxpool, one of which is the villages of Waxpool, where my family resides. These entrances are already hazardous because it's difficult to see oncoming traffic that appears suddenly from beyond a sharp curve on Waxpool.

[01:50:31] And right after this curve, there's a crosswalk used by pedestrians, including students. Now, why is this important? There are four, yes, four entrances to four different schools on this small portion of Waxpool Road.

[01:50:48] Waxpool Run Elementary, Mill Run Elementary, Eagle Ridge Middle, and Guidepost Montessori. Many students ride their bikes or walk to these schools on Waxpool, and there are already traffic tie-ups for cars and buses at the entrance to these schools on Waxpool, so it's hard to imagine the impact of adding hundreds of cars from Tillett's View to the existing chaos. Additionally, there's been no mention of the three-way stop sign where all cars traveling east on Waxpool

[01:51:22] must stop before continuing on towards Truro Parish. All vehicles exiting a third development called Waxpool Village must also go through the stop sign. This stop sign is only about one-tenth of a mile away from the entrances to the other two developments that I already mentioned, So it's highly likely that backups could occur that block vehicles from even exiting their own neighborhoods.

[01:51:51] In conclusion, one cannot merely look at a map and fully appreciate the impact that so much additional traffic will have on communities, the schools, and pedestrians that frequent this tiny yet already perilous stretch of Waxpool Road.

[01:52:06] So for the safety of the surrounding communities and the schools adjacent to Waxpool, We implore the Board of Supervisors to reject the Tillots View project density as currently proposed. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Our next speaker is Shannon Dettling, followed by Cherique.

[01:52:24] And you're going to say your name for me when you come up. And then you'll be followed by John Ellis. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Chair Randall. Thank you. And Board of Supervisors, thank you. I'm Shannon Dettling. I live south of the site with my wife and four kids. We've had kids at Eagle Ridge Middle School for six years. We know that at some point, this site will be developed, but the roads and the area can't safely support rezoning from R1 to R16 and adding 397 units there.

[01:52:52] It's already dangerous for our kids that are getting to school and it will get worse. It will be dangerous for the people who would move into the site if it gets developed like this. So not just us now, but the future residents. Our potential future neighbors won't even know about the safety issues before they move in.

[01:53:10] A traffic light at Truro Parish won't mitigate the impact because as Gary said, it's beyond or past the most dangerous parts. And really, who are the people who will benefit from building 400 homes here? We have the owner, the Bill Tillett Revocable Declaration of Trust, and the developer, Pulte Group, which is a Georgia-based public corporation, which last year made $2.6 billion in net income, providing a 27% return on equity to its shareholders, and it paid $1.1 billion in stock buybacks and dividends.

[01:53:44] In a May 2003 Washington Post article about development, Bill Tillett stated, and I quote, at this point, it's money in my pocket. So, is getting even more money in their pockets from this higher density more important than the safety of our children?

[01:54:04] They do have a right to sell and develop the land for profit, But it should not be for excess profit at the expense of the surrounding community by rezoning to put in, in some parts of the area, 16 times as many housing units as what it's currently zoned for. The Planning Commission and county staff didn't support this.

[01:54:22] I've spoken to a lot of people in the surrounding neighborhoods, and not a single person that I've spoken to supports this. We don't have land trusts. We don't have international law firms to represent us. We have you to represent us.

[01:54:38] and our children. Like one of my daughters, who the other day was driving and turned right from Iannis Spring Drive onto Waxpool Road and almost got rear-ended by a car that was speeding around that blind curve. Everyone from the site heading east would go around that same blind curve on the way to the middle school. That's right where kids cross the street. Pulte and the owner won't live here. We will. Sir, I'm sorry your time is up. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. No, no, So your time's up.

[01:55:05] Thank you so much. Sharik Mirza, followed by John Ellis, followed by Ms. Janelle Hurley. Good evening. Sharik Mirza, hi. I think you went to Caribbean, looks like. No?

[01:55:21] All right. Thanks for listening to us. I think Shannon really was against the Tillots application. He couldn't say that. I live there. My daughter walks to Eagle Ridge School every morning. My daughter sent you guys an email also with her friend, Emma.

[01:55:40] The bottom line is you guys worked very hard on this zoning law after 1993. You're trying to modernize it. You want to make sure that the land capacity is modernized and I guess used in the best way it could be used.

[01:56:00] Improved transportation and safety and all of those things. You guys wrote the law, the actual regulation. You guys handed it to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Three of those people are very familiar with this community. The chair of Planning and Zoning told us in this session that she stopped her daughter from driving on Vaxpool.

[01:56:23] So it's all coming back to this small artery. There is no bypass surgery you can do on this. Bypass is already happening. Because of Ridgeway, there are multiple speed bumps because of which people are already crossing our community.

[01:56:40] I sent two videos to all of you. I'm not sure how many of you saw them. One shows a child crossing the Siena Springs that Gary talked about. Three cars flying from this side, two from this side. We call it a wax pool speedway. It used to be 15 miles per hour speed limit.

[01:56:58] The Great VDOT increased the speed limit to 30. two choke points, Belmont Ridge, Truro Parish, and I showed in the video that not a single car was stopping at the stop sign on Waxpool. There were five, six cars in the video. None of them are stopping today. You add 400 more families and 1,000 more cars on that small artery and the legacy you're going to leave behind is of accidents and fatalities and bad integrity and community safety for the

[01:57:31] um for this small community i would urge you to reject this application for security or expand waxpool to four lanes just like you did to belmont ridge thank you thank you sir john ellis followed by janette lee hurley followed by sean sullivan good evening good evening everybody um i'm speaking for uh savor loudon and we strongly support those who've just spoken against the Tillotsview upzoning. And by the way, we're also concerned about all of the upzonings that are being proposed on Evergreen Mills Road as well, which are in the queue. In the current fiscal

[01:58:08] environment, these are discretionary upzonings are not a good thing to do. As the consequence of our dependence on data centers, on data center revenue, as the consequences are becoming increasingly clear, our county spending cannot continue to increase as rapidly as it has in recent years. To avoid more spending, the board must do its best not to create the kind of level of service problems that the residents are describing here. Using staff's most recent

[01:58:42] CIF formulas, we calculated that the cost of providing roads and schools for the 397 more units here would exceed $10 million to county taxpayers. We'd like to have those figures checked of course if this rezoning is approved there will undoubtedly be a decrease in level of service as as these residents have been describing another stoplight won't change that whether or not it's it's passes rather than revising the current zoning in a way that creates more level of service

[01:59:17] deficits the board should focus on reducing level of service deficits this This property is one of the few remaining open spaces in the area. Rather than revising the current zoning and spending $10 million or more on roads and schools, a much better use of taxpayers' money would be to purchase the property and create a neighborhood park, which would not create 2,000 more vehicle trips per day.

[01:59:45] Please do not approve this application. Thank you. Thank you. Janet Lee Hurley followed by Sean Sullivan. Good evening, ma'am. My name is Janet Leigh Hurley.

[02:00:04] I live in the Waxpool Village, and I live right on Waxpool Road, and I get to watch the traffic coming by and the students walking to school and all the people like to walk their dogs and stuff. And I'm concerned about the traffic buildup there.

[02:00:22] Not only that, I'm also concerned about how it's going to be around the elementary school, the Waxpool Elementary School, because it seems like the traffic is going to be channeled. right in front of the elementary school when they opened the road to Belmont Ridge. And then it's also being traveled on the one road that is used to that elementary school.

[02:00:44] I'm also concerned when I look at the area that it's not developed and how it's a natural area, and I walk and I see the foxes crossing the road and the deer and all that wildlife. I'm like, what's going to happen to all those animals? They've already lost a lot of their habitat from widening Belmont Ridge.

[02:01:04] And then the area of the land, you can't see in there, but it's not flat. It's like a big ridge. It's up a hill. And I'm thinking when you take away all that, what holds the ground together, you know, are we not going to have erosion problems?

[02:01:21] Are we not going to have stuff that goes down and then ends up in the reservoir? Because the reservoir is right there. It's all like a big angle. Anyway, that's a big concern for me. I'm concerned for the habitat for the animals. I'm concerned for the traffic.

[02:01:39] I'm concerned also for not only traffic of more cars coming to that one area, but all the service fields, UPS, the mail, all the different people ask for the pizza delivery, all this new traffic just to serve 400 more families in a small amount of road There's going to be a lot when I think about that.

[02:02:04] Anyway, that's it. I'm just concerned. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Sean Sullivan, and then we're going to go to, we have some remote speakers, and then we'll go back to the speakers in the room. After Mr. Sullivan will be Melissa O'Rourke.

[02:02:21] Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall. Good evening, Board of Supervisors. Thank you for your time this evening. My wife and I are 25-year residents of the Broadlands Development. We live in the Park Grove neighborhood that is adjacent to one of the neighborhoods that's adjacent to the proposed Tillett View.

[02:02:42] We are requesting that the Board of Supervisors do not approve the proposal. The reason for that goes right back to the heart of the density issue. as the applicant has proposed and the issue there is really in the land use for the general plan which in that plan it recommends that new development integrate with existing development patterns and based on that when you look at the density of the surrounding neighborhoods

[02:03:21] they are significantly below what is proposed they're on a range of one unit per acre to 3.4 in all of the surrounding areas and even though the applicant has made the proposal at the minimum it's not I would be hard-pressed to say that that's integrating to the surrounding existing communities. The density issue presents a significant range of concerns, much of which

[02:03:54] has been addressed in terms of the traffic, but I ask you to reject this proposal because of that fundamental disparity between what exists in the community and what is being proposed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we want to go to the four people who are who were already down to be my remote speakers and then we'll go back to other three and then we'll go back to people in the room so can we go to the remote to melissa o'rourke to

[02:04:24] um asad shardy and for hardik met meta good evening my name is melissa o'rourke and i have lived in the broad lane for 25 years i would like to get you out of the boardroom and take you for a drive tonight don't worry it'll be a short one just 0.3 miles hop on in with me we're starting We're going to drive on the west end of our two-lane Waxpool Road.

[02:04:49] Just a little history on the road, it was gravel until 2018. You'll notice the newly built Waxpool School. This road is full of buses and family cars dropping off their students. Here is Mr. Tillett's property. You'll see the retention walls that have been built on the western and southern sides that can dump large amounts of water off the clay-like soil that gave Waxpool its name.

[02:05:07] Next, watch out, there's a blind desk curve that could have you collide with the neighbors from approximately 200 homes on the right or the 48 homes that enter from the left. Whoa! Slow down. There goes a basketball pulling out from the homes whose driveways empty right onto this road.

[02:05:24] Watch out. Mrs. Canan is backing out of her driveway. Be careful. There are cars parked along the road trying to get the kids in gear out of the car because the small lot on the right for Parcell's baseball field is full. Be sure to come to a complete stop here at the stop sign. There's another 17 homes on the court ahead. Turning left, more homes have driveways empty onto the road.

[02:05:42] Watch out, Mrs. Yee is getting her mail. Slow down. There are a lot of cars turning into stream valley vets here for medical grooming or daycare. Their nine-car lot is full, and there are always cars in the road. So be careful if someone doesn't come out between cars. Okay, traffic has come to a stop. Why? Well, school is letting out at Mill Run, and the buses and the car line are directed out this way to prevent them from clogging the streets on the other side.

[02:06:04] They come through here in the morning, too. Also, the buses and car line have already arrived for the end of the day at Eagle Ridge. The traffic is inching now towards the last crop of homes on the left, And the fourth, yes, school on this road, guys host Montessori. The board director may have to come out and direct families into her lot. Well, we've reached the end of the drive at the stop sign, and it's only been a short two minutes.

[02:06:24] I've heard it's considering a light here because it's so dangerous. That's good, but it won't do anything about the danger along the western part of our drive. What are zoning restrictions for if not for preventing another 400 homes from creating unsustainable traffic issues in this area? One supervisor said he doesn't care because we have a home shortage.

[02:06:40] Is supply-side the only solution? And can you really tell me we have no other places in the county to pack homes? And as far as Pulte's claim that they can't make money building fewer homes here, Chair Randall mentioned last meeting these decisions shouldn't be made about money. Please consider voting no to changing from R1 to R18 to R16.

[02:07:00] This would almost double the homes on this road. To quote Chair Randall, unentended consequences do happen. Ma'am, I'm sorry, your time is up. We're going to go to Asad Sharadhi, followed by Heartache Mehta, and then we'll go back in the room for Kelly Limpel.

[02:07:18] You're in the person, oh, you're in person, I'm sorry. Well, come on, come on down, sir. Hi, nice to meet everybody today. My name is Dr. Asad Chaudhary, and I'm a cardiovascular specialist, and I graduated from the George Washington University in 2007, 17 years ago.

[02:07:35] And the reason I mention that is that we have a lot more in common than we may actually think. As a cardiologist, I see the human body very similarly to the way I see Loudoun County. If one part of the human body gets sick, the rest of the body suffers as well.

[02:07:50] It's inevitable. If one part of Loudoun County gets sick, the rest of the county gets sick. We're all very much intertwined. And so when we look at, as a cardiologist, how do we keep the body healthy? That's how I would like for us to think as Board of Supervisors, how do we keep Loudoun County healthy?

[02:08:07] And so we have a very good analogy. When we look at the arteries of the body, we can make that analogous to the roads of Loudoun County. When there is stress in the body, it releases oxidative stress into the organs, and it causes harm. The same way in multiple studies, according to the American College of Cardiology, according to the American Heart Association, when there is increased traffic on roads, it releases something called fine particulate matters.

[02:08:34] And when this is released into the air, multiple studies have shown that it directly correlates to a 10% increase in heart risk and in heart attacks. There are a number of homes which align right along Waxpool Road. I can't see anything else but an increase in the harm and the health of my fellow Loudoun County residents.

[02:08:54] I currently am located next to the Stone Springs Hospital, and I am the only cardiology practice in the 10-mile radius. I'm very intimately involved with all of the Loudoun County residents who come to me for their heart health. And so I see firsthand 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds coming in needing bypass surgery, having heart attacks. And it's inevitable that across the country, younger and younger people are getting sick. So for the health of our county, I would like to just reiterate a few quotes that I wrote down from the last meeting when we talked about removing the firehouse location at the last meeting here. And we said here three things, all for historical perspective, but nothing is more

[02:09:33] important than safety. Safety is such an important and critical aspect of what we do as the board. Of course, safety is the priority. When you retire from your positions, I want you to look back and think of what you've done for this county and be proud of the decision you made. And so as you hear everybody else's comments, take a step back and think about the health of our county. What can we do to be proud of the health of our Loudoun County residents? Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Okay, Hardik Maytop, followed by Kelly Lemp Hill, followed by, gosh, I'm going to spell

[02:10:09] your first name, because I think it's Baragavi Porturi. I think that's what, oh, okay, wow, got that right. Thank you. Chair Randall, remote speaker number four has not joined the line. Okay, then we're going to go to Ms. LaPelle, and then we're going to go to Baragadi, and I'm not going to say your last name, because I got your first name right, so I feel pretty good about that.

[02:10:31] Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And then after you, you will have Naveen, and the last name is M-I-N, I'm sorry, M-A-N-C-H-I-K-A-T-T. Yeah, he's here. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Good evening.

[02:10:48] Thank you. Just for the record, I'll state my name. My name is Bargavi Putturi, and thank you for the opportunity today to talk about this. I know most of the speakers before me talked about the issue on wax pool, what it's going to cause in everywhere.

[02:11:04] But I live 0.5 miles from the site where you are. Nobody talked about the Belmont Ridge after the effect once you go down that road. So one of the things what I've looked at, I'm no traffic engineer or a transportation engineer. But one of the things in the traffic report which is missing is the impact on when the park is being built.

[02:11:26] nobody knows there is a new park which is being built on the reservoir so there is a lot of foot traffic which is going to come onto the Belmont Ridge Road so did we consider what's going to be on the path how are the people going to cross right now the intersections within the Belmont Ridge Road is very I would say very close to each other right from Touro Parish Road, Reservoir Ridge, Croissant and Alfred and then they're on the new park entrance so everybody will be walking towards it whoever are living here so did we even consider how this traffic is going to

[02:12:03] affect from the foot traffic from the safety point of view my kids go to eagle ridge and belmont one of my daughter actually came in to listen to it because she always argues with me how do i go to school every day if i want to go in either to she is from briarwoods but my other one is in eagle ridge they both want to bike to their schools that's not possible right now and with this new one it's never going to happen so I seriously urge for you to reject this proposal thank you thank you ma'am and we will go to the next peak and then we're gonna go back to the so yes you sir never go back to the because there was

[02:12:40] one other person who was online Jaren Tish after after you've done you're coming out and then you mr. tish will come next and then the being okay no no no you're not being okay the greening chairman handle and the board of supervisors. My name is Naveen Manchikatla and I'm representing the Reservoir Ridge HOA, which Bhargavi is also part of, and I have a few other families joined here. And I do have a petition signed by other residents who could not make it. And we are here to collectively oppose the, you know, request the board to oppose the zoning

[02:13:18] map appointment, and there are multiple reasons why we are opposing it. The first one being the traffic issue. Many people, you know, already spoke about it. I'd like to, you know, you to refer to page 16 of the staff report about trip generation comparisons where, you know, the traffic study estimates that there will be more than 2,000 weekday total trips added than they are currently.

[02:13:42] That's like a whopping 5,000 percentage increase in traffic volume on that 0.9 stretch of Waxpool Road that many people talked about, which serves as a primary road for, you know, many schools as well as the, you know, the guide post-elementary. Safety issue, there are a lot of children, including my kids, who goes to, you know, Waxpool and Eagle Ridge right now, who walk to school, who, you know, walk their dogs, and the increase in traffic is directly going to impact the safety of these kids.

[02:14:11] The crash report for the past three years is also shared in the staff report, page 65, which indicates that there have been 29 crashes in the vicinity in the past three years. Imagine adding 400 more houses, you know, thousands of cars driving in that 0.9 mile stretch.

[02:14:28] You know, how many, you know, crashes, you know, we are adding to the total. The neighborhood fit, many people again talked about the, you know, the density. Around the surrounding regions, you know, the density is quite less between, you know, one to three. And, you know, this zoning amendment is adding a lot more units than the current neighborhood.

[02:14:50] so it's not a neighborhood fit. You know, we believe that this proposal should have been rejected even before it's in the current stage of the approval process. We would also like the board to take a note that the Planning Commission has recommended for denial, and also the staff also does not support board's approval of the application.

[02:15:08] So for all the reasons that we have mentioned, we request the board to oppose this zoning amendment. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Thank you. We're going to go to the phone, and I think it's, is it Miss Tish, Mrs. Tish? Because I don't have that person on my list, but we'll go to the phone.

[02:15:26] Yeah, that's okay, that's okay. Hello, can you hear me? We can hear you just fine. Okay, thank you. Thank you, supervisors, for your careful considerations in planning our communities in Loudoun County. These new homes will fade into Waxpool Elementary School.

[02:15:43] This school won Niche.com's Best Public Elementary School in Virginia. It's true, our son is academically gifted by severe ADHD. We have struggled at every other school before gaining special permissions to Waxpool. We also reside in the Broadlands neighborhood, just up the street.

[02:15:58] But we're zoned for Hillside. Former public school teacher, I can tell you the teachers, admin, and staff at Waxpool are extraordinary. The last report from the school board representative at the last meeting about Tillett's Way at the school will be overcapacitated by almost 20% should this be rezoned to R8.

[02:16:17] When I shared this information with Waxpool staff and admin, they were genuinely upset and grateful to the community members who have asked that the rezoning of Tillett's Way be denied. This will change the character of the neighborhood where families have already invested. Mr. Tillett has the right to develop his land for profit, but not at the expense of the surrounding community.

[02:16:36] Yes, we need affordable housing. I'm a huge supporter of the village at Clear Springs, which will entrust Habitat for Humanity homes to generations of working families. So much new space in Loudoun County, that can be developed. This club land, especially because of the considerations of traffic, is not ideal for this type of rezoning.

[02:16:53] I support what that other gentleman said about community space. As a Broadlands member, we are desperate for community space. Our community amenities are overrun. I am a tennis enthusiast, and I highly recommend tennis courts. Broadlands HOA did a national search and got one of the best tennis professionals in the country who worked out at IMG, and he is now at the Broadlands courts.

[02:17:16] If he took a tennis course, we would have amazing programming all year round, much like Ashburn Village Sports Pavilion. I really urge the supervisors to consider this type of land development, this plot, or just leave it R1. Thank you so much.

[02:17:33] Thank you. I'm sorry I've lost my place here. I think in the room we have Kativa. I think that's a G. I think it's Grinson. I think that's the name, the last name. And then the next one would be, last name K-O-T-A-R-U, I think it's Archana Kataru, and then Catherine Kaladauzzi.

[02:18:00] These people are all in the room, from what I understand. Kativa, K-A-V-I-T-A. Can you come up? Would you like to speak or no? Okay, thank you. And the next speaker is Kataru, K-O-T-A-R-U.

[02:18:23] Thank you, ma'am. And then Catherine Calderazi, Catherine. She's online. She's online. Okay. We're ready then.

[02:18:54] Is she online still? I'm trying to get confirmation that she's still online. Okay. Hello, this is Catherine Calderazi. We're ready. Okay, great. Sorry, I know we're having technical issues.

[02:19:11] So my name is Catherine Calderazi. I live in the village of Waxful. I have lived here for 16 years. And the Loudoun County 2019 general plan says that infill sites like the Tillett property are often small, less than 25 acres, and their development should complement the larger development area.

[02:19:34] But this parcel, the Tillett property, is not 25 acres or less. It is actually double that size. It's 50 acres instead of 25. And given that it is twice the size of a typical infill site that is considered in the 2019 general plan, I believe that such an application to increase the density on this huge site has to be very thoughtfully crafted and considered.

[02:20:01] And I agree that the Tillots have the right to sell their land and that this land will be developed. I mean, I also love open space and everything. Who doesn't? But I understand that it's going to be, and the houses will be built on it. I mean, my land that I live on now was also, I believe, a farm, and they developed it, and I live here now, and I love it.

[02:20:22] So I understand that that's how it's going to move. But I think that this current application is going to just overwhelm that site and Waxpool Road. And I know everyone's mentioned it truly is a twisty, narrow road.

[02:20:38] When we moved in, it was gravel. My kids would call it the bumpy road. And it's anchored by an elementary school on one end and a school on the other. So this is not an application that just should be like, oh, it checks the boxes. Let's let it go.

[02:20:54] I mean, it's twice the size of a regular infill site. It's anchored by two schools. And there's been a lot of discussion about the Waxpool-Truro-Paris intersection. But I think the relevant traffic issue here is the road itself between these two schools.

[02:21:12] I mean, we live here. Our kids go to school here. We know what it's like better than anybody else in this room because this is our lives. And I'm not willing to sell the safety of this neighborhood for a stoplight to repair us as much as we all might want that.

[02:21:27] I've lived in my house for 16 years. I've raised my family. I've been the PTA president at Eagle Ridge for two years. Class mom for years at Mill Run, currently track team mom over at Briarwood. Ma'am, I'm sorry.

[02:21:43] Your time is up. Your time is up. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. Thank you, everybody, for your comments on this item. This is in the Broad Run District, so we're going to go to Supervisor Glass for a motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors deny Leji-2023-0031 till its view ZMAP-2022-0003 based on the findings for denial provided as Attachment 1 to the March 13th, 2024 Board of Supervisors Public Hearing Supplemental Staff Report.

[02:22:22] Motion is made. Second, Mr. Buzza-Tacroni. Discussion on the motion. Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. This application has been difficult for me as I have balanced the obvious need for housing in Loudoun County with my concerns that this level of development at the Tillett site is not appropriate in this exact location at this time.

[02:22:44] I think this is maybe the only area in broad run where the transportation infrastructure is not up to what it should be for additional development without proper mitigations. Specifically, I'm concerned about the need for traffic signals in Belmont Ridge Road and Truro Parish Drive.

[02:23:03] And while the applicant has agreed to signal contributions at those intersections, they're not complying with the transportation plan guidance about their contributions for Truro Parish and the mitigations at Belmont Ridge Road will not be met without additional changes.

[02:23:21] The intersection of Waxpool Road and Belmont Ridge Road will lack proper turn lanes even after the widening, and I think will cause dangerous vehicle interactions. However, at this point, the countywide transportation plan does not support the mitigations that I think are necessary to consolidate and make traffic safer in this area.

[02:23:43] Additionally, I do not think the proposal for several 2-over-2 condo buildings that are five stories high with the roof are compatible with the immediate surrounding neighborhoods. These buildings are much taller and do not transition well to the nearby homes. I think there is an opportunity with this site to explore other unit options that are both more affordable than 2 over 2s and will fit in with the existing neighborhoods, providing more innovative and diverse housing options.

[02:24:14] Overall, I think this area needs to be looked again as part of our five-year review of the comprehensive plan as I do not feel the current plan or proposal on the table are the highest and best use of this site. Many constituents have emailed, called, and spoken tonight, thank you, about cut-throughs traffic, safety, and transition concerns.

[02:24:38] I hope my colleagues have listened and will vote to deny this application. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be supporting Supervisor Glass's motion for denial based on what I heard tonight about the traffic concerns and supervisor glasses traffic concerns.

[02:25:01] And based also on the fact that this level of higher density development will result in an additional tax burden on the county of almost $5 million in annual operational costs for the schools and a little over $19 million in capital costs for the schools.

[02:25:27] Thank you. Mr. Letourneau. Thank you I will also be supporting the motion this is a difficult application it's a close call I understand both sides of this but and it's always difficult as I said in the previous one when there's a parcel of land that hasn't been developed and there's a surrounding neighborhood and quite frankly sometimes the neighbors have perhaps some unrealistic expectations about that but in this particular instance I agree with the analysis of the district supervisor that the scope and scale here is just not

[02:26:02] consistent with the existing development pattern and this neighborhood as proposed is just not going to be properly integrated into the existing pattern so for that reason I'll support the application thank you mr. crony the motion to deny I understand I understood you said thank you chair Randall I will also be I will also support the motion to deny and I want to thank the community for coming out they were clearly the entire community is clearly opposed to this application and I believe it is inconsistent with the

[02:26:39] surrounding community it doesn't integrate with the existing development till its view is clearly a more intense development there's more density compared to the surrounding neighborhood and I do think there are traffic and safety concerns that aren't adequately addressed on Waxpool Road. I visited that area and it is a two-lane windy road and it does seem like there would be issues especially at the intersection of Waxpool Road and Belmont Ridge Road near Waxpool Elementary School. I also have to say I'm

[02:27:18] very concerned about school overcrowding. Briar Woods will be over capacity and And Loudoun County Public Schools is not planning to open HS14 until the fall of 2028. This school is needed for overcrowding at Independence High School in my district.

[02:27:38] And with all this residential development that we're talking about, and HS14 is the magic bullet, I'm very concerned about the ability of that school to provide relief to our students. So for these reasons, I will not be supporting the application.

[02:27:55] Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not going to support the motion. I will tell you, I kicked this around a long time. When they first came to us, until the application came to us, I thought it was too dense. I don't think this is the perfect application. I think the applicant has done a number of things to fix some of the concerns that were brought up.

[02:28:14] And so I think it is probably not the right thing for us as a board to deny something when we in the general plan put forward a situation where it says landowners, builders, go and build 8 to 24 units and they come in.

[02:28:29] And I think they kind of acknowledge that this is probably a little bit dense for the outlay. Maybe they got it wrong in the general plan, but that's what the general plan says. And when the general plan kind of says something like that, it's hard to blame the applicant or the owner of the land when they come in at the very low end. and i appreciate what everyone had to say here i really really really do um but um development is a difficult thing and it is hard you when you develop something you're never going to make everybody happy i do think they have addressed some of the road issues but there this is the this is far from perfect application and i think i could go quite frankly either way on it um but

[02:29:05] i think given um the changes that have been made as well as the very low end of what the general plan calls for i will not support the motion and i would support the uh the application itself thank you sir miss brooksman i'm sorry well it just come on it did just come on uh i i want to associate myself with uh supervisor kirschner's uh comments um this is not an ideal application i have concerns about the transportation um but um our recent history in loudon county has exacerbated the housing problem i'm not going to get into details as to why or how but the

[02:29:41] the overall environment in eastern Loudoun County in this section of eastern Loudoun County has become more strained in the last two years and housing developments are at a premium. And while I have concerns about the transportation, I just don't feel this is a very viable plan to me. The plan is at the low end of what the place type for the plan suggests. I agree that probably is not the right place for a suburban compact neighborhood but we're at eight units per acre which is an increase in density but not a catastrophic increase in density it's laid out nicely

[02:30:18] applicants made a number of improvements and this one's a close one for me but i'm going to come down on the favor of the application and therefore i will vote against the motion to deny thank you miss um vice chair brixman thank you madam chair i will not be supporting the motion to deny The staff's only issue with this application is a $200,000 contribution.

[02:30:45] I'd like to ask the applicant, would you be willing to close that gap if you had the opportunity? If we had that opportunity, and if that's where the rubber meets the road here, I think we would consider that.

[02:31:02] So given that they would be willing to do that, staff would have no opposition to it. And I just am not buying the reason for denial based on transition. that falls flat for me because this does comport with the general plan. Staff did not identify that as an issue. I drove out there. I think it transitions very nicely. They put all the single-family homes up near all the other single-family homes. There's all kinds of amenities just across the street if someone wants to go to a park or hike something like an eight-mile trail around the reservoir. So that really falls flat for me, and I don't think that's a reason that we

[02:31:37] should be denying this application. I also don't agree with the traffic issues. Belmont Ridge is being widened, and the applicant is doing things to make sure that this is going to be safe for people. I don't buy that the schools are going to be overcrowded. LCPS has told us that they have capacity. But one of the main reasons for me to vote against the denial is because we tragically need housing. The general plan calls for housing here and that's what should be built here. And if

[02:32:13] it's at the lowest density, I'm absolutely going to support it. President Biden just said the other day, the bottom line is we have to build, build, build. That's how we bring housing costs down for good. And we have a plan, an unmet housing needs strategic plan that calls for housing every year. In 2021, our goal was 200 units. We built 154. In 2022, our goal was 350 attainable units. We built 55. In 2023, our goal was 350 units, and we built 164. There may be more in

[02:32:48] the pipeline that will change those numbers, but we are way behind the eight ball on this, And I honestly don't know how we can call ourselves on this board pro-housing and deny this application. What are we doing?

[02:33:04] It's a great application, and it should pass. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. All right, I'm going to say some things that are really going to make some people mad, and I don't think that I care right now. Whether you want this or not is not even material at this point. What I just heard was just, I thought, shameful and so hypocritical.

[02:33:24] It will change the character of our neighborhood. Well, what do you think happened when you moved into the neighborhood? You're not the first person. There was something there before you moved in. Did that not change the character of what was there? The animals will lose their habitat. What do you think happened when you moved in there?

[02:33:41] They had more habitat then than before you moved in. Did they not? The animals will lose their habitat? It will cause heart health problems. Listen, I'm not a doctor. I don't play one on TV, and I'm sure you know better than I know about these things.

[02:33:59] But the idea that if I move into a neighborhood, everyone's going to have a healthy heart and be just fine is okay. But if somebody else moves into a neighborhood, we're about to all die. That's pretty much what was just said to us. One person actually said, let them go to another place.

[02:34:17] What? Let them go to another, was actually said, let them go to another place. Now, the single person supports this. Well, I'm not that shocked. I have been up here for nine years and not one time have an application ever came and the neighborhood supports it.

[02:34:33] Never one time. Ever. Ever. I am quite sure when I moved into my neighborhood and first Ashburn and then Lansdowne, somebody came in and didn't support it. I have lived in Loudoun since 1993. I remember when Broadlands went in.

[02:34:49] And I remember the opposition to Broadlands moving in. Every single person, almost every single person in eastern Loudoun County has had somebody come and object to somebody else moving in. Everyone in Loudoun County wants to be the last person that moved into Loudoun County.

[02:35:05] That's just a fact right now. So if you don't want it, you would do better if me just going, I don't want this. That would go a lot farther than me. I don't want this and then have a seat versus it's going to ruin everybody's hearts. I mean, the hypocrisy tonight was stunning.

[02:35:22] It was stunning. You don't want it, you don't want it. I can get that. I can agree with that. I can understand that. I can respect that. But do not tell me you care about all the things that were in place before you moved in here. Because you moved in here. That was the only county in Northern Virginia that grew last year by 35, the last census by 35%.

[02:35:46] And a lot of people who come and tell me they don't want anything now have been in Loudoun County for all of five years or something. No one wants anyone else to move here. Say I don't want people to move here, but do not give me the reasons that you just gave me, because I will not be insulted. That is insulting my intelligence.

[02:36:04] That was just absolutely shameful. Whether you want it or not, fine, no matter how I vote, but don't do that anymore. That is shameful. Shameful. Shameful. Ms. Glass, would you like a closing? Thank you, Madam Chair.

[02:36:23] I just want to reiterate that my two main concerns with the proposal and why I have moved to deny the application lie with the lack of appropriate transitions and appropriate transportation mitigations. I do think additional density at the site is appropriate and within a reasonable amount that blends together with the surrounding neighborhoods.

[02:36:45] I would like the residents nearby to know and accept that additional development will be coming at some point in the future at the Tillett site I also want to thank the applicant for working with me on this application I do think we were able to address several smaller concerns but the overall unit type and count we were not able to agree on I also want to thank staff for your continued work and thank all those residents who have reached out and spoken tonight I do really appreciate your engagement in the community.

[02:37:17] I also want to say that I am also a huge advocate for housing, but I think because you want housing does not mean it has to be clumped together. I think we can do a better job when we say we want housing, and if it matches that area, let it match the area.

[02:37:39] Yes, I do want density. I want it to be built, but what is being proposed now, I don't think is agreement to that area. Also, when we had talked about the road, Waxpool Road, that is one area that we need to work on because we have not put that in our plan when we talk about the development of our roadways.

[02:38:06] That's the last portion. I think I had said that before. And also, I do know that when other districts, When they talk about housing, and if they want it in certain areas and don't want it in certain areas, that goes with that as well.

[02:38:27] Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Ms. Glass made the motion, and Mr. Crony seconded the motion. All the people who say aye, oppose, and I'm going to abstain on that vote. So that vote would be a 3-5-1 vote. so that the motion will pass with Mr. 531 vote with Mr. Turner and Ms. Bricksman and Mr. Kirshner voting against the motion, and I abstain on the motion.

[02:38:56] Thank you very much. Supervisors, I know we have a long way to go because we have a lot of speakers here for the Belmont issue. I do, but we need to take a break before we dive into Belmont, so we're going to take a 10-minute break. Thank you.

[02:50:17] Okay, we're doing actually pretty good on time here.

[03:07:04] Okay, if staff would please come to the table. Good evening, Madam Chair. Good evening. Can you have an update for us? Yes, ma'am. Ready for it. Jacqueline, could you switch the screen back?

[03:07:22] Belmont Innovation, quick reorientation of the site, 111 acres south of Route 7 west of Belmont Ridge. Total site area, as I said, 111 acres. Currently, it crosses three zoning districts, A3, PDIP, and PDGI.

[03:07:41] By right commercial industrial development specific to the planned development districts is about 1,329,000 square feet of development potential by right today. Proposal, several components, zoning map amendment would convert the entire site to PDIP.

[03:07:59] Since you've seen it in January, it was about 4.8 million when you saw it before. It's been reduced down to 2.9 million square feet for the entirety of the site. They've retained their special exception to go up to 1.0 FAR. That would be on individual lots that may be created subsequent to the application.

[03:08:18] This has to do with a park proffer that they're offering. When they dedicate the entirety of the park parcel, it's going to create smaller parcels for the rest of the data center campus and will necessitate the need for the special exception. Minor special exceptions regarding development standards between data center and utility substation uses.

[03:08:37] Also, some reduced setbacks along Russell Branch Parkway and Gloucester Parkways. In January, the applicant presented a proposal to you that only included the Russell Branch extension as part of the CTP road network. They reintroduced an alternate sheet which accommodates both the Gloucester Parkway extension as part of the CTP countywide transportation plan and the Russell Branch Parkway extension as well.

[03:09:02] Two utility substations that will serve the use. This is a north is to your right for the orientation, so there would be a north and south substation campus to support the overall data center use.

[03:09:20] And this is a summary of the updates. Again, reincorporating the Gloucester Parkway extension, reduce the overall gross floor area. They've increased use of glass in the architectural panels as part of the design of the data center uses and also commitment to solar panels for each of the data center buildings.

[03:09:36] The Planning Commission last year did recommend approval of the application at the time when both the Gloucester Parkway Extension and Russell Branch Extensions were incorporated as part of the plan. With the applicant reintroducing this aspect to the project, with the amendments, we generally find it is consistent with the two applicable place types in our recommending board approval of the applications.

[03:10:02] That is the conclusion of my updates. We have folks from the Department of Transportation and Accountable Infrastructure here to answer questions. We also have the communications director from Dominion Energy if there's questions related to this application as well.

[03:10:18] Thank you. Mr. Rogers, I appreciate that there's somebody from Dominion Energy, but I would appreciate while we're having this conversation that the board does not bring in issues of energy that would not be allowed to be discussed.

[03:10:41] Okay. That's correct. the provision of electricity is something that's required by code you may be able to have the ancillary effects of providing electricity that the board could consider thank you mr. Turner you have any questions no questions miss glass thank you madam chair and thank you staff if this application is denied are there any grandfathered site plans or previous rezonings submitted for these parcels that would grandfather the land

[03:11:20] into the revised 93 zoning ordinance or would the land be governed under the current zoning ordinance? There is a grandfathered site plan application to clear the site and for substation, utility substation use. There was also a site plan submitted for the first data center building for the site, but that was submitted under the new ordinance or the current zoning ordinance.

[03:11:45] Do you know how, what the maximum size that by right data center could be built? Under the existing zoning? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Up to 1.3 million square feet of data center campus use under the current zoning districts.

[03:12:04] Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Sainz. Thank you, Madam Chair. So originally the applicant filed to go to 1.0 FAR, but recently there has been a change to go to 0.06.

[03:12:26] Is that accurate? Correct. An overall reduction of the entire site, which would equate to 0.6 FAR. Okay. So originally we're at like $4 million and some change. Correct. Now they're down to $2 million and some change. $2.9 million, yes, sir.

[03:12:41] Okay. And then by right, it's how much again? About 1.3. And then with the, you said they've added in some solar panels, do we know how many homes could those solar panels technically power?

[03:13:02] I would have to defer to the applicant for those data sets. I know they're totaling, they're asking for about 70,000 square feet, which would be 10,000 square feet per data center building, but I would not know the conversion to how much housing that would support. I'm sorry, the applicant made a presentation, stop his time, made a presentation already, And so we're not asking questions of the applicant today.

[03:13:23] Thank you. All right. So I can't answer that. They can't answer that. No, we're not asking preference of the applicant. They've already done the presentation. Okay. So we're not asking questions. And then as far as you know, the HOAs that are in close proximity, are they in support of this application?

[03:13:40] The HOA has indicated support for the application, yes. Okay. And? That's the representative of the overall body. Correct. Okay. All right. So the HOA in close proximity to this is in support of the application. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Lintero.

[03:13:58] Yeah. So the application was revised quite significantly since the last time we were here. It is smaller, significantly smaller than it was. The only piece that's really left as part of the rezoning then is the A3 parcel, right?

[03:14:13] They're not requesting a modification to the FAR anymore on the existing by right parcel, correct? So the A3 parcel is being incorporated into the overall campus. Right. And staff, the general plan generally does not support split zoning, correct? Correct.

[03:14:28] so it's you know we've heard this tonight on several applications it's actually pretty hard to get staff's approval on an application or support for an application because there's usually some outstanding issue or other that oftentimes the board sort of you know makes a decision on but in this case there are no outstanding issues correct with reintroducing the gloucester parkway that resolved our last remaining issue right and staff in fact because staff typically does not support split zoning staff would support incorporating the a3 parcel into the overall project?

[03:14:59] Yes, sir. An overall development plan is preferable. Okay. I don't suppose staff has any kind of estimation as to what the value of the proffer commitments are. The total package, no, sir. Yeah, not from a monetary standpoint. Correct. But certainly from a location standpoint, it relates to where the buildings are on the campus as well as how they're designed.

[03:15:21] Correct. The most recent revisions to the zoning ordinance, which impose some restrictions on site design and things like that, do not apply to this application because this application was grandfathered into the previous zoning ordinance, correct? Correct. Okay, so none of those protections that the board worked on last year would apply to a by-right application here, or would they?

[03:15:44] They would not, although they've made a number of concessions to try to improve the site. Okay, thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. A question for either staff or the applicant.

[03:16:00] The applicant is not answering questions this evening. They've already did a presentation, and when we come back a second time, they don't answer questions a second time. All right. Let me ask staff then. So we've gone from a required 300-foot buffer along Goose Creek to the applicant's proffered 500-foot buffer.

[03:16:27] that correct? Yes, ma'am. Are there other measures that the applicant has proffered that would protect water quality in La Goose Creek? Yes, ma'am, they've offered the open space buffers, the additional buffer and screening, they've also offered to reforestation plantings of meadow style plantings underneath the power line easement up to four low-impact development techniques across the property green infrastructure elements of the overall building design green roofs and those sorts of things to reduce treatment of stormwater runoff

[03:17:06] from the buildings themselves so there are a number of concessions the applicant has made to try to address proximity to Goose Creek mistake and as far as so you've got a 19 acre Goose Creek Park being proffered as well and a canoe launch I believe trailhead parking lot with parking yes ma'am all right on what are they doing vis-a-vis noise other number of design proffers related to power generation they're doing wraps around the generators and air chillers

[03:17:43] they're also having to meet the ordinance requirements for noise attenuation also building into the the hillside to reduce or the profile of the building to try to reduce and then also putting generators to the interior of the of the site all right and on aesthetics what measures if any have they taken to exceed our current requirements for aesthetic treatment to five different for those building principal building facades along Belmont Ridge they've proffered to building articulation variation of materials a

[03:18:21] number of step back of parts of the building to reduce the overall massing of the project. And as I said before, they're building into the slope of the property. And then for the other buildings that are, or buildings that would face sort of the flanks of the property, a number of concessions about reducing the scale and massing through fenestration and other building elements and architectural elements. All right. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner.

[03:18:48] Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, staff, for all your hard work. So I just want to make sure you guys are, you support the application now. Is that correct? Yes, sir. We've included it's consistent with the policies yes fair enough so a couple things first of all I know there's I know I have a lot of there's a lot of concern in my district I'm concerned about the new next era lines that are coming through as far as you're aware this is not being serviced by those it's not within the restraint area at all is that correct correct okay so it has no impact as far as that's concerned all right so let's talk a little bit about the two things that I think were that I think are really a couple things that I think are really interesting I want to make sure

[03:19:25] How much solar are they proffering for the top of the building here? Total across the seven buildings, 70,000 square feet. 70,000? Correct. Okay. Have we ever had any data center with 70,000 square feet to your knowledge? Through a proffer? No, sir. Okay.

[03:19:41] All right. Are we keeping track of the record, of a record of what the surrounding neighbors in these neighborhoods, their HOAs are saying? Are they supporting it? Are they against it? What is their feedback? There have been a number of comments that have expressed concerns through the public comment.

[03:19:59] We have received some online comments since January that generally are concerned about the proliferation of data center in the area and the power. I understand, but I'm talking about the directly the surrounding neighborhoods. Do you have, my understanding is the HOAs in the neighborhoods are actually supporting it, but do you have that data? Yes, sir.

[03:20:14] I understand a lot of people in the county may not be, but. Yes, sir. We have a handful of people that are on their own from local, around property owners around that have expressed their concerns. All right. Have you had some that would have expressed their favor for it? Yes, sir. Okay. Would you say that is more than those with any concern, or do you not keep track of the numbers?

[03:20:35] I've not kept track of this one, although we've had another of agencies outside, like the Goose Creek, a lot of the Goose Creek preservation groups that have come out in support of the project. Okay. I think those are all my questions. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Madam Chair? Yes.

[03:20:50] May I correct an earlier response to Mr. Letourneau? Sure. Okay, so I want to clarify that the by-right, if they were to develop by-right today, they would be subject to the current zoning ordinance because this application was submitted. Okay, you got it? Okay, I understand. Thank you. No, no, finish that thought, please.

[03:21:07] So the grandfathering resolution, this application was submitted prior to the zoning ordinance adoption in December. So they were, they filed under the revised 93 and will continue to be able to develop per the elements of the revised 93. Thank you. All right. Ms. Brixman?

[03:21:26] If the application was approved. I'm sorry to clarify. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So you said that by right, if this were to fail, by right, they would be able to build 1.3 million square feet of data center. Yes, ma'am.

[03:21:41] Would they have an ability, could they by right build substations as well? Yes, ma'am. How many? As many as they want or? As many as needed. A3 would allow it by right. And right now they're proposing two. But for 1.3 million square feet?

[03:21:59] To support 1.3 million square feet, yes. It would still be two? That I would have to clear. But they can't build more than what would supply the data center, right? Is that what I'm hearing you say? I think as a practical matter, they would only require what the facility requires, if that makes sense.

[03:22:19] Okay. And do you know how many generators they would need for 1.3 million square feet? No, ma'am. I've not done that estimate. Okay. It's really interesting to me that the applicant is offering to do solar because in my experience, any time we've asked a data center applicant to do solar, we've been told it's not possible.

[03:22:44] So for me, any other applications that come to us, that will be my standard now because now we know it's possible. So I can at least thank the applicant for that.

[03:23:01] Thank you. Your light was an on. is it possible to do enough solar to run a data center I would assume yes but I would not know the what would require to do that I I would imagine that it is not I would imagine that the solar will not be that it is not possible to do enough solar so so I appreciate that there's solar there but the solar would not it would be offset for something else I just it will not be for the data

[03:23:38] center. I don't believe the intent of the proper was to solely operate the data center off. Or even operate it really at all, because that wouldn't, it wouldn't, you, there's just not enough. You just literally can't do that. Mr. Kirshner asked a question about transmission lines. And I think, and if I get your language wrong, please correct me. I think he said something to the effect of,

[03:24:05] So this project would not affect power. And is it possible that this project, that because power is on a grid and it's not just simply that single facility, that there is immediate impacts on the surrounding area because of the power and other properties with the power? Is that a possible thing?

[03:24:38] Madam Chair, I would I don't want to give you the wrong answer on that. We do have the gentleman from Dominion Energy here this evening. Could he perhaps answer that? I would be happy to have Dominion Energy come to the table. Mr. Richardson, could you come up? Mr. Richardson is the director of communications for Dominion Energy.

[03:24:58] If he's going to come up, I have to ask him some questions, though. We prepped him for that. Mr. Richardson. Hi, how are you? Thank you for being here. Mr. Richardson, you all are required to power this data center and everything, right?

[03:25:13] That's right. So no matter what it takes, you have to power them, right? That's correct. No matter how many transmission lines could have to go up, where the lines may be in places that we don't want them to be, but Dominion doesn't have an option but to power what we put there, correct?

[03:25:31] It's our legal obligation. Your legal obligation to power them. And is the power on a grid, or do you just say, we're going to power this facility and then we're going to power this facility? How does that work? When a data center, for instance, requires power, they reach out to our local distribution planners.

[03:25:56] And we, our distribution planners are, the distribution grid is what serves your houses, right? It's a lower voltage. And that's how we serve data centers. The high-voltage transmission lines, that's the group that I work with, the high-voltage transmission lines come into a substation.

[03:26:15] And then out of the substation, we bring the distribution lines, and they serve the data centers. The distribution lines should serve the grid. The transmission lines are sort of like Interstate 95, and the distribution lines are sort of like Belmont Ridge Road.

[03:26:33] Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, so Mr. Sange has made me aware that when the last application was here that I allowed a question for the Tillots View application for the applicant.

[03:26:49] I was not aware that I did that and I shouldn't have done that because the applicant has already done the presentation so we don't do that. If I did that one time, one, I apologize because I should not have, and two, I will allow a question to this applicant as well as I did if I allowed a question to the last applicant.

[03:27:09] So I think, who had the question first? Who had that question first to the applicant? And I said no to the application step. Mr. Sainz, you had a question for the applicant? - Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for allowing this to happen.

[03:27:24] I know it's rarity. My question earlier was about the solar panels. How many homes could the solar panels power, And will the solar panels provide any power to the on-site facilities?

[03:27:42] So the answer to the last question is yes. The solar will provide power to the on-site facilities. Our estimation for how many homes would be about the equivalent of Alexander's Grove HOA, which is the neighboring HOA, which we've worked hard with, by the way. But between 150 and 250 homes would be what the solar panels.

[03:28:00] It's about a megawatt of power. So you hear megawatts a lot in data center conversations. It's a little bit more than a full megawatt of power between the square footage on the rooftops of the admin buildings, by the way. That's the difference between other data centers. Thank you.

[03:28:17] Thank you, Madam Chair, for that. Thank you. And I apologize because I didn't realize I had done more fatalities for you. I shouldn't have done that. Okay. We have a lot of people who want to speak on this. Right now I have 34 I have down and then four more who are here remotely.

[03:28:38] So I'm going to call your name in advance so you know that you're going to be next up. So we will start with John Benedict, followed by Mary Terpak, followed by Patricia Stumford. Good evening, sir.

[03:28:57] Good evening, and thank you. Appreciate what you do here. I am John Benedict, and last month the board recognized that data center zoning should be reviewed after 20 years of dramatic growth and largely unmanaged growth inherited from prior boards, frankly.

[03:29:14] We appreciate and look forward to that review, but Loudon's got more than enough issues with projects that are currently by right without supersizing an application like this one. They include, of course, the insufficient power, transmission lines, the cost to consumers, the aesthetic issues, the quality of life issues, environmental problems.

[03:29:35] Yet this applicant still wants you to waive the rules. They started out proposing with proposing Loudoun's biggest data center ever, you know, the size of 40 or 45 Home Depots. It would have expanded operating data center square footage and energy demand by 15 or 20 percent in this one building alone, and would have consumed as much power as many, many thousands of houses.

[03:30:00] Now, we hear they've submitted 11-hour proffers to reduce the proposed square footage to 2.9 million square feet, and by any measure, it still remains huge. It still demands too much power in an area with too many large data centers already.

[03:30:17] It'd be triple the size of many of the largest recent data centers and 20 times the size of some of the earliest ones that were built only 15 years ago. Now it's, what, 29 Home Depots and perhaps, what, 5 or 10 percent of the power?

[03:30:33] They still want rezoning from A3 to PDIP. They still want a special exception to enable this increase in size, more than doubling from 1.3 to 2.9. We can't keep making data centers bigger. This site is just not appropriate for a data center of this size.

[03:30:53] And indeed, we need to take a serious look at how big is too big for Loudoun. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mary Terpak, followed by Patricia Stumpfroof, followed by Robert Pollard and Natalie Pien.

[03:31:10] Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall and members of the board. I am Mary Terpak, and I live south of Lovettsville. I'm speaking tonight in opposition to the Belmont Innovation Campus rezoning application. This is a huge data center project, and the additional acreage requested here is too much to be approved before you have amended the zoning ordinance to establish site standards and controls.

[03:31:37] You've already set that process in motion by directing staff to prepare amendments to the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance to specifically address the challenges presented by data centers. That's good, because we know the cumulative impacts of data centers in terms of neighborhood intrusion, noise, water usage, rising land values as the data center industry gobbles up acreage at astronomical prices and requires an astronomical demand for surgery or for energy.

[03:32:13] The threat of huge, ugly transmission lines and substations ruining our rural areas and neighborhoods is real and a direct result of data center demand. This is not okay. Belmont Innovation can wait a few months while you amend the zoning ordinance, and in the meantime, the tax revenue will keep rolling in from existing data centers.

[03:32:37] I'm sure you've been hearing from the applicants regularly and today as well. Tonight, you're hearing from your constituents. I ask you to be the board that sets the bar high enough that your constituents will be happy to have data centers here, keeping our tax rates down, instead of having to endure the consequences of uncontrolled data center growth.

[03:33:02] Please deny this application. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Oh, and by the way, data centers don't vote. Good evening, and you will be followed by Robert Pollard, followed by Natalie Pien and Roger Smith.

[03:33:20] Good evening. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Randall and Vice Chair Briskman and members of the Loudoun County Board of Super Advisors. My name is Patricia Stumpf, and I'm a resident of Leesburg, happily. I am here tonight, I'll be very brief, but I'm here tonight to express my strong opposition to expanding the footprint of the Belmont Innovation Campus and to amend the zoning to meet their needs.

[03:33:48] The size and the scale of the expanded campus is not fitting with our community and our vision for the community. It will have too many negative impacts on both the -- all of the quality of life issues that you're going to hear about tonight and many, many more.

[03:34:09] I think because we've already learned so much about data centers in Virginia, we know better. know better than to go forward with something that's not prudent at this moment in time. You already recognize the need for regulations and new requirements and I applaud you for that. Let's let's do this right. You don't want to do this wrong because the the long-term impact is just too great. We've already talked about the energy needs, the projections for the future are are absolutely unprecedented. The community is not going to be able to do it. Dominion may be very good, but there's going to be a lot of years where there's going to be

[03:34:49] disruption in service and dissatisfied communities. The massive transmission lines going through a lot of Catoctin and some of the other areas are going to be an eyesore that we can't undo easily. One other final point is, it's still very unclear to me, and I'm going to be learning as I go, how the short-term financial gains of data centers really benefits the communities in the long term.

[03:35:21] Building is the easy part, but living with the consequences will be so real and so painful. There can be few permanent jobs for this. The tax incentives will leave. And I think importantly, like all technologies, we all know this, they become obsolete.

[03:35:40] And this too will become obsolete. We will be left with these shells that have no other function, and I think we have to be wise about this. There's some predictions saying that many of the data centers will be closing in the very short term. Thank you for listening, and I hope you will listen to the community.

[03:35:59] Thank you, ma'am. Yes, you're welcome. Robert Poehler, followed by Natalie Pien and Roger Smith. Good evening. Good evening. Chair Randall, members of the board, I'm speaking on behalf of the data center work group of the Loudon Coalition. abolition. I'm here to ask you to deny the Belmont Innovation Application. Now, most of us have all been taken terribly by surprise by the explosive growth of data centers. Yet, for some time, our group has focused on the budgetary implications of data center growth, that is to say, the over-dependence on them for revenues. But most citizens, understandably, have paid little attention

[03:36:36] to data centers until recently, when they learned about the giant power lines that Dominion is building in eastern Loudoun, and NextEra wants to build in the west. But the biggest shock of all has been the relentless expansion of data centers themselves. It's out of control. How is this happening? Well, for the longest time, we've heard it's progress, that there's nothing we can do about it, that long ago property owners won by right authority to build whatever they want, that the board has no way to block or alter power lines, that the Virginia legislature needs another year

[03:37:14] just to review data center policies. County staff need even longer to draft local regulations. And then after all, we hear the huge taxes that these data centers generate hold down real estate rates. And if the developers don't get their way, we hear they'll make things even worse.

[03:37:34] That's what we hear. But guess what? Tonight, there is something you can do. You can vote no. Now, don't blame the folks. I don't blame the folks who are pushing this because it's their job to tell you the benefits. It's their job. It's not their job, excuse me, to calculate the cost.

[03:37:54] That's your job. It's your job to tally up the damage to the landscape, the environment, climate, quality of life, more and more power lines, rising costs of land, over dependence on one industry, and fiscal risk. Each time you approve another specs or rezoning, there's more encroachment on residential areas and more demand for power. And it never ends. So now is the time to say no. Say no to Belmont Innovation. Just say no. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Natalie Pien,

[03:38:34] followed by Roger Smith and Ruthann Weaver. Good evening. Hello. My name is Natalie Pien, a 40-year resident of Loudoun County. Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts to oppose the Belmont Innovation Campus, rezoning and special exception applications. While I'm affiliated with many environmental organizations in many capacities, tonight I'm speaking on my own behalf and in my most important role of grandmother. My grandchildren and all children deserve a livable future made possible by climate change mitigation, but we are headed in the wrong direction.

[03:39:10] The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association, NOAA, reports that 2023 was by far are the world's warmest climate, warmest temperature on record. In Virginia, the Virginia Clean Economy Act law to mitigate climate change is doomed for failure by one industry, data centers.

[03:39:30] The data center industry is inherently unsustainable. Data center approval business as usual must stop. Accordingly, the 2024 session of the General Assembly saw over one dozen bills to regulate data centers.

[03:39:46] On February 1, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors adopted an accelerated planning and zoning review process for new data center regulations. The need to understand the data center industry's multiple negative impacts is recognized at all levels of government.

[03:40:04] On December 11, 2023, the Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, JLARC, was authorized to conduct a comprehensive assessment of data center impacts. On February 1st, 2024, a bill was introduced in Congress to study the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence because AI could contribute to doubling the data center energy demand by 2026.

[03:40:30] It is irresponsible to continue approving data center applications. Therefore, the only prudent course of action is to pause data center approvals until at least the JLARC study is complete. Even better, pause until Loudon's data center amendments are adopted.

[03:40:46] Considering each data center application independently overlooks the cumulative impacts on the environment and energy. This approach contributed to Dominion Power's inability to provide power to all approved data centers. The solution was to allow Loudoun data centers to violate air permits and operate 24-7 on highly polluting diesel backup generators.

[03:41:10] Protect Loudoun and pause data center approvals. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Pien. Roger Smith, followed by Ruthann Weaver. Good evening, sir. Good evening, supervisors, Chair Randall. I wrote 350 words here.

[03:41:31] I'm not going to read them. I just want to say I agree with everything that's been said so far, and it's been said far more eloquently than I had written it. Every single point that has been made here, I agree with.

[03:41:47] What concerns me, and I'll take some of my time here, is there seems to be a real difference in approach here. the questions that you guys asked of staff are all about minutiae. How many square feet whatnot can power how many houses? How big's the parking lot? All of that stuff. That is not what we should be thinking about. We have a severe problem here. As many people have said,

[03:42:24] we are becoming addicted to something and we have to stop taking more of this addictive drug because it's going to hurt us very badly we have to back off we have to look the sort of thing that really bothers me not to pick on supervisor kirchner but he was the one who said it you asked does this horrendous gash in in the community that's going to be caused by this new power transmission line is it going to power this this facility that we're talking about tonight

[03:43:02] And I thought I heard the answer was no, it doesn't. But Chair Randall asked some very specific questions, which I think we all need to be thinking about. Isn't it true that really we're all one big mess of data centers, and the power companies have a real problem trying to get those electrons from where they started to where they're needed?

[03:43:26] And it's all in a big grid, and one thing affects another. And we start worrying about little details when the big picture is we need to stop building data samples. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ruthann Weaver, followed by James Hanna, followed by Erin Walter. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall and members of the Board of Supervisors. Excuse me. Thank you for the opportunity to come and speak with

[03:44:00] you tonight. There are going to be a lot of speakers that will quote facts and data and numbers, and I'm not going to do that. I'm going to take a different tack. I'm going to try to put a human face on the controversy that we're discussing both sides of, and that is one of my sons is a software engineer, and he lives and works in Hong Kong for the last few years, and he came home for Christmas, and we happened to be driving through Ashburn,

[03:44:36] and he said, Mom, what happened here? And I explained about the data centers, and he said, Mom, I'm a software engineer. I'm a web developer. Yeah, we use that stuff. But who's in charge? Who's looking at the big picture here? When is enough enough? Does anybody know that number? When is enough enough? So we continued

[03:45:06] our conversation, drove home, and it occurred to me, I am going to be responsible to explain to my children and grandchildren someday, if I didn't do something to try to prevent this problem, If I didn't be the canary in the coal mine saying, hey, we've got to wake up here, then shame on me.

[03:45:35] And I ask that you, please, Madam Chairman and the Board of Supervisors, think, too, that you also will have to explain to your children and grandchildren someday what you did to solve this problem.

[03:45:53] Thank you. Thank you. James Hanna, followed by Erin Walter, followed by Tia Ehrman. Good evening. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the Board. Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the Bellman application, which I urge that you deny. I certainly join others in opposing yet another million square feet of data center space that is squeezed between Groose Creek and dense residential housing that would get much further pressure on our already strained energy grid and create new demand for more power transmission lines.

[03:46:32] I would like to focus on the fiscal impact of continuing to prove rezonings, special exceptions, more height and far for this and other data centers. This application, according to our review, reflects no attention to its fiscal revenue impact or its fiscal policy context, leaving a critical analytical gap for an application of this size and of one with this tax revenue intensity. More broadly, what began 10 years ago as a positive diversification of our

[03:47:10] tax base has transformed into a frightening dependence on a single industry. We've come to depend on data centers for the majority of our annual growth in our local tax funding, which continues in 2025. The tax base of the county's business sector is dominated by data centers, which now represent four-fifths of the real and business personal property taxes of our total business community. And overall, data center taxes are well on their way in the absence of

[03:47:49] other measures to soon reach 40 to 50 percent of all local tax funding, driven not least by last year's colossal rise in new data center revenue space of 10 million square feet. Accordingly, it seems to me that a vote in favor of new sources of data center taxes like Belmont is effectively a vote against our urgently needed economic diversification. Please deny this application and give urgent attention to completing the current data center CPAM and please to updating

[03:48:28] our data center fiscal risk policy. Fiscal revenue impact, like location and power and environment, are as important as everything else in the analysis of data centers.

[03:48:45] Thank you, Mr. Hanna. Thank you. Erin Walter, followed by Tia Ehrman, followed by Theo Stamatis. Good evening. Hi, good evening. I've been here and spoke the last time, so I'm going to try to be brief this time. I think you need to pause.

[03:49:02] data centers in the county. I hope you vote no in Belmont Innovation Center. You need a process to understand the infrastructure implications to the citizens of this county for data centers. Power is of course one of them. I also believe we're at a tipping point in the county for data centers. It's gotten out of control when is enough going to be enough. Any answer to that would be great um i think also i don't think data centers should be by right so i hope that in the future

[03:49:39] figure out a way to not have any by right it requires too much infrastructure as one building so thank you very much thank you ma'am tia ehrman followed by theo stomatis followed by john love grove good evening good evening supervisors my name is tia ehrman i'm speaking on behalf of the Piedmont Environmental Council this evening, we understand that the Board of Supervisors' hands are tied when it comes to by-right data center development. We understand the legalities involved with properties long slated for data center campuses, but we also understand that rezonings

[03:50:15] and special exceptions like this one, which double and triple the size of these by-right campuses, are very much within our legal rights to refuse. For the good of all Loudoun residents and all citizens, depending on an environmentally sustainable future, we ask you to stop approving these non-buyright additions, these legislative applications. That is what we mean by a pause, a pause to the supersizing of these energy giants. Would those in the audience behind me stand up if you agree, please? The Belmont Innovation Campus represents a watershed moment for Loudoun and our

[03:50:51] relationship with the data center industry. In recent years, data center rezonings to greatly enlarge their building envelope and special exceptions to nearly double their FAR have been somewhat standard. Our county has welcomed and encouraged the growth of this industry, a relationship which will continue and continue to bring revenue to our county. However, this unprecedented industry cluster has come with an unprecedented challenge to our county. The details of the looming energy crisis have only recently come to light and we are asking the county to pause additional legislative approvals, which deepen this crisis until the policy and zoning

[03:51:28] revisions that you have initiated are adopted. The data centers of Northern Virginia operating today use 2,800 megawatts, the equivalent of 700,000 homes. That's more than Prince William County and Loudoun combined. Statewide, the data centers approved awaiting construction will use 11,200 megawatts, 2.8 million homes. There's only 3.6 million homes in Virginia, y'all.

[03:51:52] The applications filed awaiting approval would use an astonishing 58,400 megawatts, that's 14.6 million homes, more homes than exist in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and London, England, combined. Supplying this demand has pushed our regional grid to the brink and is setting back the climate goals for our entire state and nation, negatively impacting the quality of life for all Virginia residents both now and in the future.

[03:52:20] Please pause discretionary approvals that supersize these giants and continue to supersize this crisis. Thank you, Ms. Ehrman. Theo Stamatis, followed by John Lovegrove, followed by Rachel Ellis. Good evening. Good evening, Madam Chair.

[03:52:37] My name is Theo Stamatis with the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce. On behalf of nearly 1,100 Loudoun employers that are Loudoun Chamber members, I'd like to express our thoughts on an organized effort to advocate for a pause on any data center approvals here in Loudoun County.

[03:52:54] Business leaders across all industry sectors are savvy and they weigh every risk before investing their capital into a community. We cannot allow Loudoun's reputation to be damaged as a business-friendly community in the millions of taxpayer dollars that have been invested in creating that positive image.

[03:53:12] Many of the large job creators in Northern Virginia have data centers in Loudoun and these companies employ thousands of Loudoun residents, which many of them do vote. This industry directly supports thousands of jobs in the trades and support services. The negative economic ripple effect, including jobs lost caused by even the contemplation of a pause on data center applications, will fall most heavily on the working class and small businesses.

[03:53:37] This also is a matter of fairness. Businesses that play by the rules, that comply with the county regulations, are here because the county aggressively welcomed their industry's growth in our community and shouldn't be subject to these calls to see their industry treated any less equitably than any other. We understand that much of the concern regarding the data center development relates to the impacts of the transmission power infrastructure on the community. The Loudoun Chamber shares those concerns and we are working with various stakeholders involved in one prominent power line project to ensure

[03:54:12] those concerns are heard. We also are working to ensure our community knows this power line project and others is driven by factors, including the decommissioning of coal-fired power plants that serve the electrical grid Aladdin as part of. Madam Chair, thank you for allowing me to speak this evening on behalf of the Aladdin Chamber.

[03:54:31] Thank you, Mr. Mosley. I appreciate it. Before the next speaker comes, before Mr. Lovegrove comes, I do want to just repeat that we are not legally allowed to consider a moratorium or a pause. We're just not legally allowed to do that. And so I just want to repeat, on the industry.

[03:54:50] We can take each application, application by application, but we cannot consider a pause on the industry. Thank you for coming, sir. You will be followed by Rachel Ellis and Bill Hatch. Hi, John Lovegrove, president of Loudoun's Future. I think it's irresponsible of staff not to look at the power requirement of this data center.

[03:55:11] It's not magic. We have about four gigawatts of power in Loudoun County. 600 megawatts is going to put a great deal of load on that 4 gigawatts. It doesn't magically appear in the county. It comes in on all those transmission lines that we count.

[03:55:29] I calculate about we're going to need about 12 gigawatts by 2030. That's four times the power, three times the power that we have now. That's a lot of transmission lines that are going to be coming in the future. And Dominion is obligated to provide that power, and they're going to build those transmission lines.

[03:55:47] It's a national security requirement, and we're not going to be able to stop them. They'll even overrule the state commission. So those power lines will be built. The only way you can stop them from being built is stopping the requirement for that power in Loudoun County.

[03:56:04] Stop digging a hole. This is not magic. If you allow the data center that you can stop by voting no for this to be built, you're going to ask for another 600 megawatts of power. I'm an engineer. It's really pretty simple math. I feel like we're being carefully stage managed up here for a yes vote.

[03:56:26] The place type that this thing is going to be built in is split between suburban employment and mineral extraction. We could just as easily split this or go to single zoning with what's called system SIME, which doesn't allow data centers by right.

[03:56:46] It's a conditional use. So I don't know why we're saying up here that it has to be suburban employment. So the answers I hear up here are all pointing to a yes vote, and they're really not correct answers.

[03:57:02] I don't understand why you're not considering power. That's a utility. That's one of the things we're supposed to be considering. If your lawyer is telling you that you shouldn't be considering new power, you need a new lawyer, because that is what we are dealing with here. We don't have enough power.

[03:57:17] We're going to have to bring it in on transmission lines from dirty coal plants in West Virginia. Carbon impact is going to be huge, and we continue to do this. It boggles my mind. I don't understand it, and I guess I never will. It's simple math. Do the math.

[03:57:34] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lovegrove. Rachel Ellis followed by Bill Hatch followed by Richard Remus. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Rachel Ellis, and I am a director with the Coalition to Protect Prince William County. I respectfully request that you reject the Belmont Innovation Data Center application.

[03:57:54] Residents and local government officials in northern Virginia know that we are headed towards a power grid issue with all the data center approvals. Let's be clear. The power, thank you. Let's be clear. The power demand is due to one industry and one industry only. Residents are already feeling the impacts of additional transmission lines and substations to power what has previously been approved.

[03:58:16] it is reckless governing to continue to approve data centers without knowing the full impacts of where this electricity will come from. According to a Washington Post article dated March 10, 2024, Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction.

[03:58:35] It continues with, the situation is sparking battles across the nation over who will pay for new power supplies, with regulators worrying the residential rate payers could be stuck with the bill for costly upgrades. It also threatens to stifle the transition to cleaner energy as utility executives lobby to delay the retirement of fossil fuel plants and bring more online.

[03:58:56] The power crunch imperils their ability to supply the energy that will be needed to charge the millions of electric cars and household appliances required to meet state and federal clinicals. The same article notes that while the proliferation of data centers puts more pressure on states to approve new transmission lines, it also complicates the task. Officials in Maryland, for example, are protesting a plan for $5.2 billion in infrastructure that would transmit power to huge data centers in Loudoun County, Virginia. The Maryland Office of People's Council, a government agency that advocates for rate payers, called grid operator

[03:59:33] PJM's plan fundamentally unfair, arguing that it would leave Maryland utility customers paying for power transmission to data centers that Virginia aggressively courted and is leveraging for a windfall in tax revenue. The choices made here in Loudoun County are impacting residents throughout Virginia and Maryland as well as West Virginia.

[03:59:53] We are all subsidizing the cost of bringing electricity to one multi-billion dollar industry, not only financially but also with our quality of life. The wealthiest corporations in the world are breaking our power grid and our local and state leaders are complicit in ignoring this threat.

[04:00:11] Please reject the data center application for Belmont Innovation. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Bill Hatch, followed by Richard Ramis, followed by Mark Ludo. Good evening. Good evening, Chair. Good evening, Board. This is Loudoun County's chance to influence our future, both the county and the globe.

[04:00:37] I acknowledge that we need data. We love data. It's on everybody's life. We're all using it all the time. Loudoun County simply will not have the power, enough power. Power companies are required by law to supply the power whenever the demand is there.

[04:00:55] Where is this power coming from? Well, a lot of this power is coming from coal plants in West Virginia. We've heard this. And they're coming on transmission lines that are going to permanently scar Western Loudoun. We know that.

[04:01:11] And there are alternatives. The alternatives are advanced conductors. And we'll hear a lot more about that in the future. We can do this without building any more power lines. I really regret that the applicant just hit the wrong time to let everybody know that we just don't have enough power.

[04:01:33] And so I have the same idea that other people, I would like you to deny this because I know you can't pause it and probably reapply once we figure out where the power is coming from. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hatch. Richard Rimes, followed by Mark Ludov, followed by Avis Rinshaw.

[04:01:53] Good evening, sir. Hi, I'm Richard Rasmus of Hamilton, Virginia, and I'm representing the Loudoun's Future PAC. We're not here to demonize the Belmont Innovation Campus proposal or data centers in general, but we do urge that you not support this data center application that requires special exceptions and or zoning amendments until state and county data center research and planning processes are complete by the end of 2025. Without repeating what others have said tonight about the burdens

[04:02:28] that data centers are imposing on their neighbors or the strain they're putting on electric grids, we're only asking that you tap on the brakes now that the danger of a crash ahead is becoming apparent. Voting this application down tonight would not prevent the applicant from building a very large center and profitable center on the land that they own that is owned for the purpose.

[04:02:56] We do believe, we do not believe it would prevent the developer from being able to afford the accommodations they've offered to the neighbors. Even at the reduced square footage, this project alone would add approximately 10 percent to the Loudoun County data center footprint, which is already the world's largest by a factor of two. Nor would denying data center zoning amendments and special exceptions stop the growth of data centers in Loudoun that are already approved a pipeline that will grow by another third if and when Dominion is able to build enough

[04:03:32] transmission lines and substations to support them. We understand and honor property rights, capitalism, and the usefulness to society data centers. We recognize that the Board of Supervisors hands are tied with respect to slowing the growth of data centers on land that's already zoned for this purpose. While data center growth continues at an accelerating pace and largely out of the board's control, we are simply asking the board deny this zoning amendment and special exception

[04:04:03] until two things happen. One is the state study of data center impacts that's due for 2025 and And the other is the zoning amendment rewrite that would be led by T-Luck Chairman Turner, which will be very useful to the board in considering this and similar requests for zoning amendments and special exceptions.

[04:04:30] Thank you, sir. Thank you. Mark Ludo, followed by Avis Renshaw, followed by Emily Southgate. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Mark Lotto. I'm sorry. I live in, it's okay, don't worry, no one gets it right. I live nearby in Belmont Country Club, and everybody that's spoken here so far has really been very eloquent in their points of contention against the project, and I have to agree with them.

[04:05:02] I think the board has an obligation to its citizens to not approve the increase in the size. We recognize the rules for a by-right development. We understand that. But to continue to dig the hole deeper and have larger and larger facilities is just not right.

[04:05:23] And there is a backlash coming. You can see it. You see, it's 10 o'clock at night. These people need to be in bed. They're here for a reason. We're all here for a reason. We want to be heard. We ask that we be heard.

[04:05:40] And again, I think this can be a very profitable development for the proposer at the million square feet that's by right. Enough is enough. And just to close a point, I want to finish.

[04:05:56] There was a question, Supervisor Sainz, regarding approval or somehow consensus by the adjacent HOAs. And I can show you the letter I have here. The HOA does not speak on behalf, the board of directors does not speak on behalf of the HOA members.

[04:06:18] So if there's a perception that Belmont Community Association approves this development, we have to disagree with that. I do thank you for your time. Thank you for your service to the county. You're wrestling with a very difficult problem.

[04:06:35] I don't envy you what you're up against, but we have to wrestle with it. we have to come to grips with this and come up with a solution that recognizes the rights of the developer and the rights of the citizens. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Avis Renshaw, followed by Emily Southgate, followed by Neil Larrabee. Good evening. Good evening. Happy Pi Day, everybody.

[04:06:59] We're on Pi Day Eve here. If you don't approve the size beyond the right, beyond the by right data centers, you will incur less future power energy needs. It's a big problem. It's been written about in the New York Times recently. The Washington Post had a big thing. Energy is a big issue. I feel very disjointed. This is such a huge problem. It's such a huge deal, energy in Virginia. We have a state legislature that on the one hand wants to preserve tree canopy, and then

[04:07:36] the same people are trying to advocate for massive solar and denying localities the right to regulate that. Don't they know how many acres of trees are being cut down? How much canopy is being removed for the solar? As far as the solar on this project, it sounds really nice, but it's a damn drop in the bucket. It's just silly to even talk about that. I'm thrilled with it. I love solar. Industrially, it doesn't make sense in this part of the country. The thought of going to a park in the shadow of a looming, monstrous data center is incredibly dystopian to me.

[04:08:11] It feels like a scene out of a Japanese anime. I don't know why that is a big deal and why people are paying attention to that. I'm distraught that Virginia is mandating all this clean power with putting solar fields everywhere. And do you realize that if they put as many solar fields as they want. It would take up over 30% of farmland because that's who's going to get it. We always get the business end of things, whether it's developing houses or putting big

[04:08:45] infrastructure. It's farmland that's going to be affected because we're easy to build on. And as a farmer, that's what I've got to care about a lot. I would suggest denying beyond the buy right. And taxes are pretty cheap here. They're half what my daughter has to pay in upstate New York. Half.

[04:09:07] That's a lot. I like the data centers we have. We don't need any more. Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Renshaw. Emily Southgate, followed by Neal Larrabee, followed by Dorner Trantor. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Emily Southgate. I'm president of the Piedmont chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society, and I'm speaking for that chapter and also for myself as a Loudoun County resident.

[04:09:35] We applaud the applicant for the natural resource protection plans that they've included in this application. However, this just points to inadequacies in the county's requirements for construction of these and probably other large facilities. What's proposed in order to increase the size of the structures should be required without that.

[04:09:56] In other words, what the applicant is offering in terms of natural resource protection should not enable them to expand the building beyond what is allowed by current zoning, but should be part of the basic requirements. While we are concerned with the location of transmission lines, not only on this property but elsewhere in the county, to carry electricity to feed the data centers, we're also concerned with the assumption that it's all right to just expand energy needs way beyond current usage.

[04:10:25] The county is making significant efforts to improve energy efficiency, to decrease their carbon footprint. However, as long as there continues to be this significant increase in the data center development, using current technology, the improvements being made in other sectors, such as transportation and building codes, are dwarfed by the demand to the data centers.

[04:10:49] Much of this energy, of course, as we've heard, is coming from, like, coal-fired plants and so on anyway. so that's a problem and that bothers us because we are devoted to conserving native plants and native habitats and as climate changes that becomes a big problem. As a final point, I'd say that perhaps if the data centers were required to pay for the improvements needed to provide all of this energy instead of distributing this cost to all of the residents, everyone who's using the power, they would have adequate incentive to find more energy efficient ways to store data.

[04:11:22] So we encourage you to reject this application, and I hope that you'll be able to devise plans that would treat future data centers more strictly and concerned about the energy use, as everyone has been saying.

[04:11:41] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Neil Larrabee, followed by Dorna Traynor, followed by Reverend Gene Wright. Good evening. I would like to address the energy needs. and follow up on the solar energy.

[04:12:02] In Northern Virginia, there are 99.4 million square feet of those under construction, and those already constructed, and those that are planned. 99.4 million square feet of data centers.

[04:12:18] It would take 47 square miles of solar panels, and it would take the state of Rhode Island for wind. So I just wanted to get that out there first. The Belmont Data Centre, as proposed by SDC Capital Partners, may be considered a hyperscale campus due to its enormity.

[04:12:37] As such, it will employ sophisticated cloud management and consume upwards of 870 megawatts. Add to that power requirements of the 7.6 million square feet of data centres in Loudoun under construction, the fact that energy-guzzling AI chips will inevitably come into the mix, and the advent of electric vehicles.

[04:13:00] It is very arguable that the current proposed and scrutinized transmission lines may not only turn out to be inadequate, but be destined for obsolescence. The solution for this and similar power issues is being addressed aggressively and globally as data industry giants compete to fulfill their respective AI missions.

[04:13:24] Both state and federal governments have recently passed a legislature to promote research and or to expedite the licensing of newer, safe, and green nuclear reactors, some of which recycle nuclear waste. China already has one up, running, and connected to its power grid.

[04:13:44] Pairos in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is expecting its prototype to be built by 2026 and online in 2030. Is it not worth the wait and engaging in long-term strategic planning in order to avoid decimating Virginia's local economies, uprooting citizens, and permanently ruining our state's coveted bucolic environment in order to accommodate hundreds of miles, literally hundreds of miles, of 500 kilovolt transmission towers and also at the cost of upwards of $3 to $5 billion.

[04:14:23] Members of this board. Sir, thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Thank you very much. Reverend Jean Wright. Is that who I had next? Yes.

[04:14:39] Reverend Jean Wright. I'm sorry. That's right. I'm sorry. There was another person. No, it was Dorna Traynor. Thank you. I'm sorry. That is correct. And that will be followed by Reverend Jean Wright and then Trinity Mills. All right. So my name is Dorna Tainter from Waterford, and I'm here to urge you to vote no on the special exception for the Belmont Innovation Campus.

[04:15:02] The transmission lines through Western Loudoun will take my farm and my livelihood, and all those transmission lines feed into the same grid. that's my backyard but this is no longer a not my backyard issue it's true that the applicant has offered wonderful environmental protections it is also true that the cost of continuing to allow special exceptions is too high you are very clear that you cannot stop or slow down data center approvals but you can stop allowing special exceptions right now zoning is your jurisdiction

[04:15:40] you have all the power here considering data center applications on an application by application basis is producing catastrophic results so i struggle to understand how you bear no responsibility for the cumulative effects of your decisions thank you thank you reverend gene wright followed by trinity mills followed by josh levy good evening good evening chairman randall and board of supervisors thank you for this public hearing on the belmont innovation

[04:16:17] Campus Data Center application. I'm Reverend Jean Wright, Chair of Friends Acting for Climate Today and co-founder of the Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions. Chairman Randall and supervisors, I'm asking that you vote no on the Belmont Innovation Campus application or alternatively vote to pause, not an end to this, but vote to pause action on the application. Why? Because we do not have enough information about data center impacts on the energy grid nor the environmental

[04:16:54] ecosystem and public health consequences. You have likely seen the front page Washington Post article published Sunday, March 24th, entitled Amid Explosive Demand, America is Running Out of Power. In fact, the Post states that, quote, Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction, end quote. We know the chances of that happening are almost zero, and if it did, it would take

[04:17:31] decades and decades. Alarmingly, Dominion Energy has shared with the State Corporation Commission that it's unable to meet the Virginia Clean Energy Act's requirement of net zero carbon by 2045 due to the energy demands of the data centers.

[04:17:49] As you prepare to vote this evening, please think of what this means for future generations. The State Assembly, due to the number of data center bills introduced in the 2024 session, has paused action on the bills until the 2025 Assembly due to their felt need for more information.

[04:18:11] They have tasked the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee, JLARC, with doing a data center study to provide them the needed information for an informed vote. Like the Commonwealth, Loudoun County must know more about the impact of data centers by voting no tonight on the Belmont Innovation Campus application or like the General Assembly taking a pause on voting until the JLARC study is released.

[04:18:39] You will have the opportunity for a more informed vote, a vote based on greater clarity related to new data center construction. Reverend Wright. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Trinity Mills, followed by Josh Levy, followed by Patricia Logey. Good evening. Hi, I'm Trinity Mills, the Conservation Advocacy Specialist for Loud and Wild Life Conservancy. I'm speaking tonight regarding the application for Belmont Innovation Campus, asking, as many have this evening, that you pause further legislative approvals for data centers beginning with this application. We at Loud and Wild Life

[04:19:18] acknowledge that the applicant has included in the application more environmental elements than other data centers in the county. It is certainly commendable that this application goes above and beyond the minimum environmental protections required by the board in creative ways. That being said, even these benefits do not outweigh the collective damage that would be done by the approval of this application. Even under the adherence to the applicant's self-imposed FAR maximum, an additional million square feet will increase the footprint of this data center significantly. This much additional square footage, and therefore server capacity, will have a greater contribution to the county's power problem and its implications, including greater stress on the grid

[04:19:56] and decreased green space from the construction of additional transmission lines. The latter implication is being seen even within the application itself in the form of infringement upon our state scenic river of Goose Creek. Transmission lines require that are proposed along Goose Creek compromise the applicant's stated buffer and further endanger wildlife.

[04:20:19] Belmont Innovation's location along Goose Creek disrupts the more than 100 acres of contiguous habitat and would subsequently cause the loss of one of Eastern Loudoun's last ecological cores, as designated by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. We understand that this application is nuanced.

[04:20:37] This case is unique for multiple reasons, one of which is that the portion of parcel on which this data center can be constructed by right still has the potential to include such appealing and innovative environmental protections which go above and beyond what is required, setting an example for other data centers.

[04:20:55] Just like you, as the board, have an opportunity tonight to set an example to your constituents by continually making the decision which contributes less to the exacerbation of Loudoun County's power problem. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Mills, you're speaking on behalf of Loudoun Wildlife. Okay, thank you.

[04:21:12] Josh Levy, followed by Patricia Logie, followed by Benjamin Wynn. Josh Levy, are you here? Mr. Levy, going once, going twice? No? Okay. Patricia Logie, followed by Benjamin Winn, followed by Susan Harrison.

[04:21:31] Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall and members of the board. Thanks very much. Thank you, Chair, for clarifying that you can't hit a pause on an industry. That was very helpful. I agree with the speakers tonight who are asking you to do precisely that with at least this application.

[04:21:53] I sent you a letter earlier today, and my prime concern is what this overall issue is doing to the cost of land overall in our county. It's an artificial market force that's making a data center be the number one best use for all of our land, not just this parcel, but all of our land.

[04:22:16] And that's a problem. That's a problem that together we need to fix. You know, Ms. Renshaw mentioned that her daughter has much higher taxes living in upstate New York. I would hope that you see by the way you were elected, reelected, in every case except Supervisor Ticorny, that, you know, Loudoun trusts you.

[04:22:43] The people in this county do trust you. They just reelected you. Ask us to cooperate with you to help you resolve some of these really complex issues. Higher taxes shouldn't scare us if the alternative is that we've got out-of-control energy growth.

[04:23:03] You know, trust us that we can have that conversation and that we will work with you to find a solution. It's not all on your backs. Let us carry the load with you. Thank you.

[04:23:20] Benjamin Wynn, followed by Susan Harrison, followed by John Cunningham. Good evening, sir. Thank you, Madam Chairman. For the Goose Creek Scenic River Advisory Committee, and we are in support of the application still. This developer worked very closely with us at every step of the way.

[04:23:40] And we feel that the creek is going to benefit by the application. There's the additional buffer that they're offering beyond the 300-foot mandatory that we do not see up at the Vantage site, just to the north, nor on the Twin Creek side.

[04:24:00] We wish we could have that, but we won't. This one is very valuable to us because in addition to just being an additional buffer, it will help decrease the visibility of the power lines that do have to run through this property to get to Vantage, which is a site that's already well under construction.

[04:24:23] Further, we're going to have access by county parks to the creek, and likely a trail along the creek, which will increase the recreational value of the creek, which we support. And they're agreeing to preserve the historic area down on the creek and to do water quality monitoring.

[04:24:47] And all of this is something that we're very big on. As to Dominion Power, they have also worked very closely with us to explain their process, what they have to do, and listen to us as to what we would like from them.

[04:25:04] The route they have chosen, we feel, is the least intrusive route that could have been picked for this property, particularly to the vantage site. Lastly, I do want to speak out, when I offer these observations, it's not just because I serve on the committee and I study a lot of things.

[04:25:22] I actually live in the house between the Twin Creeks sign and the site, so I'm just a little HOA all alone down there. So I don't live adjacent to the wildlife buffer. I live in it. So I can tell you the wildlife is very resilient, despite what Vantage has done and what Twin Creeks has done, and that the additional buffer that Belmont is offering will be a great benefit to the wildlife.

[04:25:51] Anna, thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Susan Harrison, followed by John Cunningham, followed by Chris Tandy. Good evening. Chairman Randall, members of the board, my name is Susan Claiborne Harrison. I'm a longtime county resident with three businesses that we own.

[04:26:13] One's a development company, the other's a farm and an ice cream business. My husband was born and raised here in Leesburg. We have countless projects that we have worked on to get completed, golf courses, clubhouses, housing developments, and the county's first hamlet.

[04:26:30] Regional malls, I've worked on the regional jail here when I worked with the county. Data centers, yes, we have helped build those. Metro parking garages. As a veteran of 30 plus years of development work experience in the county and in the northern Virginia area, we are now faced with the complex issue of the power supply to our data centers in this region.

[04:26:55] We just need to address the disconnect between the Loudoun County's appetite for digital infrastructure and against the ability to provide adequate power without severely damaging resources that are vital to our county. Right now, there are power projects implemented that will traverse regional parks, the Waterford National Landmark, journey through hallowed ground, large blocks of conservation easement properties, and we will lose a lot of agricultural-based tourism in this county.

[04:27:29] I'm here to press to have this application denied. They can still, you know, build their buy-write size of a data center, but we just need to kind of try to discuss and work forward so that we can deliver the power load increases, maybe go with advanced composite core conductors through the existing right-of-ways.

[04:28:00] that would certainly alleviate some of the problems. And these composite core lines carry twice the power, and they're lighter weight lines with less of a loss of power and less sagging. The technology's already been deployed.

[04:28:18] So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. John Cunningham, followed by Chris Tandy, followed by John Ellis. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Madam Chairman, members of the board.

[04:28:35] My name's John Cunningham. I've been a 20-year resident of Loudoun. Luckily, I live out near Lovettsville, pretty part of the world. Actually, maybe the prettiest part. I've heard a lot of comments tonight that made me think that, I know you can't do a pause, but you could deny because this doesn't fit within the buy right size. And that lends us an ability to step back and perhaps have some of these studies that are going on within your group and within the state take place. I just want to add another point. I don't know if you're familiar with something

[04:29:12] called Davos, Switzerland. It's an annual get-together with all the leaders, main leaders of the world, and the big Fortune 500, or actually Fortune 1000 companies, they get together and they talk about what is the most important thing that they're dealing with. They had two issues this year, but the second issue got trumped and thrown away. That was AI. That's all they talked about.

[04:29:39] That's all you're going to hear on all the business stations, like CNBC and Fox Business. They're going to talk about the size of the problem, which is every one of these companies feels they need AI processing.

[04:29:59] And they're all sending it all up into the cloud, which is now being supported by these data centers. So it is a huge problem. It's a tsunami that's coming. And you could build power lines every 20 miles across the Blue Ridge from here down the state to try to solve the problem.

[04:30:16] And it won't be. It's going to require some out-of-the-box thinking, like these SMRs that are coming, small modular reactors. I don't know if you're familiar with that. I know the governor of our state is familiar with what's going on. That's not going to solve our problem today, but it certainly will down the road.

[04:30:34] So thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Chris Tandy, followed by John Ellis, followed by Marr Wash Copeland. Good evening. Greetings, Supervisors. I'm Chris. I'm here today as president of Loudon Climate Project, not as representative of any other group that I might work with.

[04:30:51] Loudon Climate Project is a small nonprofit entirely composed of Loudon residents dedicated to the education of climate concerns and a member of the Data Center Reform Coalition. We're opposed to the zoning change for Belmont because we're opposed to increases in fossil fuel-based energy production cited as necessary to provide energy for continued data center development in northern Virginia.

[04:31:11] There isn't enough energy for all these data centers. If Virginia is to hit its greenhouse gas emissions targets under the Virginia Clean Economy Act, Dominion is forecasting that peak load will double by 2035, and the reason is data centers.

[04:31:27] Residential, commercial, and industrial are either flat or trending downward. Dominion is planning on using natural gas and delayed coal plant retirements to address that increased demand, as well as drawing energy from outside our area via the PJM grid. They're building the Chesterfield natural gas peaking plant, which is in direct conflict with the Virginia Clean Economy Act, as we're supposed to be moving away from fossil fuels.

[04:31:51] First Energy, which contributes energy to the PJM grid, announced that they were abandoning their 2030 climate goal and delaying retirement of two coal-fired power plants in West Virginia, the Fort Martin and Harrison coal plants. Those coal plants are now forecasted to stay online until 2035 and 2040, respectively, and are directly tied to resource allocation for data centers in North Virginia.

[04:32:13] We know you can't control what neighboring counties or the state corporation commission do, but we're asking you to do what you can to control the growth of data center industry and subsequent power load growth within our county because Virginia meeting its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets needs to be a priority.

[04:32:29] Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Tandy. John Ellis, followed by Maura Walsh-Copeland, followed by Cheryl Harper. Good evening, Mr. Good evening again. And again, I'm representing Saverall Loudon. We are agreeing with all but two of the previous speakers that we would strongly encourage you not to approve special exceptions and rezonings for this application.

[04:32:59] The data is unclear. We've been sort of looking at a moving target here. But one thing is certain that if you vote to approve this application, you will be voting for more power lines, higher utility rates, higher electricity rates for all of us, for higher real estate values in the county, which are a problem for other businesses.

[04:33:27] As Mr. Hanna pointed out, this is a big challenge for the diversification of our economy. The state and the county have already decided that we need to look at this very carefully and look at the cumulative impacts of what's coming and plan accordingly.

[04:33:47] So this is not, as other speakers have said, this is not the time to be approving anything above by right development. Thank you. Thank you. Mara Walsh Copeland followed by Cheryl Harper followed by Morris Meyer. Good evening. I'm Mara Walsh Copeland with some March 13th lessons.

[04:34:10] Spring cleaning the box this morning, I found this, an annotated copy of the zoning ordinance to prepare questions for a meeting with Charles Yudd, Zoning Administrator Melinda Artman, B&D Mike Siegfried, and Linda Erbs on March 13, 2003.

[04:34:29] Staff response to questions was, the county does not have a crystal ball and can only enforce restrictions for applications actually submitted. The March 13th lesson was Q&A confirmed the authority of the board to maintain land use controls through the zoning ordinance.

[04:34:45] In the box were also comments made in March 2009 saying the board should not make decisions without having the right expertise on staff. 30 years ago, in a past life BC, before children, I project managed MCI's global network management platform.

[04:35:03] From engineers, I learned their lead times for network forecasting. Loudoun staff or ESI may not have the expertise for full data center application review, but they should. March 13th, four years ago today, the world shut down to COVID-19.

[04:35:19] While staff was occupied, I accessed county data and GIS mapping using data center locations and parcels as first exercises. The March 13th lessons show, number one, if I could map Loudoun data centers from home during COVID, I guarantee you industry engineers could do the same or better.

[04:35:42] There's no way the energy issues we're seeing now were not forecasted by industry five years ago. Number two, Loudoun should hold off on improving applications until it has the expertise on staff or ESI to review all the impacts of data centers, including power.

[04:35:59] And, number three, you don't need a crystal ball for the Belmont Innovation application. You know what the impacts are. I learned 21 years ago that the zoning ordinance then and the one you approved in December gives you the power you need.

[04:36:15] It wasn't the Hippocratic Oath you took in January, but it was an oath for the stewardship of the county, which means you do, as a board, have the power to do no more harm. Please use that power tonight. Thank you.

[04:36:32] Cheryl Harper, followed by Morris Meyer, followed by John Ebersole. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Cheryl Harper, and I live in Leesburg in the Little River District in the Red Cedar, Hamlet's at Red Cedar neighborhood. I'm just going to make it short since so many people have echoed a lot of my feelings and sentiments, but I'm asking you to deny the application for the expansion of the Belmont Innovation Data Center.

[04:36:57] The proposal is too big and impactful for the location of the banks of Goose Creek, which is an important water source the proposal is also too large scale which is equal to the size of 16 walmart super centers furthermore adding more square footage means more power consumption it puts pressure on our already strange energy grid and many residents like me are concerned about the heavy transmission lines which are going to run through the county because we already don't have enough power and actually those um the transmission lines are going to be pretty close to my neighborhood so we're pretty

[04:37:35] I'm worried about that off close to Evergreen Mills Road or runs through it. Also, the infrastructure is expensive, and it's asking the residents of Loudoun, in the end, to be on the hook for paying for it. Loudoun has been the global leader on data center development, but it has grown so dramatically that Loudoun must also become the global leader on addressing the cumulative impacts on our community's environment and climate.

[04:38:00] Please vote no to the Belmont rezoning application. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Morris Meyer, followed by John Ebersole, followed by Julie Boathouse. Hi, my name is Morris Meyer.

[04:38:15] I'm the chair of the Sustainable Energy Standing Committee for the Loudoun County Environmental Commission. I am a senior power systems architect for the third largest battery storage and renewable developer in the world. I'm speaking on behalf of myself tonight.

[04:38:32] There's been a lot of very good comments. I think in summary, the decisions by the board on the STIAs are much faster than the energy system can be built. Transmission lines take 10 years to 20 years.

[04:38:50] Power plants take 2 to 5 years. Nuclear power plants are 5 to 10 years, which is optimistic. And so the load that's coming in is essentially the size of the Leesburg gas power plant.

[04:39:06] Okay, so think of this in terms of how long it would take to build another gas power plant to firm up the load here on this site. In terms of the electrical grid, we've got the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.

[04:39:22] We've got the data centers. We've got Dominion and Novec. And then on top of that, we've got the Regional Transmission Organization, or the PJM. And on top of that is FERC for electricity markets and NERC for electrical system reliability.

[04:39:38] And so what the PJM has said, which are basically they model the transmission that has to come in on behalf of Dominion and Novec. What they've said is that voltage violations are observed in N minus zero conditions.

[04:39:54] And that's industry speak for saying we don't have any backup in case the load expands beyond what we have. Additionally, they said fictitious reactive power is needed to solve power system modeling, which means they're kind of fudging their homework.

[04:40:11] We're in a position where they've gone off beyond the edge of the earth and that heavy regional transfers will require reinforcement to support regional transfers. I've heard it on good authority that Dominion has told the data centers that they won't be able to firm up the load into 2026.

[04:40:33] So we are at the risk of brownouts and blackouts. And if we approve this data center, we will be forced to have the DEQ variants and run diesel generation in summer peaks and winter peaks, which is, you know, there's a...

[04:40:51] I'm sorry. That's okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. John Ebersole, followed by Julie Bolthouse. And then we're going to go and do the four people who signed up in advance online, which is the first person is Scott Brainard.

[04:41:08] Good evening. Hi, good evening. Lifelong resident of Loudoun. My name is John Ebersole. I just wanted to come up and echo a lot of the things that I've heard. And also, I think that we need to kind of take down the market, so to speak, or, you know, re-evaluate the market forces here.

[04:41:28] You've had numerous people come before the board, developers and whatnot, who have, you know, said how hard it is to enter the Loudoun market competing for land with data centers. So it's something, you know, we're becoming heavily reliant on one industry.

[04:41:46] So I think at some point we got to, you know, re-evaluate everything. I personally think data centers should be a special exception when the ZOAM gets completed going forward.

[04:42:02] Because, you know, you all say affordable housing is important to you all. You just have a major national housing developer sold out their parcel for $180 million. Who can compete against that?

[04:42:18] Not very many people. So I just wanted to make that point and obviously echo all the power concerns. It's a major issue, and it's not going away anytime soon. It's only getting worse. So at some point, we have to draw the line in the sand, and I think this is the application to do it with.

[04:42:38] There's no compelling reason to approve this special exception. They should be able to get their buy right, and that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ebersole. Julie Boathouse, and then we will go to the web or the remote, it'll be Scott Baynard and John Barth. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Julie Bolthouse, Leesburg resident and land use director with Piedmont Environmental Council. I'm here tonight to ask you to deny the Belmont Innovation Campus. As the old adage goes, when you find yourself in a

[04:43:15] hole, stop digging. Loudoun is in a hole, an unprecedented situation with the largest data center hub in the world and the fastest growing market here. There is no other place to look to see what they did. Everyone is looking to us as they start to run into their own challenges with this exploding industry. The scale of the data center development we are looking at today is much larger. It's happening much faster and it's using much more power. We have to adjust our policies and our regulations to match this new paradigm. You have to stop somewhere. Someone's

[04:43:52] investment is not going to be quite as profitable as they hoped. We cannot continue to increase the square footage of these proposals. Along the Goose Creek, a state scenic river is not the place for a data center, let alone an expansion. A new Leesburg hub is starting here and is going to become another data center alley with all the electrical infrastructure that entails. The more you approve, the more substations, transmission lines you will get, and the more attractive it will be to more data center development. A million square feet here, a million square feet there

[04:44:25] adds up. A Walmart super center is about 180,000 square feet. This application is asking for the equivalent of eight Walmart super centers with diesel storage, with 200 generators, with 400 megawatts, my estimates, and two substations. When did that become a small thing? We can't keep doing this. No more increases, no more rezonings. This is the time to stop digging and start climbing out of the hole. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bonehouse. Scott Brainerd, followed

[04:45:04] by John Barth, followed by Mayvers Tainter. Thank you so much. I hope you can hear me. I can hear you just fine, sir. Scott Brainerd. Great. My name is Scott Brainerd. I live in Lovettsville. And as Chair Randall opened this meeting by saying I look like all of Loudoun County is here tonight. I'm not here to see if that's the case, but if so, I stand with about 99% of Loudoun County in opposing this application. I'm represented by Supervisor Kirshner, so I'll comment around a statement he made regarding the NextEra power

[04:45:40] line at the last work session, where he stated that the power line is coming. We have a seven-year build-out in our data center industry that's pretty much approved, so I think the focus on approving no more data centers is not going to stop the demand for power. And from a certain perspective, that's true. I certainly hope the next area power line is not data complete, but clearly, whether you approve or deny the specific application, there's still going to be a massive demand for power in Loudoun. And this arises from what Chair Randall highlighted in our opening remarks, the demand to provide power to whatever people build, and the power demands of what

[04:46:17] developers have built were not fully calculated or understood when zoning rules for data centers were last revised. So now we're in this, and we have to take extreme measures like building a 500 kilovolt line through Catoctin, something that everybody, including Supervisor Kirshner, has stated that they vehemently oppose. But if you take the logic that no one single data center has created this crisis, well, you can apply that to literally every single data center considered in isolation. And if you do that, you can justify the next 1 million square feet of data centers because that alone won't represent the entire problem. And in five to 10 years, we'll be faced

[04:46:57] with another 500 kilovolt power line that we're told is regrettable, but inevitable. So that's the logic that got us into this mess. The obvious first step upon realizing that we are in this crisis that we did not fully anticipate is to stop voluntarily approving developers' applications to more than double their square footage.

[04:47:19] There are subsequent steps, like revisiting the overarching zoning regulations around data centers, weighing costs in the tax code that will be much more challenging, but that's not the decision that's in front of you tonight. Tonight it's very simple. If you recognize the energy crisis that our over-reliance on data centers has put us and are now thrilled by the prospect of building power lines through farmer's fields, you should vote against an application that represents a perpetuation of that crisis.

[04:47:46] Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Thank you. John Barth, followed by Mavis Tainter, followed by Peggy LeGrand. My name is John Barth, and I represent the Audubon Society of North Virginia.

[04:48:01] The interest of the society is birds and the issues that affect their well-being. Bird populations are declining, and a major factor is the loss of habitat, which is occurring in a decentralized and fragmented way so that the cumulative effect often escapes our attention.

[04:48:22] The proposed site of the Belmont Innovation Campus is a few open spaces remaining in eastern Aladdin County. Its conversion to a data center will be one more incremental step in the eradication of spaces where birds and other wildlife thrive.

[04:48:38] It's estimated that data centers currently account for 22% of the demand for electricity in Virginia. The Belmont Council will make a significant addition to that demand. A recent article in the Washington Post examined the growth in demand for electric power to meet the needs of data centers and AI.

[04:49:02] It presented data from Dominion Energy's Integrated Resource Plan showing that by 2040, data centers and other commercial users are predicted to account for nearly 70 percent of the demand for electricity in Virginia.

[04:49:19] And finally, the society is concerned about the significant use of water by data centers. Last summer's moderate drought conditions led local water utilities to consider water use restrictions. Given our lack of good information about how the water needs of data centers will affect its availability to residents, We feel this also should be an area of concern.

[04:49:45] Just as we are losing habitat for birds in an incremental, uncoordinated and almost invisible way, the expansion of data centers is happening in a similar fashion. We do not have adequate information about how the data centers and the infrastructure needed to support them will affect our region in terms of habitat loss, air quality, and the availability of critical resources such as electricity and water.

[04:50:15] We believe requests to expand data centers in our region should not be approved until such information is available to public officials and the public. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mavis Tainter, followed by Peggy LeGrand, followed by...

[04:50:33] Oh, my gosh. Okay, let's go with those two first, and then I found my stack of everybody else. Oh, here we go. Okay. Hi, Mrs. Tanger. Can you hear me? We can hear you just fine, ma'am. Okay. So, Mrs. Tanger, I have two asks for tonight.

[04:50:52] One is a moratorium on future data center requests for everything that is not by right. A second request is to please vote no to the Belmont data center request for special exceptions, zoning changes, and all future grandfathering.

[04:51:12] I'll speak about the collateral damage from these data centers, which is pretty much power needs and the power lines and the way we get power to the data centers. In Eastern Loudoun, collateral damage is upzoning, new substations, power grids, enhanced power lines, etc.

[04:51:33] In Western Loudoun, the collateral damage is catastrophic. Houses will be condemned and they will be torn down. Farms, their large working buildings, will be condemned and torn down.

[04:51:51] Small businesses will have much lower revenues coming in. When we look at going ahead and proposing more data, please keep in mind the collateral damage that so many residents of Loudoun County are going to have to live with over the next few years.

[04:52:11] Thank you very much, and I appreciate all the hard work you all do for us every day. Bye. Thank you, Ms. Tainter. Peggy LeGrand, followed by Teresa. I can't really read the handwriting.

[04:52:27] I apologize. It might be Quartz or Quartz. I think it looks like a G-H-I-O-R-Z-I. that's what that's what it looks like but we have one more person who's um who's who's on the webex or i'm sorry the remote peggy legrand right yes okay hi can you hear me we can hear you just fine okay perfect um thank you madam chair for allowing me to speak um i am a resident of loudon count

[04:53:01] i live off of canby road um which is infamous for uh keeping it dirt this past fall um and now we are facing a giant electrical grid coming through or power lines coming through our neighborhood. In addition to opposing the expansion of the permit at Belmont, I just encourage you guys to consider. I know you can't stop what's already zoned, but please

[04:53:36] reconsider continuing to approve further zoning. It's sort of like when you get one tattoo, and you're like, wow, this looks really cool, but now you've got tattoos all over your body, and it maybe doesn't look so cool anymore. You can't hide it. That's how I feel like the current approach with data centers are, is now Loudoun County is the tattooed man, and, you know, we can't laser them off. In addition, I also help run a large business in the county that also

[04:54:08] consumes water and electricity. And as the data centers expand, we're coming up, we're having to face our own challenges in cutting our own water. And as water becomes consumed more by the data centers, that might put us out, cut into the opportunity for us to meet our customers' demands as well. So please vote no on extending this expansion of the permit. Thank you.

[04:54:39] Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. I am now fearful that the media is going to now refer to Loudon as the tattooed man. We do not want that. We have, I think, from my count, we have 14 more speakers.

[04:54:57] Teresa? Yes. Okay. You will be followed by Anthony, gosh, the, it's just, it's just a little bit, Viv Ferlio and Greg Davis. Yes. Good evening. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Teresa Giorzi. I'm in Lovitzville. I'm opposed to the rezoning of any and all of the parcels beyond the existing parcel that has a by-right development for the data center of 1.3 million square feet no absolutely no to any additional acreage to build additional data centers no to

[04:55:33] the belmont cove rezoning and its proposed exemption to reduce the setback requirements in 75 feet to 35 feet no to the height increases please reject the zoning request by the belmont innovation campus to rezone the 84 acres as well as the special exemptions to increase the potential area for data center development and to reduce the required setbacks. I'm opposed to any and all exemptions and regulatory waivers requested by the Belmont Innovation Campus. These restrictions and regulations were put in place to protect the community and mitigate some of the impacts

[04:56:11] of data center development. The scale, size, and scope of data centers in Loudoun County has grown so dramatically and expanded so rapidly, it has outpaced the ability to source power locally. Virginia imports. Most of this is coming from the new power lines that are starting up at the 502 junction. Those two power plants are run by First Energy. I wanted to quote this for you.

[04:56:40] After careful consideration and evaluation, in late 2023, we made the decision to remove our interim target to achieve a 30% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030. Our interim goal was predicated on meaningful emissions reductions at our Fort Hamilton and Harrison power plants in West Virginia, which account for approximately 99% of our greenhouse gas emissions. Going on through regulatory filings in West Virginia, we have forecast the end of useful life for Fort

[04:57:13] Hamilton to 2035, and for Harrison for 2040. So you're going to get about 10 years of use out of that transmission line that is going to destroy the whole eastern side of Loudoun County. In addition, we're still going to have to build new generation when those plants go offline.

[04:57:35] In-state, in Virginia, if you can approve diesel generators, you can approve a new gas plant. thank you thank you thank you very much so as of right now we have 13 more speakers we are going to take them we are going to take the item as soon as as we are as as this public speaking portion has and that we will take the item we will not have another break Anthony Virgilio you'll be fine but we will be followed by Greg Davis thank you my name is Tony Virgilio I've been here before before the board talking about data centers and in last two weeks

[04:58:12] ago, I published an article in Loudoun Now about data centers and about what the impact is on the county. Chairperson Randall said something rather insightful a little earlier today, earlier in the evening when we were all awake, and that is that your decisions today, you don't want them to have unintended consequences. So you need to know what the consequences are for the data center application that's before you right now. This data center is absolutely huge. It is 10% larger than all of the data centers, 10% of the size of all the data centers currently in existence in Loudoun County. So the 140 data centers you have occupy about 30

[04:58:51] million square feet. This one's 3 million square feet, and that's even after the applicant went ahead and reduced the size. So you're not talking about a small data center like the ones you used to approve back in Data Center Alley. You're talking about a hyperscale data center, which is something that you haven't seen before and you haven't dealt with before, but in fact is now in front of you. Nobody's presented it that way as the new feature, the new idea for data centers.

[04:59:13] That's what this one is. And it requires a tremendous amount of energy and a tremendous amount of infrastructure support to be able to do that. The problem is that that infrastructure isn't there. We don't have the electricity. You already have five or six data centers that are sitting out there that are sitting idle because they don't have the electricity to be able to turn them on. So the question is, why is this applicant coming forward before you now and saying approve this because it's a forcing function.

[04:59:37] If they build it, then you will have to provide the power or Dominion will have to provide the power. And the fact of the matter is in the application itself, the letter from Dominion Power to the county, it clearly states that it's the Aspen to Golden Line that is going to be required in order to be able to fuel this data center. They do not have the energy right now.

[04:59:53] There's already data centers that are currently offline in the county and this will be another one. So what they're doing by coming forward with an application and an intent to build this thing is to wait. But the Aspen and Golden Center line is already committed to other applications that are still waiting for power here within the county.

[05:00:10] So what are they going to have to do? You have to figure that every gigawatt of electricity that's consumed in this county, it requires another power line because a 750 kV power line basically supplies a gigawatt of energy. So does a nuclear power plant. And while you go from 6 gigawatts, which is the current estimated build-out, to 10 to 12 gigawatts, you're looking at 6, 10, 12 power lines crossing the county or that many nuclear reactors in order to fuel them.

[05:00:36] We don't have the energy to do it, and it's something that you should not approve, and you shouldn't go ahead and approve this thing so that they have to force Dominion Power and PJM and SCC in order to be able to bring the power. Thank you, sir. Do you have any questions? I do not. Thank you very much, though. Thank you. Greg Davis, followed by Liz Lee, followed by Keith, I think Keith Buck.

[05:01:00] Good evening. Good evening. Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, thank you for giving me a couple minutes to express my support for the Belmont Innovation Park. My name is Greg Davis, and I represent over 5,700 members of Steamfitters Local 602 who live and work in the District of Columbia, the State of Maryland, and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

[05:01:23] We see data centers as job opportunities for current members and an opportunity for us to bring in new members. Local 602 members spend over $8 to $9 million per year on apprenticeship training. Currently, we're spending $14 million buying and building out a new apprenticeship school in Manassas, Virginia.

[05:01:45] The most important part of this training is the on-the-job portion. Each apprentice must work 2,000 years on the job each year of their five-year apprenticeship program. This training allows local Virginia area men and women interested in pipe fitting, pipe welding, and HVAC service industry to start great careers with good wages and amazing benefits.

[05:02:08] It would also allow these workers to work closer to home rather than having to travel to Maryland and D.C. every day. Since data centers started being developed in Loudoun County, my local 602 members and contractors have worked on nearly every single one.

[05:02:23] This is not just construction jobs, but service and maintenance jobs as well. Every day our members are in the data center servicing, maintaining, and upgrading the HVAC and mechanical systems. For all of these reasons, I ask that you please support the Belmont Innovation Park.

[05:02:40] Thank you. Thank you. Liz Lee will be followed by Keith Buck, followed by Gina Faber. Good evening. Hi. Good evening, Madam Chair and Board of Supervisors.

[05:02:56] Thank you for letting me come and voice my opposition to all of this. It's way past my bedtime. For over 25 years, 25 years ago, we felt very privileged to be able to raise our family in such a well-planned-out area, dotted with residential bedroom communities and mixed-use businesses and good schools.

[05:03:17] The biggest draw to this region for us was a gorgeous topography filled with forests, mountains, wetlands, rivers, parks, and of course the diverse wildlife. We did our due diligence and we reviewed zoning information and we were relatively confident that the area that we were buying would not be turned into an industrial park as it was zoned for residential and agriculture, not for massive industrial parks.

[05:03:46] No one imagined just eight years ago the full scope of this technology. Everyone felt that there would be just a few data centers, maybe the size of, I don't know, maybe two to four Walmarts. honestly, that's how, you know, we just were so uninformed back then. No one could have imagined that our county officials would allow so much catastrophic rezoning amongst our planned communities. No one could have imagined the environmental impact on everything that we loved and cherished, including the air that we breathe. I don't know if you realize this, but trees,

[05:04:20] they provide us oxygen, something we need that's disappearing incredibly fast. The long-term unforeseen issues of temperature spikes, cooling facilities, power outages, and brownouts are going to be very real ongoing challenges for all of us. We simply can't even power the existing data centers we have now, much less those that are planned over the next several years due to the new AI technologies. Due to the unimaginable and completely unsustainable power needed for these data centers, now we wish to run high-tension wires everywhere, further destroying the natural

[05:04:57] beauty of the landscape that once was Loudoun County when I came over 25 years ago. Who said it was okay for you and your predecessors to allow the ongoing destruction of our communities and our property values? Please open your eyes and really think about the long-term consequences and the impact of your decisions. Some things in life are more important than money. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Keith Buck, you'll be followed by Gina Farber, and you will be followed by David Goose Teeth.

[05:05:37] Good evening. Good evening, ma'am. Well, about another hour, I'd say good morning to you. But, hey, you guys got it worse than us. You're going to sit there and listen to everybody go. I'm not going to sit here and say it's killing wildlife or anything like that. If you see up there on the screen where it says Goose Creek Club, that's actually Woodlands at Goose Creek.

[05:05:56] That's the neighborhood I live in. No big deal. That used to be the golf course. People are talking about the animals aren't thriving and stuff. Trust me, I walk my dog at night, I hear the coyotes, I hear the foxes. Trust me, they're surviving. They're surviving fine out there.

[05:06:14] I'm speaking on behalf of most of the homeowners there, Woodlands and Goose Creek. We oppose this. The one data center is being built. We can see it being built. We can hear it being built. If you do the mega site here, you guys were actually talking earlier.

[05:06:32] Ms. Glass was talking earlier. She brought up the point that you guys were talking about, hey, we need land to build houses on. This site here, I mean, that site there would be a perfect area to build houses. I mean, that's a pretty good piece of property for the rezoning of that.

[05:06:51] You know, that's a huge area. That's right near Belmont Country Club. That's prime property. Yeah, I know it's kind of funny. It's not listed there because when I listen to the Leesburg Town Council do their thing for the data center, They said that whole area was industrial.

[05:07:06] There was nothing there. And I'm like, well, you can ask Supervise Unstead. She's actually come to the neighborhood. But so anyway, we're opposed to this because, you know, it's a huge area. You guys keep talking about build houses, need areas for building houses.

[05:07:22] It's a perfect area to build houses. Like I said, I'm not going to sit here and bash these folks. They got a job. They're trying to do their job, which is get a data center built. You know, it's pretty much to the fact of we need houses more than we need data centers.

[05:07:40] I mean, yeah, people are going to talk about the power and everything else. That's understood. You know, power goes up. You know, things go up. We need power. Understood. I mean, they're already putting another one up right up the street there from this Russell Branch at Crosstail.

[05:07:57] They're putting a data center there. The Leesburg Council approved that two weeks ago. And they're talking about putting a, you know, putting a power site there for that. I mean, they're putting one, and they're talking about doing solar panels.

[05:08:13] Mr. Buck, your time is up, but I do have, give me one second, sir. So this is, you live here? Yes, ma'am. That's called Woodlands at Goose Creek. And did you say you were speaking on their behalf? Yes, ma'am. And speaking on their behalf, the community?

[05:08:29] We don't have an HOA yet because the developers still, I've talked to all the neighbors in the neighborhood and told them I was coming. Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Gina Farber, you will be followed by David, it's G-I-U-S-T-I, and then you'll be followed by Al Barney.

[05:08:47] Good evening. Good evening. My name is Gina Faber. I'm here to ask the board to deny the special exception on the Belmont Innovation Center property development. We have more information about the impact of data center operation than we did so many years ago when we all vigorously courted these projects in the past.

[05:09:07] And I want to acknowledge that what we know now is different than what we knew then. And now that we have more information about some of the negatives associated with data centers, I hope that you show judicious caution in making any decisions that result in our county hosting more data center square feet than we have to.

[05:09:31] I heard earlier they were talking about the rooftop solar, and that's a great idea for data centers. But I actually attended the data center reform coalition, and I heard the description of the Manassas, one of the Prince William data centers, and they said if they covered the top of that, it was a really huge data center with everything, all roof with solar panels, it would be less than 1% of the power that's needed by the data center.

[05:10:06] So it's a nice gesture, but it's only that, really. The other thing I wanted to let you know is that currently 4% of the greenhouse gases that are created in the United States now are due to powering data centers.

[05:10:22] That's due to go up to 8% by 2030. It is my hope that as the board and staff investigate and develop future guidelines for data center proposals, you create very restrictive qualifications that protect residents, our natural resources, our carbon footprint, and acknowledge the importance of diversity of revenue sources for the county.

[05:10:48] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. David, it's G-I-U-S-T-I, and you will be followed by Al Barney, and we have, I think, like nine people to go at this point. Are you here, sir? Going once, going twice?

[05:11:05] Okay, Al Barney, and you will be followed by Frank Frizio. Good evening. Good evening, Madam Chair. How are you? Good to see everyone. Good to see you. Al Barney, long-time resident here, business owner for almost 30 years here in Town of Leesburg.

[05:11:24] I own a voice and data telecommunications company. I need to make sure I disclose that. I also want to disclose that I have never done any work in voice and data, telecommunications in Loudoun County. We are based in Chesapeake. We do cover the state. We do state and federal work. With that said, we all know that every project has concerns and constraints impacting the community, impacting the public. The Belmont Innovation Campus is no

[05:11:57] different. I'm here in 100% support for the project. I've reviewed the project, the scope, as well as the environmental impact as a seasoned telecommunications infrastructure company that has built data centers and supporting state, local, and federal contracts primarily. This project meets or exceeds nearly every project that we've ever participated in. As a Loudoun County resident for 30-some-odd years, I'm usually challenging just about every data center that's going to be built. The Belmont Innovation Campus is a great opportunity for the community to see a data center

[05:12:36] that reaches inside the environment to provide far more than just a building. Preservation of the Goose Creek protection, preservation in the native plantings, preservation of wildlife, water protection of the wetlands, along with the easement that Dominion Energy is going to have.

[05:12:58] The building design is brilliant as well as smart and is positioning itself as an emplacement to be less obstructive or less high so it doesn't look like what you normally ride by and data center alley, as they call it.

[05:13:19] The community will have access to the Goose Creek, pavilions, trails, and community parks, loads of beautiful landscape. This project would be something I would be proud to be part of as a resident, not as a benefit financially for me.

[05:13:38] I thank you, and I wish them best of luck because I believe that they've done more than they should based on most of the projects I've seen already. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Barney. I'm Frank Prezio, followed by Ben, I think it's Kiefler.

[05:13:55] And you'll be followed by Josh Reynolds. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Madam Chair of the Board. My name is Frank Prezio. I'm a resident of Alexandria's Grove at Belmont. I'm an original owner in the development. I live on the first cul-de-sac at the end of the first cul-de-sac, right across the corner from Belmont Ridge Road and Gloucester Parkway.

[05:14:17] I've seen the community grow by leaps and bounds. my whole time in this area. I'm here to request that you strongly approve this development. I've heard a lot of speakers speak tonight about the size of the impact of the development and the concerns. I reviewed the proposal. The developer made a great many concessions with their proffers as far as the environmental impact they'll have, the community impact they'll have on the sight lines from Belmont Ridge Road.

[05:14:53] I don't know where any of you live. I live directly there, and I will see this development every day. Presently, I drive down Wax Pool Road, and I see the concrete slabs that are out there. And this is what, if this development is not approved, would probably look like because it will revert to a by-right development.

[05:15:17] They will not have to put all these proffers in their proposal. They will just build what they can. It will look similar to what's going to be built, what is being built presently, on the corner of Belmont Ridge Road and Route 7.

[05:15:34] They have made no request to proffer any additional space or do anything. They're just building their cement slabs up on that corner. Now, it's up to us and the board. Do we want to look at another slab of concrete from a major road in the area?

[05:15:54] or do we want to look at something that is at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing to the community, set back more than what's required, and more environmental protections that are required by the county. And I think that this facility and proposal that is being built should be used as a template going forward for future changes that you do with the proposals that are going to be made on future data center facilities.

[05:16:25] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Janet. Thank you, ma'am. I think we just increased it by one. Thank you very much. Okay, it's Ben Kiefler, I think.

[05:16:43] You'll be followed by Josh Reynolds, followed by Lou Spencer. Good evening, sir. Good evening. Supervisors, thank you. My name is Ben Kiefler, and I am the vice chairman of the Loudoun Coalition of Homeowners and Condo Associations. We are an all-volunteer organization focused on the collaboration and information sharing amongst our members and county leadership.

[05:17:05] Collectively, we involve tens of thousands of Loudoun residents. I'm here to speak on behalf of our members as they have expressed issues regarding the zoning exception being considered for the Belmont Data Center complex. This is not an aggressive stance on the merits of the industry, and our members appreciate that Loudoun has benefited in many ways from data centers.

[05:17:26] The concerns that our members have raised involve the large-scale demand that the facility would put on our grid infrastructure and overall capacity. We do not have an unlimited supply of electricity, and our infrastructure has already been stretched beyond limits, requiring additional high-capacity lines to be deployed.

[05:17:42] The expansion of the Bramilton complex has been reported by others, but what I've understood it to be is 600 megawatts. For a scale comparison, a little different than some of the others that I've heard this evening, we have a local power station here in Leesburg.

[05:17:58] That power station was commissioned in 2017 and was 778 megawatts, 78,000 megawatts, I'm sorry. That was designed to power 778,000 homes in Nova and D.C.

[05:18:16] And this facility on its own would represent about 80% of the capacity of that facility. Our members have concerns that not all the relevant information for such high-demand facilities are being assessed when projects like this come before the board or the planning commission.

[05:18:34] Capacity management needs to be part of the equation and factored in prior to proving such high-demand uses. Otherwise, we face unforeseen consequences like additional high-voltage lines, potential outages as demand outpaces supply, and substantial rate increases across all ratepayers.

[05:18:52] We have to start thinking about managing our capacity before blindly approving high-demand applications like this. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Josh Reynolds, followed by Lou Spencer, followed by Jim Bingo.

[05:19:10] Good evening. Good evening. I'm Josh Reynolds before you tonight, speaking as a resident of Belmont Country Club. You know, I mirror a lot of the concerns that many of the speakers had here this evening. And when this application was first brought before me, I had some concerns and was doubtful that this was the right location for a project like this.

[05:19:35] But as the application progressed and that applicant added setbacks to the Goose Creek, solar panels, additional plantings, extra stormwater stuff, 19-acre park trails, and the best architecture that I've seen on a data center, at least in this area, I've been turned to be in support of this application.

[05:19:58] And I wonder what the message is if we deny it. Are we saying that we don't want additional setbacks from the Goose Creek and the solar panels and all the other things that I referenced previously? My main concern as a resident of Belmont and Rich Country Club is that these guys just leave And we're left with some flex industrial site that doesn't look as good, that doesn't have all these benefits that they have provided and adds additional vehicles to the roads in this area.

[05:20:34] So I would just say, you know, we shouldn't be punishing them, saying them with their tails between their legs. I think Supervisor Brisbane made a good point about the solar panels in that we should be using this application as a yardstick for all future applications that come in to Loudoun County.

[05:20:51] If you want to develop in our county, then you're going to have to step up your game a little bit and provide things above and beyond what we've previously seen. I'm actually surprised by all the speakers here tonight because anecdotally, at the bus stop for my kids or at the country club on Friday night, I'd say the worst that I hear from someone is that they're neutral on this in the neighborhood.

[05:21:12] And at best, they support it for the same reasons that I just outlined. I think I heard this evening that we have staff support for the application. It's in conformance with the comprehensive plan, and in my opinion, it would be a disservice to Loudoun County, but more especially the residents of Belmont, if you denied the application.

[05:21:30] So I would ask that you please approve it. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Lou Spencer, followed by Jim Bingle, followed by Kathleen Murphy. Kathleen Murphy. Good evening. Good evening.

[05:21:46] Chairwoman Randall and members of the board, my name is Lou Spencer. I'm the Assistant Business Manager of UA Local 5 Plumbers and Gas Fitters, and I'm the Secretary-Treasurer of the Virginia Building and Construction Trades Council. Please support the Belmont Innovation Campus. On behalf of our 1,900 members and 60 signatory contractors performing work throughout Northern Virginia and elsewhere, we support the Belmont Innovation Campus.

[05:22:12] Our experience is that the data center owner, operators, and developers to be among the construction industry's most responsible and responsive. These projects have created careers for many in the construction industry, including our members and your residents, that provide excellent wages, health and retirement benefits, and superior apprentice and journey person training opportunities.

[05:22:36] The decision to move forward is yours, your constituents, and the applicant. If you decide to move forward, and we hope you do, we want to build it for you. We will build it on time, on budget, and we will build it safely and responsibly. Please move to support the Belmont Innovation Campus Project.

[05:22:54] We appreciate all you do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Jim Bingle, followed by Kathleen Murphy, followed by Adriana Turezdu.

[05:23:09] Good evening. Good evening, Chair Randall and board members. I'm Jim Bingle, also speaking for the Piedmont Environmental Council. From the beginning, we have maintained that the right choice is to deny the Belmont Innovation Campus as proposed. While we have said that we appreciate the proposed steps to soften their environmental impacts, we maintain that the location is inappropriate, and you've heard many of the reasons tonight for why a facility of this magnitude is not right for this spot.

[05:23:39] The impacts are irrefutable. You can certainly consider what's being offered in return, but that really doesn't address the big problem we're facing, and that's the conversation we need. We know what we've gained from our data center neighbors, but what are we losing? As data center alley was building up, people weren't thrilled at the changing look and feel of the suburban area, but it was mostly contained and the revenues made the county budget more manageable. In retrospect, without casting blame, data center development in Loudoun hasn't been well-planned or well-managed, partly from an inability to know the future and partly from

[05:24:16] not understanding what the impacts would be. But the point isn't to look back, but rather look forward with the lessons, with the knowledge of lessons learned. If and how are you considering or planning for the impacts of the power demand? This isn't about punishing the applicant. As you start to address the data center explosion in Loudoun, you face even more businesses that want a piece of the action. We've come to a point where the right answer is no to any increases in data center square footage beyond what's permitted by Wright, and no to zoning conversions and special exceptions so that the county can minimize further impacts. Loudon has reached and exceeded the

[05:24:56] tipping point. Now, even when a properly sited data center in the heart of data center alley requests an increase in square footage, it has far-reaching energy demands manifesting as costly transmission lines and substations. Data centers are increasingly creating negative business, property value, resource, visual, land use, and personal finance impacts for residents and businesses across the county.

[05:25:23] That's not desirable, and it isn't protecting the health, safety, and welfare of residents to keep saying yes when the right answer is no. Please deny this application. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bingo. We are down to the last four speakers, Kathleen Murphy and Adriana Cu Resdu, my next speaker.

[05:25:44] Good evening. Hello, I'm Catherine Murphy. Nice to meet you. I am up here because I thought it was important to come up here and say that I think you should vote no. I think you should vote no because this is a zoning reordnance, right? Excuse me, rezoning. We don't need it. We don't want it.

[05:26:08] Why would you approve it? It's not needed because we don't need more space for data centers. There is already space for data centers a data center can go on the site already doesn't need to be that big we don't want it you've heard 100 reasons why over the last however many hours about why it's not wanted so my question is why would you do it it's not wanted it's not needed and you have the opportunity to say no to approving an exception currently right it's zoned for agriculture

[05:26:47] for housing some of this I think a point was already made about how more housing is needed here's the opportunity to take a stance on that anyway I didn't have anything planned I just felt that it was important to come up here and make that point you've heard it said a hundred times so thanks thank you ma'am our last three speakers are our last three speakers are remote speakers Andrada Curesdu, Cynthia Shelberg, and John Nichols.

[05:27:23] Good evening, members of the board. My name is Andrada Curescu, and I live in the Alexandros Grove at Belmont neighborhood, which is adjacent to this future data center. For reference, my home would be around 1,500 feet away.

[05:27:40] I would like to recognize that there are a lot of speakers here tonight, and only a few nights where they live in the immediate area in Belmont. I appreciate the passion and everyone's concerns, but clearly this application has become a large political issue over proposed transmission lines to other parts of Loudoun County and power grid concerns.

[05:28:00] I'd like to point out that most speakers did not specifically address this data center application and the direct consequences to those in close proximity. My concern as a neighbor is that if this data center is built by right, It will be louder, less visually appealing, and the community will receive virtually nothing positive in return.

[05:28:20] Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We have Cynthia Shelberg and John Nicholas as our last speaker. Hi, my name is Cynthia Shelberg.

[05:28:36] I live in Alexander's Grove. I've been here for 27 years. We live directly across the street from the proposed bill notification campus, And we support this application and ask that the board approve the application as well.

[05:28:52] I would like to point out that the decision to support this campus application was a difficult decision. We are dismayed that the section of Belmont Ridge Road corridor adjacent to our community will be home to three data complexes.

[05:29:10] Our concerns go beyond the look and size, but we are concerned about other things, property values, ongoing noise, light level. natural habitat, and the increased demand on the power grid, of course. However, because nearly 50% of this project acreage falls by right, we fear that denying the application would result in a less desirable facility. In fact, it would become another wax pool concrete jungle facility.

[05:29:45] No noise attenuation would be available. No consideration for Goose Creek. No parks. no trails, no extras to help the community. And the look and feel of that would be an eyesore, and we would be living right across the street.

[05:30:04] So again, we urge the board to approve the application. It's a good one, considering the alternative for the residents who live here. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.

[05:30:20] Our last speaker is John Nicholas. Madam Chairman, members of the board, my name is John Nicholas. Many of you know me, and you know about some of the subjects and some of the analysis that I have done regarding the data center impacts on Loudoun County.

[05:30:39] I would like to address the issue of unintended consequences. Many people talk about that, but let's think about those unintended consequences. I'd like to leave you with these thoughts. The power that we're talking about, if it had been ideal years ago, all the power in data centers would be along the north-south backbone of Dominion.

[05:31:02] To have power in data centers out here at this time is a trend that rather than take it down by right buildings in the east, these applicants have chosen to move out to where the power is going to be focal pointed, no matter how it gets into Loudoun County.

[05:31:21] New lines from the west, new from the north, new from the south. It doesn't matter the backbones where it's all going to focal on, including for artificial intelligence, by the way. If you would deny this possible state, no, as many have said, you'll find that it will accelerate the tear down of by-right projects, which are all existing buildings with tenants and Loudoun County citizens employed there, east.

[05:31:45] That's the choice that you will give this applicant if it's denied. Another one is if the East, for whatever reason, becomes an issue, there's plenty of wrongs out along the next terror line that's coming in through the West. And I'm sure there will be many people out there that may find that that's a better place to go for data centers because of the new power.

[05:32:08] So there are three different unintended consequences that I think you should think of as you go forward with whatever decision you make tonight. Thank you very much, and have a good evening. - Thank you, Mr. Nicholas, thank you very much.

[05:32:26] Okay, supervisors, this application is in the Ashburn District. I'm going to, it is important for me right now to be consistent in how we do all of our meetings. And the way we do all of our meetings is the first motion that is made is the packet motion.

[05:32:46] I usually go to the district supervisor to make the packet motion, and if they don't, then I'll make it be in the chair. The packet motion is the motion to approve. I'm going to ask the district supervisor if he wants to make that motion.

[05:33:02] If he does not, I will ask somebody else if they want to make the motion to approve because I don't want to make it either. So, Mr. Turner, would you like to make a motion to approve? No, ma'am. All right. Would anyone like to make a motion to approve? Madam Chair. Yes, sir.

[05:33:17] I'd like to make the motion. Okay. Thank you. I move that the Board approve Ledge 2023-0048 Belmont Innovation Campus ZMAP 2022-0021 Special Exception 2022-0042 SPMI-2023-0013 and ZMOD-2022-0077 subject to the proffer statement dated March 6, 2024 and the conditions of approval dated March 6, 2024.

[05:33:50] and the findings for approval provided as attachments 1, 2, and 3 to the March 13, 2024 Board of Supervisors Public Hearing Supplemental Staff Report. Motion's made and seconded by Supervisor Letourneau. Discussion on the motion, Mr. Saines. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[05:34:06] First, I'd like to start out by saying thank you to all the speakers that came out and spoke and said your piece. Thank you to all the emails that we received as well. But what's in front of us is, on one hand, if you vote yes, you get a data center.

[05:34:23] If you vote no, you get a data center. That's what's in front of us. Now, to be honest with you, I wish what was in front of us was a vote yes for a data center and a vote no. You don't get a data center, but that's not what's in front of us. You vote yes, you get a data center, as Mr. Barney and the gentleman that lives in the neighborhood that spoke directly after Mr. Barney, and the last couple of the speakers that we just heard, or the speaker who live in the area as well, If we vote yes and approve this application, we get a data center that will be built lower, more aesthetically pleasing with acoustics.

[05:34:59] We've heard numerous times people asking for solar panels on data centers. They're giving us solar panels. The solar panels that are being put on here is not to generate the power for the data center. That's not possible. That's not happening. But it's generating energy to put back into the grid.

[05:35:15] We are going to get trails, parks, setbacks off the Goose Creek to the point where the Goose Creek Association has worked with the applicant in approving what they're providing. We've received statements from the Belmont Homeowners Association Board of Directors.

[05:35:34] So the actual members that are on the Board of Directors that are voted by the membership, the Belmont Homeowners Association is in favor of this. They came out and spoke at the public hearing. They came out and spoke the first time you heard this application in favor of this application. And the reason why they're doing that is because of what's being proffered into this application if we vote yes.

[05:35:57] Unfortunately, with the by-right use, they don't have to do all those things. And in a perfect setting, and I'll say this publicly, and I've said this numerous times, I wish data center applications, homeowner developers, even when they have a by-right use, would do the right thing and come with a very, very good application.

[05:36:16] But legally, they don't have to do those things. So that's why we do not see them in buy-write applications or buy-write uses. And with the special exceptions, we're able to negotiate, talk with them, and have them proffer these things in. So that is why I am supporting this application.

[05:36:33] Because if we support it, we're going to get a better product than if we went buy-write. Because at the end of the day, we're still going to get a data center. There's still going to be the conversation. This is a bigger conversation. There's two issues. We have this application and the larger conversation.

[05:36:49] regarding energy use, the proposed power lines, and et cetera. That's still definitely a conversation to be had, and we're working to try to solve those issues. But this data center is still happening in regards to if we vote yes or vote no, and we're still going to have those underlying issues.

[05:37:06] So with that, I will stop because my time is ending, and I'll do some more in the closing part. Thank you, Mr. Sains. Excuse me. Ms. Umstead? Thank you, Madam Chair. I also want to thank everybody for coming out and speaking. This was a very thoughtful audience, a very thoughtful group of speakers.

[05:37:25] I am going to support this tonight for many of the reasons that Supervisor Sains pointed out. This is by far the best, most environmentally sensitive application that we have received.

[05:37:44] The community that is closest to it supports it, and that doesn't mean I'm not very aware of my constituents who are opposed because they are thoughtful people and they have always made very good arguments.

[05:38:07] The problem we're facing, as you know, is national. And one of my constituents did ask that I read the Washington Post article that's been referenced tonight, and I did. If we don't change the way we live, Data centers are going to be an essential part of our lives.

[05:38:32] They have enabled us to get through a pandemic shutdown. They enable us to telecommute. They enable us to do our business by email and virtual meetings as opposed to getting in automobiles and driving on the roads in person.

[05:38:53] The problem is national. The problem is worldwide. The problem locally is that from everything we've been able to determine, this data center does not require the building of an additional transmission line.

[05:39:13] This data, it does not. This data center does a better job of protecting water quality in Goose Creek than if this property were to develop by right. This data center provides far more in natural areas than would be required by Wright.

[05:39:36] Given what could be done by Wright, the aesthetics on this data center are far higher and more beneficial to the community that will see it every day.

[05:39:48] And the fact that these folks have instituted extraordinarily extensive changes to this application, working with the district supervisor to try to make sure this is the best application possible, that fact has come to fruition and they have created something that is far better than we could have gotten otherwise.

[05:40:17] Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. and thank you for everyone who came out. Thank you to the applicant and staff and all that's going on. I'm definitely going to support this application. Let me talk to you why. I appreciate whatever you had said, but there's obviously been talking points floating around and there's a lot of misinformation out there.

[05:40:33] I don't know how many here have actually read this whole packet through, but I bet you most of you haven't. I have. I'm pretty familiar with it. I think most of the people up here on this dais have. We have different opinions on how to approach things. But let me just talk about a couple things. People mentioned fiscal impact. If we took the position that a lot of folks took tonight and some emails that we were getting about fiscal impact, your taxes are going to go up 50 to 100 percent at some point in the near future i don't think anyone in this room would stand up and say yeah i'd like my taxes to go up 50 to 100 percent i don't think i would i understand there needs to be a balance and this board is really working on that balance we're trying to keep um we're trying to entice other types of industries to come in as well as try to do as what we can to restrict um increasing of taxes but getting rid of data

[05:41:13] centers which isn't going to happen um is just going to make taxes go through the roof but i But I also want to address the power grid question. This application has zero to do with the Western power lines, zero, zero, okay?

[05:41:28] You can ask anyone that knows what they're doing, what they've studied, it has zero to do with it. We even, Dominion even mentioned it, it has to do with the Route 28, and so that should never even be considered. We're not even allowed to really address the power question itself.

[05:41:44] And also, it's not going to help the power grid, because if you don't build something here, it's going to get built somewhere else. The power grid is still going to be strained. are problems that have to be addressed in a different manner approving of or disapproving of something that is going to be less or bigger is not going to make any difference in the power grid that's false information that's been floating around out there also for those of you who came from western loudon i'm working my butt off i don't want these lines to come through either but it doesn't have anything to do with this but well let me tell you data centers have a lot to do with how much we are preserving western loudon thousands of acres are coming from developers both housing and data center developers to the west.

[05:42:21] So just keep that in mind as you go through this whole thought process. So we're not doing that. We're going to let him, we're going to let all the supervisors. I just want to quickly go over this application. If we allow this to go by right, what message are we sending? We're getting no proffers, no environmental considerations, no tree cover, no increased buffers to the creek, no extra protective buffers to the road, no solar, no parks, and less in tax revenue.

[05:42:48] That is what we're getting. This application, quite frankly, and several supervisors have mentioned it, several people have talked, is the gold standard. If we tell an applicant, go away, forget you, you have literally come and satisfied everything you've asked by all the supervisors up here and by all the environmental groups.

[05:43:07] The message we are sending is we want buy right, we want ugly buildings, they're going to come, and quite frankly, we're basically telling them no environmental, no aesthetic, and no protective measurements. Be damned to go buy right. Thank you, Mr. Letourneau.

[05:43:25] Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to everybody who came out tonight for a good conversation. So it's frustrating that this moment's come, and we have had this reaction. And it's not surprising it's come, and I knew it would come.

[05:43:42] But it's come to oppose the single best data center application the county has ever seen, without question. There is a basic lack of fairness associated with that. because our job is to look at each of these individually while trying to address the collective impact. The collective impacts are there. And quite frankly, if this application had not changed, I probably would join some of my colleagues in opposing it because of just the sheer

[05:44:16] scale of it. But now we're faced with trying to consider 1.3 million square feet by write data versus this, roughly 2.8. And we have to look at what's the proffer package and what happens if we deny it. And that's really where I struggle because of the uniqueness of this site. This is not the place for a by-right data center. If there's anywhere in the county you don't want a by-right data center, it's next to the Goose Creek with no protections. And unfortunately, that's exactly what we have. We don't have to guess what's going to happen. We actually heard it from a few of the

[05:44:55] neighbors and the gentleman who has to live next to it. We heard what's happening with two by-right data centers here. So somebody asked for us to think about living with ourselves and thinking about, well, I can't live with myself. If I let that happen again here, I can't. So I get the macro issues, but the reality is we're not going to solve that with this one application. And yeah, sure, of course, you know, what's going to happen when they all come. Well, you know what? This is a pretty unique application because they're no longer asking for an FAR increase. They're only asking for a piece of property that's split zone to be rezoned, which is literally in the county

[05:45:32] policy. We're not going to see very many applications like this elsewhere in the county. it's very, very unique. So it doesn't say we're just going to approve every special exception, because I'll tell you right now, I'm not. But this is not the one to try to take out the collective angst of all of us on data centers on. Not only is it not fair to them, it's not fair to all the impacts that happen if this property goes by right. So that's why I am going to support it. I understand we have work to do. We're taking it seriously, absolutely taking it seriously.

[05:46:09] This application, I know people are booing and hissing, but it does have its power commitments. I verified that myself. It's 100% already got its power commitments. The commitments are the same if it's by right or not. So it doesn't even impact that side of things. Other ones will, and we have more work to do on this.

[05:46:28] Thank you. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall. I will not be supporting the motion tonight. There has been a resounding request to deny this application tonight, and I will be listening to the residents and all county residents and not support this motion.

[05:46:48] I believe we have reached a tipping point. I know this application has more environmental benefits than others, but we should have been asking for those environmental benefits years ago. So it shows that you can do solar. Yes, Supervisor Briskman, thank you for mentioning that.

[05:47:05] And we should have done that years ago. And the solar is not going to power the data center. I think it's like 2.4% if you do the math, so it'll only help with maybe the lights and maybe some of the EV cars, and I think it's great, but again, we should have been doing this years ago.

[05:47:24] The benefits do not outweigh the damages. This data center will provide greater stress on the grid, and it'll have transmission lines along the Goose Creek. All the transmission lines feed into the same grid, to say that this data center won't impact the grid is ridiculous it impacts the entire grid so it's a whole system and we heard that from dominion tonight i also believe that environmentally it is an encroachment on our sensitive areas almost 3 million square feet of data center and

[05:48:04] high voltage transmission lines along our water source and the scenic river is an encroachment upon our sensitive environmental features. And the scale will contribute to the need for additional high-voltage transmission lines.

[05:48:20] So I won't be supporting this. I'm going to listen to the residents. My residents have said they don't support this, and I won't either. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. So after thinking long and hard, I will not be supporting this application.

[05:48:43] As is evidenced by the number of speakers tonight, The people of Loudon are asking us to take closer looks at the impact of data centers on our county. This application is asking to do more than double the square footage of data center than what would be allowed by Wright.

[05:49:02] This application for increased data center footage is not compatible with the residential across the street. I regularly hear from constituents who already live near data centers about several issues, and I cannot support allowing a larger data center to be built directly across the street from existing residential.

[05:49:23] Residential that was approved and built long before anyone knew what a data center was. I want to thank the applicant for their proffer commitments as they showed what applicants and applications should commit to, but I think it is a better land use decision to go with the buy-right allowances on this parcel as the existing zoning permits economically viable options and is reasonable.

[05:49:50] The special exception increase has too much of a negative impact on the surrounding area, and I do not think can be adequately mitigated. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Ms. Brixman? Thank you, Madam Chair. It probably is no surprise that I won't be supporting this application.

[05:50:10] I do appreciate all of the efforts and proffers by the applicant. I agree with the findings for denial, and I won't be supporting it.

[05:50:41] I do look forward to the JLARC study that will be coming from Richmond, as I have for many years been concerned about the unintended impacts, the unmeasured impacts, and the unintended consequences of the plethora of data centers in Loudoun County. Just to comment on, and I actually do also believe that the applicant could do the good things for the Goose Creek and do the solar and all of the things that they proffered to if they would like to.

[05:51:10] They could even just do some of them, like protect the Goose Creek. They could do that. It doesn't have to be in a proffer. To some of the folks that came to speak tonight, I really, really appreciate you. I feel like the cavalry has finally arrived, and this is just to speak to some of the comments tonight. Someone mentioned we now have a tsunami. For me, the tsunami came many, many years ago.

[05:51:38] It came in 2019 when I was knocking doors and my constituents said, please stop building data centers in Loudoun County. It came last year when I tried to ask our General Assembly members to bring a bill that would require burying high-voltage power lines on Route 7, because we saw that coming down the pike. The tsunami was here when I saw the revenue picture was going to be out of

[05:52:12] balance for us. The tsunami was here for me when I drive through Ashburn and Broad Run, and it looks like Ready Player One. The tsunami was here for me when we started seeing applications like this, houses right across the street from where data centers are going to be built. So we've talked a lot about a lot of that stuff tonight, but I will let you know I've been there for a while.

[05:52:48] But as far as this application goes, I'll be voting no, and I will talk more if we have another motion. Thank you. Thank you. I am also going to vote no on this application. One of my colleagues just said something that is very true. He said, this is the single best application we've had.

[05:53:07] But we've been, this is what we should be saying is this is the single best application we have this time. We've had single best applications in the past. And every time we have one, what we say is we have to vote for it because it's the single best application. At some point, When do we stop voting for the single best application?

[05:53:30] If that's the standard, we will always vote for this. We will always vote for this. The applicant has been tremendous. They've been amazing. And I'm not going to say anything negative about them or this effort or what they are doing.

[05:53:47] I'm not. But I do believe that, one, I would like to really try to honestly discuss diversify in our economy. Honestly discuss that. I believe, or rather I know, that the zoning of this property permits other buy-right uses besides a Dana Center.

[05:54:08] This is not the only buy-right use we could do on this property. The gentleman from Dominion actually talked about the fact that it does adversely affect existing proposed developments and immediate impacts on surrounding properties as far as the grid.

[05:54:26] He said that himself. He said that himself. None of these applications are ever in a silo. He said that himself. You know, I wish I could say that this was a hard decision for me.

[05:54:44] The only thing that made this a hard decision for me is I have such respect for the people that bought it. Huge respect. But this wasn't a hard decision for me. I did not vote to send this on to this public hearing. I voted to not even send this forward. And I was the only one to vote to not send this forward.

[05:55:02] Because at some point, I don't know how we keep doing this. I don't know how we keep ignoring 80% of our public who are making very good points around, you know, things like they're saying we have other buy-right options.

[05:55:23] They're talking about whether it's a good use, a good fit for neighborhoods, residential development, a manner that can be mitigated. Our citizens are saying these things to us. I hope that the applicant doesn't just build a slab, and they don't have to.

[05:55:42] They can do something more if they choose to. I hope they don't. I understand that I take a chance with this vote, but at this point, I don't know what else to do besides take that chance. So I'm going to be a no. Mr. Sains, would you like to have a closing?

[05:55:59] Madam Chair, I'd actually like to withdraw my motion to approve and make another motion. So who made the motion to? I did. Who made the motion? Who seconded the motion? Mr. Letourneau. A request to withdraw.

[05:56:15] Make another motion. I understand. Mr. Sains wants to withdraw his motion to approve, and Mr. Letourneau agrees with that. I will say yes to that. The motion is withdrawn. Thank you. I have another motion, Madam Chair. Well, but, well, yeah, that's true.

[05:56:34] I mean, if there's another motion, I have told Mike, I have told Mr. Turner that as a district chair, he, I'm sorry, as a district supervisor, he would make the next motion. because it's not the package motion anymore so if you wanted to withdraw it you can well amend it excuse me i can do that i use the wrong language i like to amend my motion yeah um the motion you

[05:57:07] made was to approve then the new motion would be able to defer yes ma'am i'm i'm going to make a ruling that i do i i i do believe that that motion is not in in an opposite i don't i don't believe it is a contradictory motion I thought I think if the motion had been to to approve or then to deny that would be a contradictory motion but a motion to amend or to defer I'm not going to call that a contradictory motion I will allow

[05:57:44] that motion okay I'd like to thank you madam chair I'd like to defer this item to the April mr. Rogers it could be do business or do we can do public hearing which one it would need to go excuse me I would need to go to the April 10th public hearing. Gotta be in motion. So there's a motion on the table to send this to the April public hearing, which is a very full public hearing already. And is there a second on that motion? There's a motion on the table to send this to the April 12th public hearing. Discussion on the motion to send it to the April public hearing. Mr. Sains. No, like I said, we had a very

[05:58:21] spirited debate and conversation here. So we would like to defer and see if the applicant can and make some adjustments, and see what happens from there. Mr. Sainz, if you're going to make a motion to refer, you've got to give us a reason you're deferring.

[05:58:41] Would you say it again, please? To continue to, for the applicant to continue looking at the application, make some adjustments. For the applicant, you're making a motion to defer so that the applicant can adjust the application if they choose to. Yes. I understand. Mr. Letourneau. Let me ask staffs a question.

[05:58:57] Are there substations? Mr. Letourneau seconded the motion. I got it. Mr. Letourneau seconded the motion. Are there substations part of this application? Yes, sir. Okay. So even if the applicant is by right, they're going to require substations? They already have a site plan in to clear and grade the property and allow two data centers.

[05:59:17] Would there be an opportunity for the board to try to negotiate something around the substations? Certainly. Okay. Not if the application is denied, though. So the reason to defer, I think, would be to go back and attempt to salvage something out of the application to get the residents along the Goose Creek, something, even if it's not extra density.

[05:59:38] But the board is at some point going to be faced with the substation discussion anyway. So I think there's some logic to attempting to leverage that for some sort of benefit to the area here. Discussion on the motion on deferral.

[05:59:57] Mr. Turner, whose district this is actually in. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I'm going to use my three minutes to catch up a couple of things. Number one, any informed person should never use the word solar panels and data center in the same sentence.

[06:00:15] There's 10,000 square feet of data centers on each building, figure four buildings-ish. That's 40,000 square feet of solar panels. It takes 10 acres of solar panels to generate one megawatt. So 40,000 or one acre of solar panels would deliver exactly one-tenth of one megawatt to this 600-megawatt data center.

[06:00:35] Don't use solar and data center in the same sentence ever again. Supervisor Kirshner made some comments that he wanted to clear up some factually incorrect information, so I'd like to clear up some pretty grossly factually incorrect information that Supervisor Kirshner put out there.

[06:00:54] If we did away with these data centers, our taxes would go up 50% to 100%. We have the data centers. Our taxes are 25% on average lower than the rest of the northern Virginia jurisdictions. If we did away with all data centers, our taxes would go up about 25%.

[06:01:09] And we're never going to get rid of the data centers that we have. There is no way in the world our taxes would ever go up 50% to 100% no matter what we do with the data center community. It has zero to do with the Western Power Line. The Western Power Line's name is the Mid-Atlantic Resiliency Line.

[06:01:26] They are driving that line, and PJM has specifically stated because of the constrained power situation in eastern Loudoun County. That's why they're building that line. If they don't build that line, I guarantee you they're going to build two or three other lines because that's the power, 31 million square feet, and we've already permitted 41 million square feet.

[06:01:46] More lines are coming. Try down the north side of Route 7 in addition to the south side of Route 7. this adds to that burden. No effect on the power grid, enough said about that. A 600 megawatt data center is about 20% more than the existing, it represents 20% of our existing 3.1 or so gigawatts that we're already using. Finally, the last thing is, if we approve this application, we are setting in absolute concrete that all a data center company has to do to build anything they want is to add more bells and whistles and this board can be bought. That's the message we

[06:02:25] are sending. This is a phenomenally good application. I commend the applicant for this application. It is the best application by far we have ever had. But I agree with the majority of the comments that we've had here tonight. At some point, we have to say stop. We do not have enough power to power the data centers we have. We certainly do not have enough power going forward to power the additional 41 million square feet.

[06:02:51] PJM knows it, the data center community knows it, and we can't do that. That's why I'm voting no on the deferral. We need to make a decision right now on this application. Okay, that's what I was trying to get to the deferral question. Any other discussions on the deferral question?

[06:03:09] Before I'm going to, okay. I will say again that I actually didn't vote to move this on, And so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to vote for the deferral. I don't know why I would do that.

[06:03:32] You know, I'm going to say this one more time. This is a tough moment for me because I consider Ron Meyer a friend and a good, good person. And so, you know, but when you're up on the dais, this can't be Phyllis and Ron.

[06:03:50] This has to be Chair Randall and the applicant. That's what it has to be, and so as much as I admire you and appreciate how good this application is, I'm going to vote no one of deferral. All right, so the motion was made by Mr. Sainz and seconded by Mr. Letourneau to defer the application.

[06:04:18] All in favor, please say aye. Opposed? No. Okay, so I'm sorry, if you're an aye, please raise your hand. All right, that motion will fail five to four with Ms. Umstead, Mr. Kirshner, Mr. Sains, and Mr. Letourneau voting against the motion.

[06:04:38] So I'm now going to go to Mr. Turner for a motion because the other motion was withdrawn. And so once it was withdrawn, it was withdrawn. And so we haven't actually, so we haven't had a decision at this point because that motion was withdrawn.

[06:04:55] So I need to go to Mr. Turner to make a motion. Mr. Turner, would you like to make a motion? Thank you, Madam Chair. I move the Board of Supervisors deny LEGIE-2023-0048, Belmont Innovation Campus, ZMAP-2022-0021, SPECS-2022-042, SPMI-2023-0013, and ZMOD-2022-0077 based on the following findings for denial.

[06:05:25] One, the existing zoning of the property permits economically viable by right uses and therefore is reasonable. Two, the modifications proposed as part of these applications are incompatible with and would adversely impact nearby existing residential development in a manner that cannot be reasonably mitigated through development conditions.

[06:05:43] Three, the proposed scale of the development would contribute to the need for additional high-voltage transmission lines, which will have adverse impacts on existing and proposed development in the county and immediate impacts on surrounding properties. Four portions of the property are located in the suburban industrial mineral extraction place type, which recommends a maximum FAR of 0.60.

[06:06:04] The proposal to develop individual parcels and a maximum FAR up to 1.0 is inconsistent with this recommended density. Motion. Now we're awake. Motion made second.

[06:06:22] I suppose the Bricksman. Discussion on the motion. Mr. Turner. Yeah, Madam Chair. Just one quick point to my other comments. If we use the criteria of each individual applicant has sufficient power, Dominion is required by law to tell each individual applicant we can provide you with power because they're a customer, and Dominion has to do that by law.

[06:06:50] We are into the point three in the reasons for making this motion is the critical point here. The proposed scale of the development would contribute to the need for additional high-voltage transmission lines, which will have adverse impacts on existing and proposed development in the county and immediate impacts on surrounding properties.

[06:07:14] This board has an obligation to look at the collateral effects of every application on the surrounding neighborhood. In this case, the surrounding neighborhood is eastern Loudoun County, and that's why I think this is important. I think it's groundbreaking.

[06:07:30] I think we have turned a corner, but this is the kind of consideration I think that we need to have. Thank you, Madam Chair. Anybody else to have a discussion? All I would say before I go back, before closing, if you want to, I do thank everybody for coming out.

[06:07:46] No matter where you were on this spectrum, I do thank you for coming out. This was hard. This was a hard vote for a number of reasons. I do want to say one more time that, you know, that we are – there is no such thing as a moratorium or a slowdown or a stoppage or any of those things on any industry in Loudoun County.

[06:08:09] That is not a thing. And I need to say that just one more time to put, like, a stamp on that because I know that we've gotten a lot of – we got some emails that said that that's not a thing from county staff, not from county supervisors. But overall, this was a very hard vote because the applicant did do so much for this application.

[06:08:29] And so, and I don't want to ignore that like that didn't happen. But Mr. Turner read the reasons for denial. I will associate myself with those comments and go back to him if he wants to have any closing comments. Thank you, Madam Chair. First and foremost, I want to thank the applicant. This is the best application for a data center.

[06:08:47] I know you're ready to climb over the table and strangle me right in front of the daisier, and I totally get that. I totally appreciate that. I understand that. Right now, we're working for two different bosses, and that's just reality. I want to thank everybody who came out and spoke here at midnight. Your arguments were cogent, well thought out, and diverse enough that they showed that each of you put your own touch on it, and I think that's laudable, and I really do appreciate it.

[06:09:14] So thank you all very much. All right. Mr. Turner made the motion. Ms. Bricksman seconded the motion. to deny. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Did you vote, Mr. Klaus?

[06:09:30] You said aye. All opposed? That motion to deny will pass 5-4. Still don't clap. We still don't clap.

[06:09:46] The lady over here is jazz-handing like she's fanning me off over here by her jazz hands. Thank you very much. Supervisors, I'll see you on the day as tomorrow for a budget meeting.

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