Coraggio Consulting
Prince William Board of County Supervisors Meeting, Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Date: Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Place: Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 9h 32m (video)
Official meeting video (Prince William County, Granicus): https://pwcgov.granicus.com/player/clip/3236
Official Board of County Supervisors page (Prince William County): https://www.pwcva.gov/department/board-county-supervisors

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 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:03] tuesday february 7th um those who wish please join me in a moment of silent reflection thank you please rise for the reciting of the pledge of allegiance

[00:00:22] okay thank you we are mr bode's coming he's on his way supervisor bode's coming we'll uh we have enough of a quorum right ms roble okay um next is our uh agenda item three the approval

[00:00:58] of the meeting minutes for January 10th, 17th, 24th, and 25th board meetings. The chair will entertain a motion to approve agenda items 3A through 3D. So move, Madam Chair. Can I get a second, even though Mr. Bodie isn't here? Okay.

[00:01:16] Supervisor Lawson. Okay. Is there any discussion on the minutes? If not, please vote. Vote unanimous.

[00:01:33] Supervisor Bodie absent from vote. Okay. We are now on to our consent agenda. Would someone, we'll do 4A separately from 4B and 4C. Would someone like a motion to approve 4A, please?

[00:01:50] So move, Madam Chair. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Supervisor Franklin. Yeah, okay. No, no.

[00:02:07] We keep, so, yeah, you're right. So, was he the motion or the first or the second? Okay, motion made by Supervisor Angry, seconded by Supervisor Franklin. any further discussion on 4a seeing none please vote vote unanimous okay that brings us to uh

[00:02:38] agenda items 4b and 4c can i get a motion so move ma'am chair motion made by supervisor bailey seconded by supervisor franklin any discussion on 4b and c seeing none please vote vote unanimous supervisor vega abstaining from vote okay um i'm going to now leave the dais uh to read the proclamation for black history month which is to be received by mr byron jenkins jenkins chair of

[00:03:15] the black history committee and ms carlotta sims vice chair of the black history committee i will also be reading a proclamation for the benefit program specialist appreciation month which i believe is to be received by ms laurie wilson chair of the dss advisory board maybe if you want

[00:03:51] to step through and be underneath the tv and that way you'll be able to see you black history month february 2023 whereas the month of february is nationally recognized as black history month and whereas during this month the nation is encouraged to celebrate the history heritage and accomplishments of black american american's peoples past and present and whereas the celebration of black history month is a positive way of recognizing our cultural and history of african americans as vital to the core beliefs and values of this country and nation

[00:04:30] and whereas the prince william county has been enriched by the many black residents who have lived and worked to make our community what it is today and whereas the observance of black history month calls for our attention to the continued need or education regarding the black experience in our county and the commonwealth at large now therefore be it resolved by the prince william board of county supervisors hereby proclaims february 2023 as black history month be it further resolved that the prince william board of county supervisors hereby encourages citizen participation in the activities recognizing the past and present accomplishments, history,

[00:05:04] and heritage of African Americans. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would first like to point out that I appreciate everybody showing up for me today. I'm not necessarily partial to red, but I'll take that. Being a police officer, firefighter, that's an inside joke for all those who know that. But first, I would like to say thank you to the Black History Committee. I've been the chair for the last three years. All of us have gone through the pandemic. We've all known

[00:05:42] the challenges it has given us in order to us to try to lead some kind of normal life and try to keep things as normal as possible. I will tell you that being trying to put on a program every year has met with some pretty challenging obstacles, but the Black History Committee has supported me to make me look better for the leadership that I have to give to them.

[00:06:09] But I have to, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge just a small portion of who's represented right now, their hard-working efforts to make these things come true for the last three years. So please give them a round of applause. The title for this year is every year, so real quick, every year we put on the Black History Program, we have to put on a program based off the national theme, and this year is Black Resistance.

[00:06:39] And I know sometimes when we hear that those words together kind of conjures up some kind of negative things that we've all experienced, especially in the media today. But we have to realize that black resistance, that resistance in this country, actually this country started being resistant, right? I mean, that's the whole basis of this country.

[00:06:57] But we're here to discuss black resistance and how it relates to the history of this country. So please don't let that scare you off. Please come out to the program, enjoy what we have to offer, and please get something out of it, I hope so. So with that, I would like to start my speech and say good afternoon, everybody. I'm also very shy.

[00:07:17] Good afternoon, everyone. Madam Chair, thank you, and the members of the Board of County Supervisors. Since the early 1900s, Prince William County government has hosted Black History Month events and activities to celebrate the diversity of this county in the United States. Each year, the county's observance adopts the national theme of the Association of African-American Life and History.

[00:07:37] This organization was founded long ago, and it also founded Black History Month. It takes as its mission to promote, research, preserve, interpret, and disseminate information about the history, culture, and lives of African Americans and their experience in the global community.

[00:07:52] This year's theme, as I said before, is Black Resistance. It examines how black Americans have fought oppression from the inception of the creation of this country. Throughout American history, this resistance has come in many forms, culminating as a continuous movement to obtain freedom and equality.

[00:08:10] Some of the earliest black resistance came during the Middle Passage when some slaves defied captivity by sacrificing themselves to the sea by jumping overboard during the transatlantic voyage to America. As resistance continued, many well-known historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Dred Scott, and Nat Turner opposed the inhumane treatment of blacks in America.

[00:08:32] Other lesser-known activists such as Margaret Garner, who actually killed her daughter rather than allow the child to be returned to slavery, Bishop Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man nine months before the incident that we know as Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Freeman, who became the first African-American woman to successfully file a lawsuit for freedom in the state of Massachusetts Beinard Rushton a black gay man was a key advisor to

[00:09:11] Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King who helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott and was architect of the March on Washington and a whole host of others these people personified justice sacrifice dignity persistence and freedom the struggle for equality did I end with introduction to the 13 14 to 15 amendments of the constitution however at the end of reconstruction African Americans faced an onslaught of violence and new challenges in racism, Jim Crow, KKK, and government sponsored white supremacy and segregation, which all worked consistently to keep African Americans

[00:09:46] excluded, uneducated, financially underprivileged, and incarcerated. A new period of black resistance had arisen. New leaders emerged in this freer and different social landscape. In addition to the traditional activists of the past, black authors, and sports and entertainment celebrities merged as leaders as the social consciousness of African Americans became more sophisticated. Writers such as James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes influenced the civil rights movement by creatively narrating the African American experience through expressing their antipathy towards inequality. Cassius Clay, who changed his name to Muhammad Ali and protested the

[00:10:24] mistreatment of African Americans in the United States and involvement in the Vietnam War. Tommy Smith and John Carlos famously raised their fists during the medal ceremony at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Harry Balafonte, Cicely Tyson, Ozzie Davis, and Sidney Poitier used their Hollywood influence to become prolific, outspoken ambassadors for freedom and equality. Billie Holiday's Melancholy, Strange Fruit depicted an accurate portrayal of lynching that exposed society to its horrific, inhumane, and barbaric plague in our country. James Baldwin, I'm sorry, James Brown

[00:11:00] harmoniously reminded us of who we are and how we should feel about ourselves in his song, Say It Loud, Black and I'm Proud. During the time when African Americans need it the most, in Marvin Gaye, what's going on emerged as the anthem for the modern-day black struggle in America. In Kylie Carter Jackson's book, Force and Freedom, she wrote, for many, it is difficult to believe that 150 years after slavery's end, Americans can evoke a similar sense of frustration as black abolitionists did in fighting for equality. But it was James Baldwin who famously

[00:11:36] wrote to his nephew in 1962, you know, and I quote, you know and I know that the country is celebrating 100 years of freedom 100 years too early. I hear you, Langston. An observance of Black History Month, the Prince William County Black History Committee will host its first live event in two years on Thursday, February 16th, 2023, in the Ferlazzo Auditorium at 11 o'clock in the morning. Along with a live band, the program will feature spoken stories told by members of the Black History Committee, Sharon Richardson from the Police Department, Nakia Baskerville from the Department of Fire and Rescue, and Curtis Porter, the Chair of the

[00:12:13] Prince William County Human Rights Commission. These performers represent a small cross-section of the county employees who will share the personal stories of black resistance with intent to deliver a first-hand account on this topic from their perspective. Hopefully you will be entertained and informed. At the conclusion of the program, a takeout lunch will also be served in an old cafeteria. Additionally, display and information tables from the Prince William County Preservation Society, the Office of Elections, the Clerk of the Court, and the Office of Human Rights will be available in the foyer. On behalf of the committee, I invite all to attend our occasion for this informative and engaging event. The mission of the Prince William

[00:12:51] County Black History Committee is the ongoing enhancement of the understanding and cooperation between the many cultures in our community through education and interaction. In closing, the committee graciously, thanks to Board of County Supervisors and all the members of the county government for your participation and support for our mission.

[00:13:08] Thank you.

[00:13:29] Next up, we have DSS Benefits Specialist Appreciation Month, Proclamation 2023.

[00:14:03] Is Ms. Wilson here? Okay, and also in attendance, Courtney Tierney, Director of DSS, Phyllis Jennings-Holt, Deputy Director. I have a list of people. Can I read them off? Holly Handy, Assistant Director, Customer Support and Services, and Maren, I didn't pronounce, I didn't practice this, Gabra Hamadin, close enough, Assistant Director, Public Assistance.

[00:14:24] Welcome, welcome. Whereas the Prince William County recognizes the importance of providing a level of economic stability by administering federal and state benefit programs to over 100,000 residents to include supplemental nutrition assistance, temporary assistance for needy families, Medicaid assistance, subsidized child care, long-term care auxiliary grants, refugee cash assistance, employment service programs, and energy assistance.

[00:14:53] And whereas the benefit program specialists continue to experience unprecedented implementation of rapidly changing complex policies and procedures in all major benefit programs as well as continuing changes in service delivery and technology while navigating through the public health emergency and the upcoming unwinding of the pandemic specific policies whereas the Prince William County 19197 benefit program staff provide ethical public services adhering to the Prince William County's vision and values to ensure that those qualified for federal and state benefits services receive

[00:15:29] them and continue to receive them now therefore be resolved that the prince william board of county supervisors hereby proclaims february 2023 as benefit program specialist appreciation month thank you thank you for all you do good afternoon thank you madam chair and members of the board of county supervisors i am laurie wilson i am the chair of the dss advisory board and i represent and the Potomac District on the board.

[00:16:00] Today with me is DSS Director, Courtney Tierney, DSS Deputy Director, Phyllis Jennings-Holt, DSS Assistant Director for Public Assistance, Moran Gaber-Medinhin, and DSS Assistant Director for Customer Support Services, Holly Handy.

[00:16:20] We appreciate your recognizing the 197 employees in these two divisions who manage the processing eligibility determinations for all public assistance programs beginning April 1st for the remaining 12 months of the year these employees led by Ms. Gibber-Medden and Ms. Handy will need to redetermine the eligibility for 54,000 local Medicaid recipients it is a mammoth undertaking this is in addition to their daily work with other public assistance programs mentioned in

[00:16:59] the proclamation please know that the efforts are underway for this enormous task that will be done efficiently and accurately and we at the DSS board and

[00:17:11] the staff we appreciate your continued support so thank you okay we are now on

[00:18:19] to agenda number five our first public hearing 5a to authorize the execution of the agreement with Gladys Kreider in the Brentsville magisterial district I I will open up the public hearing for Agenda Item 5A.

[00:18:36] If you wish to speak in support or opposition of another item, please line up in the podium at the back of the room. Ms. Madden, do we have anyone signed up for 5A? Madam Chair. Supervisor Lawson. Before the public hearing, why don't you go?

[00:18:51] Thank you. So, Madam Chair, before the Board holds the public hearing on and considers Item 5A, I need to declare a personal interest in this matter. My family and I live in Brattlewood Community, which is in the vicinity of this property that the board will be considering acquiring for the new Brentsville District Library.

[00:19:11] My husband and I are one of a group of homeowners in the Brattlewood Community, actually about probably 400 homeowners, the members of which are affected by this matter. Because I'm able to participate in this transaction fairly, objectively, and in the public interest, I will be participating in the board's consideration of a vote on it.

[00:19:31] Thank you. Thank you. seeing no one approach the microphone this will officially close the public hearing for agenda item fate 5a supervisor lawson would you like to make a motion or would you rather someone else do that can someone else make a motion for 5a please so move madam chair motion made by supervisor vice chair bode and seconded by supervisor bailey any further discussion madam chair supervisor lawson thank you i would like to thank library staff and miss deborah wright first and miss castillado down the front row our deputy county executive who oversees the library organization

[00:20:10] for just continuing to pursue a location for a western for a brentsville library and i do think that this is in a a great location right there on linton hall corridor as i just said it's it's pretty close to my neighborhood and in all honesty i never even considered this as a as a location But I know that the Brentsville District, if this comes to fruition, will certainly appreciate it and utilize it.

[00:20:40] So thank you, Michelle Casagato, for your leadership on this. Always exciting to get another library location. So wonderful. Seeing no further discussion, please vote. Vote unanimous.

[00:20:57] Okay, great. That brings us on to 5B. Supervisor Engre, I believe you have a FOIA disclosure. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, before the board holds the public hearing on item 5B, which transfers budgets and appropriates funds to the schools, I need to disclose a personal interest in this matter.

[00:21:12] My wife is a special education instructional aide with the schools. As a school employee, my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by these transactions. Because I am able to participate in this transaction fairly objectively and in a public interest, I will be participating in the board's consideration of and vote on these items.

[00:21:33] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Angry. Which brings us to 5B, the Resolution to Transfer Budget and Appropriate Funds to the Prince William County Schools, representing their share of the fiscal year 2022 surplus general funds, revenue, and cable franchise fees. Can I get a motion for that?

[00:21:50] So moved, Madam Chair. Oh, I'm so sorry. I would like to open the public hearing for agenda item 5B. Ms. Madden, do we have anyone signed up for 5B?

[00:22:07] No one has signed up for 5B. I'm always assuming we're checking online that no one has signed up online for 5B. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak on 5B? Please approach the microphone in the back. Seeing no one approach the microphone in the back, this will officially close the public hearing on agenda item 5B.

[00:22:24] We have a motion on the table. Can I still use that? Okay. If we can do that again, please. So moved. Can I get a second? Second. Motion made by Vice Chair Bodie, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Any further discussion on 5B?

[00:22:40] Seeing no one requesting to speak, please vote. Vote unanimous. Great. Thank you. We're now on to 5C, the resolution to transfer budget and appropriate the American Rescue Plan Act funding to upgrade the video and broadcast production systems, facilities, and supporting infrastructure.

[00:23:06] If I could now open the public hearing on 5C. Is anyone signed up, Ms. Madden? Is anyone signed up for any of these public hearings? Okay. So I will just say, what did she say? Okay, great.

[00:23:22] Thank you, Ms. Madden. Then I will say, if anyone interested in speaking to this, now that the public hearing is open for 5C, approach the microphone in the back. Seeing no one approach the microphone in the back, this will officially close the public hearing on item 5C. Can I get a motion to a motion?

[00:23:40] So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Vote unanimous. That brings us on to Item 5D.

[00:23:56] We have a resolution to transfer budget and appropriate Profford's fund to the Potomac-Neasco commuter parking garage project in the Woodbridge Magisterial District. I will now open the public hearing for Agenda Item 5D. If you wish to speak in support or opposition of the noted item, please line up at the podium at the back of the room.

[00:24:15] Seeing no one approach the microphone in the back of the room, this will officially close the public hearing on Agenda Item 5D. If I could get a motion for approval. Motion made by Supervisor Frankly, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Any discussion? You're welcome.

[00:24:37] Seeing no further. Madam Chair. Supervisor Vega. Thank you. My tablet isn't functioning, so I can't request to speak. That's why I didn't notify you. But I do have a few questions, and I see Mr. Conizal is here. If I could ask him to please come forward.

[00:25:05] Your mic is off, Rick. I'm sorry. It's okay. Welcome. Thank you. Just a few questions. Is this the one that was planned for the Potomac Nationals? Originally, ma'am, this was supposed to be, yes, a shared garage with the Potomac National Stadium.

[00:25:23] Okay, and then where are we in regards to the percentage of parking spaces being used at the nearby Horner and Dumfries commuter lots? I don't know the exact number for those. I would have to go back to check what the latest VDOT numbers are. But I know it wasn't as full as it was before, you know, obviously the pandemic.

[00:25:41] We do and have heard from experts and other people say that they believe that once now that the federal government is declaring the pandemic over in May, that those numbers may be ticking up as people may start having to commute back to the offices. We will see if that happens.

[00:25:56] As that happens, we will continue to inform the board as we grow in the parking situation. Okay, and I ask because of $52 million that were allocated, I raised that I didn't feel that there was a need for it. so i kind of find myself in that same position right now if we're going to be making this transfer is the demand there and so that's the reason for for the questions that i'm asking also want to know if the general proffer funds um are these general proper funds or are these specific from the woodbridge no they're specific from the woodbridge districts actually specific from the potomac town center uh proffers that are the town center that this uh garage will be

[00:26:34] also serving okay thank you thank you ma'am so Supervisor Bailey I just can't see it you'll fix that okay thank you Supervisor Bailey yes Rex certainly not to put it no no no not to put you on spot but I just want to let Supervisor Vega know that my lot is full in Dumfries they're back to work so just wanted to say that thank you actually mr. Gonzalez I do have a question real quick um you know I know we originally did this because of the the possible stadium but the fact that we're now having the express lanes at Opus

[00:27:08] Boulevard should really make this a very useful garage is that correct madam chair members of the board that's a great point ma'am I would like to just correct a little bit of what you said we did not create this this project to serve the stadium that was supposed to be a shared use and that's how we were getting the land to do the project but the project had always been to serve the need and the demand of the commuters of Prince William County and that's what the project was for the secondary uses and now it's not the stadium but the secondary use will now be for the Potomac Town Center and maybe something or whatever gets put in the property in the front of the project that there

[00:27:48] is some available property to be developed in in front of the project once the project is complete will also be served by the slot so I just wanted to put put that out there before we started the second thing ma'am you are correct and I've had talked to you about this in the mobility report The Express Partners and VDAR are creating ramps off of the express lanes right off of OPITS to be able to serve this specific facility, to be able to get on and off on the express lanes at peak periods of time.

[00:28:15] So thank you. Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Franklin. Sure. And just want to make sure, because I know I've spoken to the HOA in that area, just want to make sure that transportation was able to reach out as well. Oh, yes, ma'am. We're in good contact with the general manager there at the HOA. she has asked us to come in and present to the group at the last minute it did get canceled but she'd let us know that she let us know in the future when the group is ready to hear from us I just want to point out that we have been in touch with the residents of that area okay thank you very much thank you very much mr. Gonzalez I think we've done the public hearing and we have a motion

[00:28:51] seeing no further discussion please vote vote unanimous and yes now it says view speakers as opposed to request to speak thank you great okay 5e is I'll just notice that 5e has been withdrawn it was a public hearing and it was advertised which is why we couldn't just pull it off the agenda it will come back perhaps at another time that brings us on to item number six public comment time today we have nine people signed up for public 9 10 11 12 people signed up in

[00:29:30] person for public comment time I will call the people up at five at a time and And if each speaker has three minutes to share your views and opinions regarding matters before the board, we ask that all speakers state their name and magisterial district or where you live, where you reside in the county at the beginning of their remarks.

[00:29:49] After the first 15 minutes of in-person public comment time, we will close the in-person sign-up list. Our first five speakers are Felicia Partlow, Robin Stroud, Russell Bryant, Seth C-R-E-Q-U-E, or G-R-E-Q-U-E, I can't pronounce that, and Ann Medford.

[00:30:21] Please proceed. So I can't hear you very well, so try speaking right into the mic and see if that helps. I'm not, I'll think it's on.

[00:30:38] Good afternoon. My name is Felicia Partlow, and I live in the Woodbridge District, and I'm here in support of the collective bargaining for county employees.

[00:31:03] I applaud you all for what you have done so far, but there's still stuff that needs to be done. We should have the right to bargain over pay and the right to bargain over benefits, and provisional employees, regardless of their status, should be included full or part-time.

[00:31:21] And we have employees in this county that are not even making a livable wage, and they're having to make decisions based off of whether they're going to get supplies, some of them like school supplies, even though that may seem minimum to you all about school supplies, but not being able to afford the items that your children need to go to school to learn, and you have to choose between am I going to buy my groceries, or am I going to get them the calculator they need for their class, Or am I going to put gas in my car?

[00:31:55] That's a decision no parent should have to be able to make. And you shouldn't have to depend on someone to donate stuff for your child to get the basic needs of learning, which is mandated for us in this country to kids go to school. And then also, you know, you're building off the back of this county, off the back of the taxpayers.

[00:32:17] Your businesses are not even contributing as much as your taxpayers are in their real estate taxes. I mean, I wish I made enough as much of these businesses and didn't have to pay. You've got businesses making three or four times what these county employees are making and not even paying a cent in business taxes.

[00:32:38] And I don't think that it's fair considering that they're using this county roads and systems and infrastructures just like your taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you. And those who are new to chambers, we don't allow clapping either good or bad or booing or any expressions just so it's clear across the thing.

[00:33:04] But, you know, I'll just keep those a new welcome. Next speaker, please. Hey, my name's Robin Stroud. My family and I live about two miles from here in Hamptons Grove right up Davis Ford Road.

[00:33:19] As a mother of a firefighter, it warms my heart to see you all here today. Yay. Madam Chair, Board of Supervisors and County Executive Shorter, Please change what is needed by the deadline to include we part-time non-benefited provisional employees and collective bargaining and restore access to facilities where we work to train and maintain.

[00:33:45] In the latest Prince William County Leisure Publication to Recreation Fund and Fitness, Seth Hemler-Voss, our Parks, Recreation and Tourism Director, messages to readers. Membership includes access to both Chin and Scherenbach and Dale City Aquatic and Fitness Centers for access to over 160 land and water group fitness classes per week, exclamation mark.

[00:34:11] I support that. And that our staff is committed to ensuring you have an exceptional experience at every turn. We non-benefited part-time provisional employees are that staff delivering on CES commitment of ensuring an exceptional experience at every turn.

[00:34:29] We professionally certified fitness and aquatic instructors, personal trainers, lifeguards, front desk, fitness attendees, and custodians show up and deliver throughout each day, each work week, every year. Please change what is needed by the deadline to include we part-time non-benefited provisional employees in collective bargaining, and restore access to facilities where we work to train and maintain.

[00:34:55] Requiring us to pay to access what we need to maintain a trained workforce creates an unsafe workplace, negatively impacting employee retention and attraction and paying customers. Charging us a member fee, $432, which includes a 20% discount, that same discount that is extended periodically to Prince William County residents, reduces our real wages by $8.31 weekly while creating a new source of revenue for the county, although few of my co-workers have anteed up on principle, if nothing else.

[00:35:34] Many can't afford it. We all remember when hired at Dale City and Chen Aquatic and Fitness Centers that access to the facility where we worked was included, not something we would be charged for. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:35:50] Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, Chair. supervisors, county exec, county attorney. My name is Russell Bryant. I live in the Woodbridge District. My previous appearance before for Citizen's Time comment, the dais had a lively discussion and exchange regarding public comment time management.

[00:36:14] In that vein, my other half and I provide two inputs, propose a style of feedback kiosk or room for the public to submit via an approximately three-minute recorded statement focused on their particular specific topic or input that is not on the current public hearing agenda.

[00:36:38] These could then be viewed by county staff, officials, for grouping and applicable processing. Alternatively, or in addition, adjust the sign-up sheet for public comment to add after the name and jurisdiction the topic that is going to be addressed.

[00:36:57] That way, a certain amount of screening can be done so that repeat speakers might be forced to not say the same thing each time they come. Historically, and decades ago, a Virginia jurisdiction, specifically Virginia Beach, started a feedback kiosk for citizens to provide feedback and comments on their interactions with the jurisdiction.

[00:37:25] Additionally, the planning department has done and the county has authorized on certain development matters a specific website link to be able to provide comments back to the staff that can be collected, processed, and screened in the process of developing items that would then be passed to the board for action.

[00:37:51] Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Madam Chair, Honorable Board Members, my name is Seth Green. i reside in the brentsville magisterial district i am a fire and rescue captain and have been with the county for 10 years over my 10 years i have seen fire and rescue responsibilities continue to increase annually from work hours mandatory overtime call volume and expectations fire and rescue always answers yes when tasked with new expectations and demands on the system fire and rescue never waivers in their commitment to the residents of princelain county does the

[00:38:26] board share this commitment kovid created an astounding lasting impact on fire and rescue employees. Call volume multiplied, the unknown health threat to firefighters and their families, and the beginning of record inflation that has eroded our salaries for over three years.

[00:38:41] With no real compensation increases over the last three years, fire and rescue employees' salaries are now 16 percent lower than in 2019. With this three-year pay cut, we've experienced record resignations and retirements. These aren't 30-year battalion chiefs retiring. These are essential, experienced technicians and officers nowhere near their retirement age. These are Prince William County trained paramedics leaving for neighboring jurisdictions. This talent and experience drain is untenable. Future county and thus fire and rescue growth depends upon this talent and

[00:39:16] experience to not only maintain our daily service levels, but to train and mentor new members to meet the ever-growing demands of fire and rescue. The most universal recruitment and retention strategy is compensation i urge you not only as a county employee but as a county resident to consider implementing a 20 pay raise for fire and rescue effective april 1 2023 thank you for your consideration thank you very much before our next speaker i'm going to call our next uh resident next four resident speakers margarita moyland patrice summers alicia gloss alan gloss madam

[00:39:55] Chair, Board of Supervisors, thank you for having me. I'm Ann Medford of the Ocupine District. I want to tell you my grandfather was Chief of Firefighters in Dallas County in the 70s before he retired and was elected to state legislature. My other grandfather, my maternal grandfather, was the president of 513 Hoisting Engineers Union in St. Louis County, where he's still a resident and still acts and works as a dump truck driver. He built the arch. These men are why I have chosen

[00:40:30] to speak up. I will continue to speak up for those that are afraid to speak up because we provisional employees, 534 of us, provisional employees deserve and need to be included in collective bargaining. The firefighters you're seeing here today tell you how important those that us that don't feel like we are seen need to be seen. We need to be included in this county ordinance. They have their ordinance. We deserve to be included in the collective bargaining

[00:41:03] discussion as provisional employees my part-time non-benefit employees continue to feel unseed please see us i want to be included i want to keep having my voice heard i want to become a part of what you're doing we want to be a part of what we are doing as county residents employees and building this place better and where it could be thank you thank you next speaker please my name

[00:41:41] My name is Margarita Moylan, and I reside in the Gainesville District. I've spoken to the Board on numerous occasions in the past. Today, I am here to speak about public comment times specifically. Public speaking is a very important aspect of our democracy.

[00:41:58] It allows people to express their views in a public forum, which is recorded and can be referenced. This information is provided to you before you vote. Suppressing our voice in a public forum will simply lead to further distrust of members of the board silencing members of the community is not a solution it is creating a bigger problem than you already have public common time is the only opportunity we have where we can share our thoughts openly with the entire board you should be thanking us for our input and participation

[00:42:38] furthermore you should also take time to discuss and thoughtfully consider the concerns of your constituents before you vote please do not silence the voters of prince william county thank you thank you next speaker please hello patrice summers potomac district and a county employee prince william county employees need collective bargaining because we need correct measures to

[00:43:13] ensure that supervisors and managers are not retaliating against employees one of my fellow co-workers wrote this but didn't feel safe enough to come in and speak on it and so i'm speaking on her behalf she lives and she works in Prince William County she loves working in Prince William County however she's also since being here have seen how managers have been allowed to abuse their privileges abuse employees and it just baffles her the county has many great employees who go

[00:43:46] above and beyond on a daily basis to help make the county run and who strive to assist taxpayers to the best of their abilities no matter what the role is that they're playing but when you have As supervisors and managers who don't truly care about what's best for the taxpayer or the county employee, it makes their job extremely difficult and hard.

[00:44:11] Supervisors and managers dump their workloads onto an already overbearing workload. And if you say something, you're retaliated against. You're not a team player. Every day, the county loses great employees because of these mistreatments.

[00:44:31] We feel as though we have no support. If you can't turn to your supervisor or your manager, who can you turn to? If you go to HR, that's an even bigger problem. It becomes even worse. You are deemed an outcast. We have the right to bargain over pay and benefits, but we also need the right to bargain over working conditions.

[00:44:52] The ordinance must include all provisional employees. Unfair labor practices need to be included with clear standards and accountability, So all our rights as workers and as a union member are protected.

[00:45:09] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Alicia Gloss-Coles. I wanted to get in and speak earlier today because tonight's going to be another long night for all the constituents of Prince William County and the supervisors because there's another data center discussion on Devlin Road.

[00:45:32] So that's going to be a long night. So I'm here to talk about public comment time. I hope the veil has been lifted as to what this chair's intentions are by now. This chair has been thumbing her nose at us and at her own base for years now. The sad part, I believe, is that citizens still think that she can be reasoned with.

[00:45:50] No matter how many thousands of emails, speakers, at public comment time, delegates, senators, conservation groups, and even her own base speak in opposition will change her mind. She is resolute and hell-bent on going 100 miles per hour, taking Prince William County off a cliff with her. Don't take my word for it.

[00:46:06] Just look at her record over the last three years. Controversial vote after vote, voting against the will of the people. So no matter what facts you give or impassioned speech or email, nothing is going to sway her. This chair is what you call an ideologue, and they are not beholden to the voters.

[00:46:24] Most politicians want to be reelected, reelected to office, so their voters' voices listen to, but not with this chair. You must ask yourself, what the heck is going on? I'll tell you. This chair decided long ago before she was elected that if she got power, she would do things her way and be a martyr and die on her own sword if that was the result.

[00:46:44] of her decisions. But I believe most of you on this dais want to be re-elected for your constituents and your communities. But I fear you are all in political trouble for going along with this chair and her reckless leadership. This chair sees public comment time as an inconvenience.

[00:47:00] She doesn't want to listen to us because her mind is already made up, and that's why she is pushing for more limitations of public comment time. I hope others on this dais see the danger in this. This chair's leadership is reckless, and she must be voted out. So please tell your friends your neighbors be sure to vote her out because she will not change and doesn't fear your voice or her leadership this chair doesn't care that she signed a petition to protect the rural present and went back on it she doesn't care about conflicts of interest over her data stock ownership she doesn't care about hearing from the public the only way to dethrone the queen

[00:47:39] is to vote vote vote her out in november thank you guys have a great day before a long night you're about to endure. Before our next speaker, I'm going to call up our last three non-residents, Alex Paris, Mitch Nason, and Jessica Taylor. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, Alan Gloss-Coles.

[00:48:03] I understand the board is still talking about killing public comment time. This seems to be a very common theme with this board. The discussion is a very simple question, that is, how do we get these people to shut up so we can go about doing what we want to do? After all, as the elected board, we know what is best for everyone else. It seems that winning a single election has gone to some of y'all's heads. I have a newsflash for you. You do not know everything, and despite what you think, we absolutely do have a say in what happens in this county. Now, you may think that our say only matters every four years, but you'd be absolutely wrong. Our opinions do matter, and as elected

[00:48:40] representatives, you need to hear them constantly, whether or not you like to hear them. We all see your reactions to what we say it's always telling some of you are better at hiding it than others some of you hide your disdain behind a mask and some of you get up and walk out like margaret franklin did tonight when someone like me is speaking the first amendment of the u.s constitution says that all people have the right to redress grievances of the government but let me read to you article 1 section 2 of virginia constitution all power is vested in and derived from the people

[00:49:14] that the magistrates that's you guys are and are their trustees and servants and at all times amenable to them not once a year not once a quarter not once a month not once a week for three silly minutes but the constitution says at all times your power rests in us not a vote from three years ago but a daily servitude to we the people we've allowed you a certain decorum to hear from us once a week during these board meetings but history has shown us time and again what happens when officials choose to not listen to the public. In June of 2020, I sat right over there

[00:49:49] as Supervisor Franklin got on the mic and told us that riots are the voice of the unheard. I've got to ask Supervisor Franklin if she believes that curtailing the public's ability to interact with their elected officials lead people to be feeling more or less heard. And if I don't advocate for violence of any kind, but I will tell you that our voices will be heard, and if it's not heard in this chamber at a predictable time and location for everyone, you will hear our grievances when it might not be as convenient for you.

[00:50:25] Time and again, we've seen where people on this board failed to listen, went back on campaign promises, or chose to do things in their own best interest, rather than the best interest of the people of Prince William County. Changing the rules is not good government and in no one's best interest. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

[00:50:48] Good afternoon. My name is Helton Pereira, and I live in the Broadland community in Noakesville. I am a fire and rescue lieutenant, and I have been in Prince William County for the last 15 years. I've been a resident for the last 12 to 13 years. I've been blessed with this job. I've been blessed to live in this community for the last 13 years.

[00:51:09] And I've been inside of this board chamber many times alongside my brothers and sisters, the fire department, the police department, and other community for better work conditions, benefits, better pay. Today I have decided to stand before you to share some of the experiences that I had in the Fire Department and how they affect me not only at work but also at home.

[00:51:33] A few years ago we've had our hours increased. We've had, as mentioned before, an increase in number of calls, in number of incidents. Our population continues to grow and unfortunately our number of providers and members of the Fire Department continue to dwindle.

[00:51:52] And with an increased number of calls and the things that we do and what's expected of us in the fire department, it's tiresome, both physically, mentally, and even spiritually. As a member of the fire department and a man of faith, I try to instill in people and pass on to try to be positive and try to do the best we can and continue to do the work to the best of our abilities.

[00:52:19] But to be honest, sometimes that's hard. Just last night, I was up two to three times helping members of this community and doing everything that I do. Went home, slept for a couple hours, and left my wife with my sick daughter at home to come here and stand before you to ask that you bring up our benefits and pay us fairly as we continue to be below the jurisdictions around us.

[00:52:45] Some of you on the boards are new, and I haven't had a chance to interact with you, But other of you, I have interacted both here in the board chambers, but also outside of just official business. I've brought calls with some of you that are on the board.

[00:53:01] I have shooken your hands in church meetings. So I'm not just standing here as a member of the fire department. I'm standing here also as a member of this community who I walk with and live with you guys. So, once again, together here with my brothers and sisters, I'm just asking you to give our 20% raise, as I believe we are, I mean, not that we earned it, but I think that for what we do for this community, we work hard for it.

[00:53:32] And I'm sure everybody else here works hard for it, but we continue to be below our jurisdictions around us. So, I'm just asking you guys to see us more than just some guys and girls in red t-shirts. We are people that live here, that work here, and we care for this community and not just getting a paycheck.

[00:53:50] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Alex Paris, and I unfortunately no longer reside in Prince William County and currently live in Stafford. You may or may not remember me standing before you last year asking for you to increase firefighter pay to keep up with the cost of living in order to retain current employees and hopefully recruit the many more needed.

[00:54:15] My ask then, as well as those of my fellow brothers and sisters, fell on deaf ears as our pay continues to stay well below the regional average. You all have now compounded problems. What was once firefighters hoping to maintain a living salary with the ability to own a home, pay for fuel, and put food on the table of the county they serve has evolved into a staffing crisis.

[00:54:35] Not only did we see an increase in work hours three years ago, but by failing to keep up with the rising cost of living, we have forced more firefighters to leave for higher paying jobs while simultaneously not attracting enough new people to keep up with the growing population and needs of the county. This has caused the implementation of mandatory holdover.

[00:54:51] For those unaware, that means on top of working my scheduled 72 hours over just five days, I can now be forced to work an additional 12 hours any morning I am supposed to be headed home to my family in order to maintain the bare minimum emergency services in the county. You also have compounded the problem further by not allowing us to maintain enough employees to staff all our engine companies across the county equally.

[00:55:12] I bring this up because most engine companies still do not have a fourth person, which is the regional standard, or an advanced life support provider on it. The advanced life support provider specifically allows life-saving medications and treatments to be provided to citizens while waiting for a transport unit to arrive. I bring this point up specifically as one of those engine companies without an advanced life support provider was the one closest to my old home in Woodbridge.

[00:55:35] The interesting fact is the engine companies that are missing these advanced life support providers are primarily on the east end of the county along the I-95 and Route 1 corridors. Are you all saying that the citizens on the east end of the county with typically lower incomes are not as titled to the same services as those of higher income on the west end?

[00:55:53] As you can see, these are many of the issues that need to be addressed, just a few that I've named today. We can't, unfortunately, touch any of these issues until we can maintain and recruit more firefighters by providing appropriate compensation. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:56:09] Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Jessica Taylor. I'm a technician, too, with Prince William County. I'll have 15 years in June. My mom lives in the Neabsco District, and I pretty much live there in her basement now because of the 56-hour work week.

[00:56:28] But anyway, so I was hired in June of 2008. After graduating a six-month firefighter academy, I was paid a salary of $44,637.99, making $17.88 an hour.

[00:56:44] In January of 2023, a Prince William County firefighter, EMT, will make $54,331.47, making a whopping $18.65 an hour. In the last 14 years, with recent record inflation, Prince William County Board has only increased a first-year firefighter's hourly rate by $0.77 over the last 14 years.

[00:57:10] Think about how much more things cost today versus in 2008. Don't question why we can't keep firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics from leaving in droves to other professions that let them sleep uninterrupted in their own beds at night and have dinner with their spouses and kids every day like many of you probably enjoy.

[00:57:31] The following is a list of 53 firefighters that I know of who have quit this last year with many more taking an early retirement because the cost to their own physical, mental, and psychological health is just too high and the pay is not worth it anymore.

[00:57:48] Stop thanking us with words and actually show us that you value our lives, the lives that we risk every day, and the sacrifices we and our families make every day that we put on the uniform. C.J. Monroe, Nicholas Beattie, Andrew Ra, Andrew Hudek, Alexander Hall, Edson Appleton, Lindsay Savat, Austin Sutton, Michael Dolez, Gabe Lunders, Jason Atkins, Lawrence Price, Adam Nogveski, Josh Taylor, Ashley Asma Esqueda, George Fry, Ian Jones, Don Thiel, Jeff Metz, Nicholas White, Bruce Bolio, Curtis White, Brian Smith, Jason Patton,

[00:58:24] Jonathan Medina, Brett Corrine, Matthew Tanner, Nathan Royster, Nathan D'Ordio, Mark Belanda, Jason Upchurch, James Ritko, Joseph Felsenstreger, Tyler Jordan, Michael Foster, Louis Lewis, Jeffrey Payne, Bryce Diebel, David Huford, Shannon Frick, Taylor Smith, Tyler Marnell, Louis Teller, Brittany Bishop, Tyler Frable, Sarah Mullins, Colin Tang, Jennifer Delp, Michael Foster, Jeffrey Dell, Floyd Mallett, Marcel Gilly, Connor Fagan. And I know that there's a couple more coming up that just haven't posted yet so that's a lot of names and just please do some calculations

[00:59:03] in your mind how much does it cost to put a firefighter through recruit school and then a lot of those i would say about half of them or more are technician twos which means the county has paid to put them through dpo internships all kinds of training so if you're paying all the money because you value the services that they provide stay ahead of the game and pay them a salary that will keep them so you can actually bear fruit from your investment. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board, fellow county staff. Mitch

[00:59:41] Nason, you guys are probably well aware that I've been coming in here for 15, 18 years. Specifically the past six months, I've been talking your ears off about the looming staffing crisis that we are now knee deep in, probably waist deep. Maybe it's getting up closer to our armpits. It's been expressed to me over the past couple months that we need to have a face to go along with that crisis that you need to actually see the people that are being affected that and it's the people that came in today they only get two-thirds of their life to themselves so the third of it is spent in a firehouse we swore we swore an oath to do that that's not a problem but two-thirds of life and that some of them chose to come here today to say I need to express to my elected

[01:00:18] officials and to our senior staff that this is a real issue my family came along with me today because I want you to also be able to see that and there's other family members that are attending as well, that it's not just us. It's our family members that deal with the problems that come with the staffing crisis that we're facing. You have the numbers. I've given to you for the past six months. It just keeps getting worse. In fact, if you check your cell phones, guys, I think I've got another one today. I know I've got two more looming. You've got all of it. I'm happy to give it all to you. The pay study that we still haven't seen that was requested months ago, you don't need it.

[01:00:50] They're hiring our people, so we know exactly how far behind we are. You're going to find out when you're probably hopefully next week told that we're somewhere between 5% and 7% behind the regional average on an annual basis. When you switch that to an hourly basis, we're 17.5% behind the regional average. That's right now. We know of pay increases that are going into effect in July. So when we ask for a 20% raise, that is not outstanding. In fact, 16% is what's necessary to keep us from having a pay cut from 2018 to now. Getting to the 20% is actually having a little bit of worth put on top of that. And unfortunately, that only puts us right into the

[01:01:25] middle of the pack in the North Virginia region. And so I want to end with the questions that I've been fielding a lot over the past two weeks, three weeks, as I've been telling people, hey, can you come out to this thing? I really want the supervisors to see how important this is. And they say, what do you think we're going to get? And I said, I don't know. I can't tell you what I think we're going to get. What I can tell you is that we're asking for 20 percent. And that sounds like a big number, but it's not. Because 16 percent would keep us even with the purchasing power that was what we put in place back when we increased our work hours 20% in 2019.

[01:01:57] So anything less than 15%, that'd be a pretty big letdown, an awfully big letdown. Anything less than 10% would just be disrespectful. And unfortunately, that's what we've been faced with over the past three years. And had we just kept up with inflation, maybe I wouldn't be asking for a number that might seem high.

[01:02:14] But understand, when it's broken down onto an hourly basis, all we're doing is asking to be able to buy the same amount of milk and bread that we did back in 2019. We're asking for some dignity and respect in what we do to protect our community. We'll be back next Tuesday and, quite frankly, probably every Tuesday through the remainder of the budget season.

[01:02:31] But please, and sooner rather than later, you've got the fourth quarter money. I've sent you all that data. You've got it. You got it found out last week. If you can implement the pay raise on the 1st of April, that would put us in a good place before we can get into the budget season next year. Thank you for your time.

[01:02:48] Thank you. That will conclude in-person public comment time, and we'll turn it over to Vice Chair Bodie to do remote public comment time. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Vann, how many folks do we have lined up today? Thank you. As with our in-person speakers, who will give a quick second to file out, our online folks have three minutes to speak.

[01:03:09] Please identify where you live in the county before you speak, and please give us a moment as folks file out of the atrium, into the atrium. We want to be mindful and respectful before they speak.

[01:03:47] Okay, I think we're ready to begin.

[01:04:07] Thank you, Ms. Vann, for your patience. I really believe this was signal a shift in this board's validation and prioritization.

[01:04:35] That was a very clear message to the public. And all of those screening public comment times, as was suggested earlier by another speaker, would also send a very clear message to the public as well. If our comments and our opinions are being censored and are not incurred by our elected officials, I'm afraid that that will move to more public outcry and dispense.

[01:05:02] I ask you to be very thoughtful and to discuss and deliberate any changes to public comment time and to limiting free speech by people during this ordinance. I also want to publicly say that I oppose the Declan Tech Park proposal of rezoning that is passing later this morning.

[01:05:27] As you all know, I have been very vocal in producing many incompatible proposals for data centers. I do believe the Declan Tech Park would be detrimental to my neighbors in Bristow, by fellow citizens and just being so close and proximity to their homes and to the school.

[01:05:51] It just would not be a good idea to approve this without hearing the public, without doing proper studies, and really taking the time to listen to all the concerned citizens. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

[01:06:06] Thank you, Ms. Harders. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Suzanne Brooks.

[01:06:14] Thank you. Sorry. My name is Suzanne Ruff. I've lived in the Bryceville District for 20 years. I'm here to oppose the data center as planned. I have two same questions. Virginia is a fairly big state, and I wonder why you are choosing to overwhelm our precious things in Spain with each huge tech warehouse in the most populated part of this state.

[01:06:54] How can you see this as enhancing the quality of life for the taxing citizens of the western neighborhood in Prince William County, where we think we're always been prized? Please consider good health quality of life centers in the western end of Prince William County before polluting our neighborhoods and community for sale centers.

[01:07:14] If you search for rest centers in the PwC site, only two are listed. They're both in Woodbridge, the eastern end of Prince William County. Are there any plans to build an indoor, aquatic, and fitness center in the western end of Prince William County in your comprehensive planning?

[01:07:35] If so, please tell me where. If not, why? We warranted a full-service library which was built at least eight years after it passed the bond resolution and the hospital. Why no state-of-the-art indoor aquatic and recreation fitness center in the western end of Prince William County?

[01:07:52] These indoor all-weather facility centers are important enough to provide an area of the geographic area of the county, including the National City on the National Park. Why not go up in the National City of the County? In your comprehensive plans for the quality of life of all tax cases in the county, the active adults, the elderly, the physical challenge of everything, and the next year, please reconsider your priorities.

[01:08:19] The link 2200 and visit data center is 25 miles south of Washington, D.C., and the commonwealth of Virginia's second most populous county with approximately 482,000 residents. Really, it's just so long.

[01:08:34] Thank you so much for offering this opportunity. Congratulations, D.C. Thank you, Ms. Brooks. Next speaker, please. The next speaker is Jessica Grove.

[01:08:47] Good afternoon. My name is Jessica Grove and I reside in the Gainesville District. I'd like to speak about public comment time. I don't know if I realize this but public speaking is probably the number one fear of most citizens everywhere around the world and for us to come in and try to speak to our elected leaders is very difficult and for you to put limitations on that is disrespectful to us when it causes so much anxiety.

[01:09:27] But the reason that we're speaking to you is because we're being inundated with issues that affect our lives so greatly. I would appreciate if you did not limit public comment time and you actually listened to us and thoughtfully considered what we have to say since we have elected you.

[01:09:51] I would also like to note that I also agree with putting Devlin to Thumb. We are so close to homes and residences in Bristow. And I hope that you will hear all three minutes of everybody that speaks up this evening to tell you how they feel.

[01:10:12] And maybe we would be a little bit less concerned about public speaking time if when we did write letters to you, we got a response. But since we don't know if you have actually gotten into our letters and responded and answered our questions, we need to come and speak to you in person.

[01:10:33] Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Grove. Is there anyone else online, Ms. Van? Thank you, as always, for your assistance, Ms. Van. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you, Vice Chair Bodie and Ms. Van.

[01:10:49] We will see you later tonight. That concludes our public comment time in the afternoon right now. so we are on to item number seven uh to amend the prince william county code by adopting an ordinance creating a commercial property assessed clean energy financing program to operate in coordination with the commonwealth of virginia's department of energy statewide c-pace program i will now open the public hearing for agenda item 7a ms badden do we have anyone signed up for 7a

[01:11:20] if you wish to speak on 7a please approach the microphone seeing no one approached the microphone this will officially close the public hearing on item 7a um i will entertain a motion for 7a supervisor bode did you want to make that i think someone already did my okay it was just because it was your your directive okay okay sorry someone sorry i was just okay okay no no need to clear

[01:11:59] i'm good with who i was just trying to be different i'm excited that is finally getting passed. Okay, motion made by Supervisor Bailey. Bailey, I'll second. And seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any discussion? Yes, Madam Chair. Supervisor Bodie, and then Supervisor Vega, and then Supervisor Franklin. Thank you, Madam Chair. And sorry, I tried to hit my button, but it didn't go right quick. Just first, wanted to thank everyone who got us to this point. I know this is a directive that was given way back during the beginning of our term as a board here in 2020.

[01:12:35] We've hit some hiccups here and there, some bumps in the road, but I'm glad between our staff and their grit and the state opening up their own CPACE program, we're here to finally put it on the books and ordinance for CPACE. It's my hope that in the coming months and years, we're able to help utilize this program with our non-residential businesses, whether they be faith organizations, corporations, what have you, to really move the ball forward on energy efficiency all throughout the county.

[01:13:04] As we all know, we adopted very, very ambitious clean energy goals back in the end of 2020, and frankly, the commercial space is one of the biggest drivers of those greenhouse gas emissions. So they will be key partners in making sure that we get to those goals.

[01:13:19] So I'm very happy that we're going to be adopting this ordinance. I look forward to how we're able to implement it in the future. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question for Michelle, maybe two.

[01:13:42] Hi, Michelle. So all the way at the bottom of the staff report, it says CPACE is an open market financing program for non-residential property owners to install energy and water efficiency improvements.

[01:14:01] Loans for the improvements are made by private capital providers and are secured by a voluntary special assessment. And so before I consider voting for this, I just want to confirm that the last sentence means exactly what it says, that this program is entirely voluntary and funded by private capital? That's correct.

[01:14:16] Okay, thank you. Let's see. And just to make sure at no point also, under this current ordinance, can the cost be shifted to taxpayers? That's correct. Other than if the program grew such that staff administration, we would need to add staffing. Right now, we envision our role will be limited. It's going to be administered by the state through their program, through an agreement with them.

[01:14:38] But if it came that we had such a volume that it would take our staff more time, we may have to come back with a staffing request. but and if that were the case what's the time frame that we're looking at like how long do you think it would take before that I think a couple years so far there's only been one in the state thus far loan issued so it hasn't been heavily used across Virginia as of yet okay and where is that one uh I don't know Arlington Arlington okay thank you Supervisor Franklin and Supervisor

[01:15:12] Lawson sure so unrelated just for our tech it appears that um the public comment speakers virtually were not hurt, so just throwing it out there. Sorry, just got a note about that. And then secondly, just want to thank Supervisor Bode for leading on CPACE. I remember actually before we took office, you mentioned to me that this was something that was important to you and that you wanted to push forward, so congratulations on doing this. It's a great program. It's another step towards our sustainability initiatives, and I was actually just speaking to a former constituent on yesterday and we were talking about kind of she wanted kind of a longer list

[01:15:52] of what we've done on environmental and sustainability issues and I said well you know we have CPACE coming up you know that's one of the many things that we've done so thank you for leading on that and I'm more than happy to support this. Supervisor Lawson. Thank you Madam Chair. Supervisor vega great questions i think this is a program that probably has a great future well-meaning but we all know when you go green it comes with a lot of expenses i've even noticed i'm sure all of you have when you buy organic at the grocery store those prices are always more expensive too

[01:16:31] so so thank you supervisor bode and i'm also for leading this but i'm also thinking supervisor canlan maybe did he also give directives about c-pace why am i thinking that he had something to do with c-pace anyway i don't know why i thought that um but um i just wanted to to michelle i'm sorry can you come up to the podium one more time could we put protections in place that would in the event i mean there's only been one in the commonwealth of virginia so far but in the event

[01:17:05] that this does become a very popular program is there a bit or an avenue where we could charge permit fees or not permit but like application fees that would help so there i believe there are administrative fees that a participant would pay to virginia pace okay i'm just looking for a way to reduce the cost you know defray yeah defray our cost yeah our cost is more like i said indirect it's you know I mean right prepping the sport item took staff time County Attorney time if any of these loans went into default those might require our involvement on you know how does it get pursued through V pay

[01:17:42] see right Virginia pace right now we think that will will be minimal down the road you know then it would be a decision as to whether we want to fund a full-time position for this you know if you want to in the program that would take a change in the ordinance so we could cross that bridge one we get to exactly thank you so much yep supervisor Bailey thank you very much madam chair I just want to congratulate supervisor Bodie as well in his he continues to teach us how to heal our land and protect our land and with our new environmental sustainability missions that we have this is just a part of it

[01:18:19] and so we thank you for the education we were in a meeting yesterday about the education of healing the land and healing our community as well and so to the community I just want to say that this is a way forward it puts us in the next trajectory of healing the land and it's way past due that we should do so and so because we love Fritz Williams so much it is time so thank you so much and I will be supporting it and I'll just chime in thank you Supervisor Bode I know it's been a long haul on CPACE and I know you've probably been dealing with the same people I have regarding the financing of, anyway, with those emails.

[01:18:56] And so thank you. I'm glad we finally got this. Thank you to staff for working on this. You know, there may only be one in Virginia, but maybe the next one will be in Prince William County, and it's a wonderful program that doesn't cost us any money, so I'm glad we have it in place. Seeing no further discussion, please vote.

[01:19:15] Vote unanimous. Okay, thank you. That moves us to Item 7B, the public hearing for the resolution to authorize the execution of the First Amendment to the agreement sale to the Patriot Property Group LLC for the sale of approximately 5.65 acres of county-owned property at 9349 Hornbaker Road to develop a 21,000-square-foot canning and distilling facility and a 600-room boutique hotel that will be integrated into the Farm Brew Live development at Innovation Park.

[01:19:47] I will open the public hearing agenda for item 7b Ms. Madden do we have anyone signed up okay is there anyone in chambers who would like to speak to 7b please approach the microphone in the back seeing no one approach the microphone in the back this will officially close the public hearing on item 7b is there any actually can I get a motion second motion made by supervisor Lawson seconded by vice chair Bodie any discussion madam chair okay make sure you I'm gonna go by

[01:20:23] try to go by the buttons I'm just gonna I'm trying okay but yeah Supervisor Lawson thank you I just want to thank economic development that sitting here Christina and Tom thank you for helping you know shepherd this through it's going to pick up the pace and this is a great project that that everybody's excited about and I just want to thank you for keeping staying on top of this okay seeing

[01:20:51] further discussion please vote okay thank you that moves us on to 7 C which is the ordinance to establish a speed zone establish a school speed zone with a posted speed limit of 35 miles an hour during school time at battlefield during beginning and ending of school at battlefield high school on James Madison highway in the Gainesville magisterial districts I would like to

[01:21:25] open the public hearing for agenda item 7c ms madden do we have anyone signed up is anyone in chambers who would like to speak to item 7c seeing no one approach the microphone this will officially close the public hearing on agenda item 7c supervisor lawson since you're the closest one to gainesville would you like to make a motion to provide a motion for approval yeah madam chair Do you have a question?

[01:21:54] Nope, I just did the formal. No, I just want to say that, speaking of Supervisor Canlan. Motion made by Supervisor Lawson, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Okay, yes. Speaking of Supervisor Canlan, everybody knows that this was something that he's been pursuing for a long time.

[01:22:14] And sadly, we've had some accidents to get to this point. but I'm sure that the community is going to embrace this. I know some folks get annoyed when they drive through school zones, but they're necessary, and I'm happy to support this for the Gainesville District.

[01:22:35] Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just ditto to everything Supervisor Lawson just said. I know that even as someone who has to go through a couple of schools here and there throughout my district, it does get a little inconvenient, but I'd rather be inconvenienced by a few more seconds or minutes than the tragedies that happened otherwise.

[01:22:53] And I hope that we can continue to have conversations around this because this is a school zone out of the Gainesville District, and it's great that we're doing this, but we all have school zones in our districts that need attention like this, and that's my hope that in the coming weeks and months we can talk about that red light and speed camera program that our transportation department has been working on.

[01:23:11] So we continue to have deterrence and other ways that we can bring those speeds down and make those areas safer. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Bailey, then Supervisor Vega. thank you so much Matt I just want to say to our transportation department I know that we had a similar instance in the Potomac district near and going through Montclair in the school zone and you did the same thing for me and I appreciate the trend that you're creating because our babies certainly need to be safe and you know when they're going to their schools and so thank you for the trending I remember when Pete did ask for this and so just keep your eyes on our school zones please for us but thank you for the trend

[01:23:50] supervisor Vega thank you madam chair just want to reiterate the importance of what we're doing here and also I think that there is some benefit I've had some folks ask me in the community more about this why it's only two hours during the school day and it's going to cause minimal impacts to how people travel so again there's nothing more precious than human life if there's anything that we can do to prevent losing another one I think it's incumbent upon us to support something like this um and i'll just chime in and having worked with supervisor canlan i he spearheaded this and since i'm from that community i appreciate the fact that he reached out to the

[01:24:28] community this was something the community wanted we're trying to address that intersection which is actually the intersection i go through every day when i leave my house so um i'm excited to see if the school zone helps and i'm sure it might lead to a possible speed camera because now that it has a school zone there so um with that seeing no further discussion please vote vote unanimous Wonderful. Thank you. If Mr. Canlan is listening, we got that done for you. Thank you.

[01:24:59] Okay, that now brings us to item number eight. Gosh, I hope he's not. I wouldn't be watching if I were him. I'm just saying, you know, I mean, who would, okay. We'll let him know. Someone sent him a note. Brings us to agenda item eight, County Executive Time.

[01:25:17] Mr. Shorter, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair. No items for me today. Madam Chair. Supervisor, Vice Chair Bodie. I'm trying to remember. Vice Chair Bodie, okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. So just to the county exec, we had some folks in here from the fire department here earlier asking about the salaries.

[01:25:35] I know that we have a forthcoming discussion about the pay raises and the salary adjustments based on the compensation study. If we could at least get some intel from your folks on working up the numbers on what that 15%, 17.5, and 20% would cost us in a budget, I think would help us in our considerations of moving it forward.

[01:25:54] Sure. I will say we are, well, a few things. I am scheduled, based on your leadership and direction board, scheduled to meet with the Labor Coalition tomorrow to talk about some of the things around collective bargaining.

[01:26:14] I'll also say that we are scheduled next week to hear from our third-party consultant that did the compensation study. In that discussion, we will hear, I think probably for the first time, our workforce categorized as general government with public safety separated out by the sheriff's office, our adult detention center, fire and rescue, and police.

[01:26:47] And so we will have that discussion next week. Following that discussion, I will certainly use the recommendations and the findings associated with that study as we are putting together our final recommendations and the proposed budget.

[01:27:03] And so I hope that answers the question in terms of what we will do with the discussion that we have next week. Certainly happy to answer any additional questions. And, of course, if there's a need for an additional analysis and for us to bring some additional information, we're happy to do that as well.

[01:27:26] Thank you. Thank you. Okay. That brings us on to county attorney time. Ms. Robel, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. We will have consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel pertaining to land use law and rezoning number 2022-00022 Devlin Technology Park application, where such consultation, discussion, or briefing in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position, negotiating strategy, or litigating posture of the public body.

[01:28:04] And this item is appropriate for closed session pursuant to 2.2-3711A8 of the Virginia Code. Thank you. Motion? So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Angry, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote. Vote unanimous. Okay, thank you. We now are moved on to supervisor's time. We have nine items on today's agenda. The chair will entertain a motion to approve agenda items 10A through 10H. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Motion made by

[01:28:43] Supervisor Bailey, seconded by Vice Chair Bodie. Any discussion on 10A through 10H? Seeing none, please vote. Vote unanimous. We are now on to agenda item 10A. Vice Chair Bodie, would you like to, I don't know why I wasn't lumped in. Okay. Would you like to provide a motion for approval? Sure. So move, Madam Chair. And second. Okay. Motion made by Supervisor Bodie, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Okay. Any discussion? Madam Chair. Supervisor

[01:29:22] Bodie. Just for everyone's knowledge on what this is, it is a resolution I passed out last week, or a couple weeks ago, actually, that would amend the membership of the Sustainability Commission to include our transportation agencies, PRTC and BRE.

[01:29:38] It also further clarifies the membership of both them and the utilities that we added before to make sure that it sort of streamlines them, that they're at the pleasure of the board, that they serve coterminants with us, and that they serve as non-voting ex-officio members, and they don't count towards a quorum.

[01:29:54] So that core of that group, that votes, that council quorum are our appointed folks and that everyone else who's on there, whether they be utilities or transportation agencies, are there to serve as subject matter experts and not to vote on things. Thank you, Madam Chair. Very good.

[01:30:11] Discussion, Supervisor Bailey. Thank you, Madam Chair. This will bring a breadth of knowledge base to this commission, and I'm very thankful that Supervisor Bodie brought this to our attention and also make certain that as we move forward, we'll have the details that we need to make when we're voting on transportation issues.

[01:30:34] So I appreciate your foresight on this. We appreciate it. Okay. Seeing no further discussion, please vote. Vote unanimous. Okay. That brings us on to Supervisor's time.

[01:30:50] remember where i started last time i think i went that way so i'm going to start this way i'm just going to go to the right go around we'll go around sounds good yeah yeah all right on wednesday january 25th i attended the joint school board meeting virtually it was a pleasure to see all of my colleagues the board and i thought we had a fruitful discussion about community safety both

[01:31:24] within our schools and our community at large so i hope people found that to be fruitful on yesterday i joined the lake ridge rotary club along with members of the woodbridge rotary club at belmont elementary school where they launched the early act club allowing for students to gain leadership and service opportunities it was a always very engaging with students i asked them if they knew what the board of county supervisors was and they said yes i was i was a little surprised um you know whenever i tell someone i'm a supervisor they ask me which store So I was glad that the students knew what that was.

[01:32:01] So that was a great event. A couple of upcoming events. I will be attending the Prince William County Black History Committee program, celebrating Black History Month, February 16th at 11 a.m. at the Ferlazzo Building. And then also just want to remind residents that we will be launching a beautification plan for the North Woodbridge region, particularly some of those medians that you see coming into We're bridged from Lorden going down to Occoquan Road.

[01:32:31] We had a lot of challenges keeping that area kind of spruced up. And so in the next few weeks, we'll be releasing a plan to the public about that. Just reminding people that we do have a community safety plan. I do want to thank residents that have emailed my office and called our office providing feedback.

[01:32:49] We've gotten a lot of positive feedback. I saw a gentleman in the store the other day who thanked me for the amount of work that we've done this arena so i just want to thank my colleagues for being supportive and then lastly my office will be hosting our third annual black history program we had a date of the 22nd that may be pushed to the 27th so stay tuned for that we'll send out correspondence and with that i yield thank you supervisor vega thank you madam chair on wednesday evening i hosted a town hall community meeting at the coles elementary school and the issue of overcrowded parking and residential

[01:33:26] neighborhoods. I know that Richard Wyman was here at one point, but he left. Just wanted to take this opportunity to thank him and also to thank Gretchen Johnson for participating in the town hall along with Lieutenant Sullivan. The issue that we're having is not just specific to this area. We have it, I believe, all throughout the county, and I think that this is an opportunity for us to come together to try to find solutions to address the concerns that we're experiencing. This issue predominantly impacts the residents of Taylor and Gordon Drive and as it stands again today the county code only allows for two options on streets like these either parking or nor parking for anyone not even if it's in front of your own

[01:34:05] home which is a very difficult situation for a lot of the residents here it's also a very interesting situation because there is a ditch and the dot needs access to those ditches in order for them to provide maintenance and when you have vehicles on blocking that area it becomes incredibly difficult for them to do their job and so again want to thank transportation and our police department for being a president I hope that we can continue to discuss possible solutions to address these concerns the following evening I attended the jam packed Devlin Tech Park Town Hall hosted by Supervisor Lawson I went with the hopes of just sitting in and listening to what folks had to say and I hope that

[01:34:43] we can do right by those residents that are probably going to show up later today for the 7 30 evening session that we have um finally i'm happy to hear that our county executive is already thinking ahead looking forward to budget discuss discussion as that is one of the biggest undertakings that we take as we kick off the new year um you know and as we go into budget season i think that we all saw the news at least i know a lot of my constituents said about the 75 million budget surplus currently in county coffers and again the three years that i've been on the board we've always increased taxes in the midst of COVID with record high inflation and we keep hearing it not just from people that work in the county but just from the average day citizen

[01:35:22] whether it be that they are employed by the county or not or the folks that are living on a fixed income because they are retired and so I hope that this year Mr. Shorter we can see how we alleviate some of the burdens that folks have been experiencing here in the county and that I get the support that I need from my colleagues here on the dais and lastly but not least I look forward to the discussion on potentially limiting public comment time. And with that, that's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I'd like to give my notice of intent to appoint Eugene Brown to the Taxicab Review Board. You should have his

[01:35:56] mail file. Congratulations and fair wins and following seeds to Pastor Darcy of the Lutheran Church of the Covenant Church. She's moving on to Buffalo, New York. She's done great work here in the district and the county, and so I just want to say on behalf of all of Prince William County, thank you, ma'am.

[01:36:17] Congratulations to the Dell City Volunteer Fire Department for hosting a very successful father-daughter dance this past Saturday, attended by over 100 people, a lot of little princesses in there, and I was there with my daughter. She's still a princess, but she's grown now, which was cool to watch the transformation over time from child, from baby to adult, so it was a really good time.

[01:36:38] And so I want to talk a little bit about item, I believe that was 4A, the authorization to the application for the grant for the raised funding, which is going to be a great addition of funding to the SPOE interchange right there at Prince William Parkway and Dale Boulevard.

[01:37:01] As you know, that has been a F-rated intersection. It's got a huge development coming with it, yes, with the Whole Foods, I can say that. And so this actual funding is going to help us get some funding back to the county that we don't have to use if we can get some grant funding.

[01:37:17] So I really appreciate this opportunity. I hope it works out, everything. So I just want to make folks aware of that. And, Supervisor Bode, I want to say thank you for your work on the CPACE ordinance, and also thank you for your work. We're adding the additional personnel for the Sustainability Commission. Outstanding job on that.

[01:37:33] So thank you, Madam Chair. That's it. Thank you, Supervisor Angry. Supervisor Lawson. I don't have anything, Madam Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few things from me. First, back on the 25th, as I mentioned earlier, we had a great joint meeting with the school board. It's always great to sit down with our colleagues and our counterparts on the school board and talk about ways we can collaborate, whether it's security in our schools, whether it's sustainability, whether it's really looking out to make sure we make the right investments in our children and our faculty and all the folks that help keep our school committees moving. So I appreciate us being

[01:38:10] hosted by the school board members and their staff a couple weeks ago. On the 30th, quite a few of us went up to D.C. to have a great, great, great introductory meeting and legislative update meeting with Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. As everyone knows, she's now representing the 7th District, which is now parts of Prince William County, and we had a great discussion with her on how we can continue to partner with our federal partners like her and like other folks to bring a lot more taxpayer dollars back to Prince William County because whether it's transportation whether

[01:38:48] it's infrastructure whether it's schools what water storm water management what have you there are a lot of needs in our community it's always great to be able to get a federal help on top of the state and local dollars that we put towards those we also had a great tour of the capitol hosted by the congresswoman a lot of great history at the capitol it was a really great time and I hope that it's the first of many annual meetings we have with her moving forward.

[01:39:12] After that, a couple of other good meetings with different folks, including our newer but not new anymore, Executive Director of the Service Authority, Mr. Calvin Farr. And finally, I had a really great meeting yesterday in Supervisor Bailey's office about our Community Energy Sustainability Master Plan, which is a mouthful, with Gielo Mano, who is our sustainability officer.

[01:39:39] They have some really great deliverables they're already working on. I can't wait to see how that plan takes shape. And for the public, there will be public engagement opportunities to weigh in on the plan and set the priorities 'cause obviously it wouldn't be a community energy master plan without the community involved.

[01:39:54] So we're looking forward to that over the coming months. And that's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. - Thank you, Vice Chair Bodie. We're gonna go back to Supervisor Lawson. - Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Casciotto, congratulations. happy retirement that is great news for you and your family and I want to publicly thank you for your years of service to this county you're a great troubleshooter for me and I know you you've given so much of your life to serve your community and I just simply want to thank you for everything you've

[01:40:28] done for us I wish you well supervisor Bailey thank you madam chair good afternoon to everyone. Ms. Casciato, you cannot leave. That's it. But let me just talk about past events. On January 25th, I enjoyed attending the VACO Supervisor Certification Training. My colleague and I attended, and it was absolutely great. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow's session because it just, iron sharpens irons, and it will give me an opportunity to be even

[01:41:02] more sharpened as I go forward in this endeavor. On the 25th, I also wanted to thank the school board and my colleagues for a wonderful joint school board meeting, joint meeting. It was absolutely great, and we had some great presentations as to how we're going to go forward and serve our community and our children. On the 26th, thank you to Christina Wynn, Keisha Hall, and Rebecca Horner for coming and doing an economic development workshop in my office. We have created updates and timelines in the Potomac District as we move forward.

[01:41:37] We will be highlighting the things that we've done and where we're going in the future. And so I thank them for coming and just painting the vision with me. On the 27th, I just want to thank the CXO for his tour. He came to take a gander at the Potomac District, and I was very excited to toot my horn, and he was very patient with us, and he didn't want to go when he got out of the car.

[01:42:01] So thank you so much, sir, for coming. On the 29th, I was pleased to be a part of the PRTC and Keolis Memorial Tribute to one of our divine and wonderful employees for PRTC, Teresa Harris-Garber, who just had a wonderful touch with people and serving our community as well as Keolis and PRTC.

[01:42:24] So we will miss her dearly and condolences again to her family. On the 29th, myself and my colleagues attended, along with Madam Chair, as Kenny said, the Abigail Spanberger Legislative Day, and it was absolutely very much informative, and it showed us how we can look at different funding mechanisms as we go forth in supporting our districts, and we really, really appreciate that.

[01:42:52] And we also, I also had the opportunity on the 29th, that was the 30th, on the 29th, attending the Delta Sigma Theta MLK Drum Major Award Ceremony. And that was so much fun to see the steppers and to see all of the little girls do their thing on the stage.

[01:43:12] And so we had a great time. It was entitled A View of the Promised Land. And so it was great honoring Dr. Martin Luther King. On the 31st, thanks to CEO Calvin Farr with the service authority for coming to the office and talking about the great things, over 91 million dollars that he's done in the potomac district to serve and uplift older infrastructure in our district and so we we made plans as well as we go forward so i'm appreciative of his presence on the first i was i participated in the political leadership academy

[01:43:45] meeting i'm an advisor to the george mason jimmy and jimmy carter conflict resolution school so So that's something that I encourage my colleagues to participate in as we go forward in serving the community. Also on the first, I was with Madam Chair and Dan Alexander, Mayor Wood, Mayor Brown, Captain Robinson, Major Hugret, and the chief of Dumfries, Chief Galen, when they came to a predominant district public safety town hall.

[01:44:19] And it was absolutely impeccable. Though we didn't have the normal turnout that we had, we had quality. And so, Dan, I'm so grateful that we can partner together as we go forth with this community safety initiative. It is needed, and you presented it well, and thank you so much for your time.

[01:44:36] Coming up, I just wanted to share District Representative Justin Wilk, my partner in crime in the school board. We will be presenting the Potomac District Black History Month essay contest, and that's for our middle schoolers.

[01:44:52] And the essay that they'll write for us is, What Does Black History Month Mean to You? There will be a first, second, and third place winner. So don't forget to write your essays. And then I have a question. I don't want to make a directive, but I have a question to the county exec.

[01:45:10] If you could provide just an update for us on the navigation centers via Department of Social Services for the East and West Navigation Centers. Just a little update. Thank you so much. February is Black History Month, and we just wanted to say that and to say Black History Month founding in Chicago on February 20th in 1987, the U.S. Postal Service honored Jean-Baptiste Ponte du Sable by issuing a commemorative 20-cent postage stamp as part of the Black History Month

[01:45:44] series. And so we can't forget the history that has found it, is instilled in our communities. I just want to share that piece with you. And then lastly, on March 23rd, I will be having a community meeting with the Potomac District. Come all, come one, come all, to give you an update as to where we are and where we are going.

[01:46:05] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Supervisor Bailey. Supervisor Angry. I have one alibi that's really for the whole board on the Opal gas. So Supervisor Vega and my office have selected a date for the town hall. We're not going to put that out just yet because they want to contact the family that will be affected first, and then we'll put out the rest of the information for folks to come over.

[01:46:26] Okay, please let us know when that's coming. That's great. That would be great. I'll just wrap up with some of the stuff I've been doing over the last two weeks. You know, I got to, right after the board, our last board meeting, the next day I got to participate in the ribbon-cutting at Viridium, the new apartment complex located in North Woodbridge, really cool, really nice place.

[01:46:47] On Thursday, I was invited to the economic development event hosted by President Joe Biden, which was out in Springfield, and the event was entitled Invest in America. That was pretty exciting. Later that day, I got to attend the Montclair Lions Club. They had me out there speaking to them in Dumfries, where I got to share an update on things happening in the county and discuss several matters important to the group.

[01:47:09] On Sunday the 28th, I also attended the MLK Drum Major Awards Ceremony, hosted by the PWC Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, recognizing the winners and participants of the Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Oratorical Competition and Program. I've got to say, those drum majors and those steppers were pretty incredible.

[01:47:27] Wow, they were just really amazing, really enjoyable. And Monday the 30th, I was invited, along with other officials, mentioned to the 7th Congressional District to attend Congresswoman Abigail Spamberger's legislative update meeting. We spoke about community project funding, federal legislative priorities, district outreach, and constituent services.

[01:47:48] Wednesday, I attended Supervisor Bailey's Public Safety Town Hall, hosted at the Potomac Shores Middle School, which I thought was great. Always good to get that information out to the community. Finally, this past Saturday, I attended and spoke at the Pitha Akchub, or Rice Cake Festival, hosted by the Friends and Family Incorporated.

[01:48:09] And it's one of the largest Bengali organizations in the greater Washington area. So I got to go up there Saturday, and we got an award. The county got an award for supporting the Rice Cake Festival over the last many years. And it was just a really wonderful, really vibrant event with people from the Bengalis, from Bangladesh, from all over the DMV area.

[01:48:34] That concludes my calendar. I want to announce my notice of intent to appoint Ms. Madeline Edmonds to the Prince William County Housing Board. That was at a request of the Housing Board, or that was a request. And my notice of intent to appoint Mr. Douglas Castins to the Prince William County Historical Commission.

[01:48:56] That was on the agenda today. Oh, no, sorry, that will be on the agenda next week. And last, you know, the discussion about public common time. So I've been talking individually with people about public common time. And, you know, it appears at this point in time we don't, because we're going through some major things, we don't want to change public comment time, you know, and sort of have to sort of either cut back or change it or people have to learn new rules or new ways.

[01:49:20] And so since we have so many things coming up, we thought we were just, right now I'm just going to leave it as it is, how we've been structuring it over the last couple of months. So I don't know if there are any questions on that. I know I've been getting a lot of e-mails, and I don't know where people are.

[01:49:35] Anyway, yes, Supervisor Vega. I think it stems from the conversations you've had with other supervisors where you kind of say, yes, you're going to bring it up, or no, so it's kind of up in the air. So my question to you, my follow-up is, are you going to give us ample time when you do decide to bring it forward? Totally, yeah. It just doesn't seem, because we have so much else going on, that it's a good time and people just don't want to focus on it and try to figure it out.

[01:49:57] So it might not be January next year, it might be before then, but right now I just thought we'd table it. So if anybody asks any questions on that, We're just going to keep on going. Supervisor Bailey and Supervisor Angry. Thank you so much. Madam Chair, I just wanted to say publicly I really appreciated the process that you used to allow us to have a voice in the decision because we do have to answer to our constituents as well as it relates to them having a voice as they come into chamber.

[01:50:29] And so giving us an opportunity to kind of think about it and have an opportunity to participate in that decision, I really appreciate it. Supervisor Ingrid. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to be real clear. So this, to me, it was never about public comment time or even First Amendment rights.

[01:50:45] I think what I've seen and what I hope we can follow is that public hearings are public hearings. So when we have these contentious land use, that folks use public hearings to speak on those. Because when you do it both at public comment and public hearing, you literally just end up to 10 o'clock the next morning.

[01:51:02] So I just think when it comes to public comment times, we have a lot of issues we want to hear from our citizens, our employees that really are the time to address those issues and hear them. I think it gets very cloudy when we just have everything happening, you know, two at a time.

[01:51:18] So public hearings are public hearings, and I really feel that that's where if the voice wants to come out to speak, that's where that needs to be said. So I don't think that really requires us to have these meetings. I just want to make sure we can follow that format that we use that time to bring up this so we can split them out so that we don't have citizens waiting behind a public hearing to say something that may be different from a public hearing.

[01:51:41] So that was my concern, to try to figure that out. Well, and are you still – you just haven't – yeah, I still see Supervisor Bailey there. No? Okay. Well, and so I will say, I mean, the fact that, like, even tonight we've moved public time to time after the public hearings because we want to hear – the public hearings are advertised for 730, And we don't want to start public hearings at 9.30 or 10 o'clock.

[01:52:02] And so we've been moving public comment time, and we'll continue to move public comment time at the end of the evening, and hopefully it won't be that late tonight. It might be. You know, it really was to make the meetings go more quickly, but, you know, we will, I'll just remind everybody that I offered to make some changes, and we didn't.

[01:52:23] So I'll just, we'll talk about it when it decurs. with that we will move into our we will now convene our closed session item so we'll go to

[01:52:34] the back room thank you we'll be back to report out motion to certify so moved madam chair second

[01:53:05] motion made by supervisor bailey seconded by vice sorry i hit it late motion made by supervisor bailey seconded by vice chair bode any further discussion seeing none please vote vote unanimous Okay, we will be back at our 7.30 meeting.

[01:53:39] The board is, some of the board or a portion of the board, enough to constitute a meeting board, are going to go out to dinner this evening at Cheesecake Factory. And we will be back. So we have to announce that if anybody wants to join us.

[01:53:55] So thank you. Good evening.

[01:54:19] It's now 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 7th. We welcome the public back into the board and chambers for the evening portion of today's meeting. We are now on to our standard agenda public hearing meeting, which is the rezoning 2022-00022 of Devlin Technology Park in the Brentsville Magisterial District.

[01:54:41] We are going to begin with presentations by the applicant and then staff, then we'll have some questions, and then we will have the public hearing. And make sure you turn the microphones on, Ms. Cameron. Good evening, Chair Wheeler and members of the board.

[01:55:05] My name is Jonelle Cameron with Walsh, Colucci, Lubelai, and Walsh. Here tonight on behalf of the applicant, Stanley Martin, with me is Truett Young with Stanley Martin, Marion Harders, also with Walsh Colucci, our civil engineer team, Phoenix Noise Consultants, and Mangum Economics, the fiscal impact consultants.

[01:55:28] As a roadmap for this evening, I am going to give you a presentation outlining the history and zoning of the property and proposal, fiscal benefits and mitigation measures, including larger than required buffers, community design elements, sound and noise mitigation measures, as well as transportation mitigation that the applicant has proffered. The applicant is seeking a rezoning from PMR PlanMix Residential to M2 Light Industrial to allow for 4.25 million square feet of data center uses and to expand the data center overlay district over the last week or so we have received

[01:56:05] questions regarding the actual square footage and the applicant has provided proffers to the board memorializing that the applicant is proposing 4.25 million square feet cap for data center buildings on the property is not moving okay thank you sorry slow to move the property is located on the west side of devlin road between layton hall road and the proposed university boulevard extension And it's approximately 269.85 acres in size.

[01:56:42] I don't think the mountain. Okay, so I will improvise for tonight. So as you all see on the screen, you can see Layton Hall Road, Devlin Road, and University Boulevard.

[01:57:08] It's this, okay. Again, the applicant is seeking this rezoning to M2 Light Industrial. The applicant received a positive recommendation from planning staff and a 7-1 recommendation of approval from the Planning Commission, including from the Brentsville District Planning Commissioner. We were scheduled for the board in September 2022, and that case was deferred due to noise concerns from the county.

[01:57:31] Since then, the applicant has revised its proffers to address this concern and input received from the community. The property is comprehensively planned I-3, and data centers are primary uses in the I-3 district. This proposal is consistent with the I-3 comp plan designation.

[01:57:53] The data center overlay was established in 2016 and was created to promote development of data centers in areas where existing infrastructure could adequately support the use. Since the rezoning occurred, the surrounding areas on the west and north side of the property have been developed with data centers and included within the data center overlay district.

[01:58:14] As such, the applicant for this is seeking this rezoning to M2 Light Industrial and the inclusion in the property and the data center overlay district, similar to the surrounding uses. So on your screen, you can see various data centers that were approved or constructed by Wright in the area.

[01:58:32] Google was approved in October 2017. Microsoft was approved in January 2021. Hunter Data Center was approved in September 2021. And then there are other by-right data centers in the vicinity within this overlay district area.

[01:58:49] In 2021, the board directed staff to look at increasing or decreasing the data center overlay district. The board hired a third-party consultant, Stantec, to look at various areas within the data center overlay district for expansion.

[01:59:10] Stantec had three recommendations, and out of those various areas to be included, Stantec only included or recommended inclusion of two areas within that overlay district. One of those is the property that is subject to this rezoning request today.

[01:59:26] This slide here shows the existing infrastructure near the property. So as you can see, the property is traversed by an existing 500 kV overhead power line. In addition, there is existing high-speed fiber optic communication network and existing public water and sewer within the vicinity.

[01:59:53] And this slide is an illustrative of the general development plan. The applicant is proposing a maximum height of 80 feet. The end data center user is not known at this time, so the exact layout is not known. However, the key important features, such as the approximate substation locations, access, and buffers are shown on the general development plan.

[02:00:14] The access from the property will be from Devlin Road and University Boulevard. The applicant has proffered several transportation improvements on University Boulevard, Devlin Road, and Layton Hall Road, including providing right-of-way for University Boulevard extension, and right-of-way for the widening of Devlin Road and Layton Hall Roads, providing a fourth leg of the traffic signal at the intersection of Devlin Road and University Boulevard if it is not done by others, providing turn lanes into the entrance on Devlin Road, extending the existing southbound left turn lane and eastbound left turn lane on Linton Hall Road at its intersection with Devlin Road.

[02:00:54] The applicant has also provided a five-foot sidewalk along its Linton Hall Road frontage that is shown on the general development plan and has proffered a monetary contribution of $2.50 per square foot of building area constructed on the property, bicycle racks, and a bus stop.

[02:01:12] The proposal will also include 100-foot buffers along most of the property boundary adjacent to Linear Farms, Amberley Station, Linton Hall Road, and Devlin Road. The applicant is also proposing a 50-foot landscape area along University Boulevard.

[02:01:29] The applicant has proffered to provide a trail network within the property. In response to Parks and Rec's previous comments, the applicant moved portions of the trail further west and located the trail within a sanitary sewer line easement, decreasing the impacts of the amount of disturbance to the forested areas.

[02:01:47] There is an existing public trail easement on the Amberley Station HOA property that will be connected to this trail. As part of this proposal, the applicant hired a fiscal impact consultant to look at the economic impact to the county and total investment to the county is approximately $15.3 billion.

[02:02:11] There are approximately 500 jobs per building and 25 to 30 permanent jobs per building. Looking over a 15-year period, the annual net revenue for the project after full build-out to the county is a little less than $90 million per year.

[02:02:31] in addition to the fiscal benefits the applicant is proffering over 13 million dollars to the county for fire and rescue transportation and water quality this slide is an aerial of the portion of the data center overlay district as you can see on this slide the data center overlay district that was adopted in 2016 has several transition areas where the overlay is adjacent to residential in schools this scenario is not unique to the devlin project however what is unique is how

[02:03:08] how the applicant has gone above and beyond to mitigate any potential impacts, including community design elements, buffers, noise, and transportation impacts. In the next few slides, I will review with you the mitigation measures. Between 2016 and 2017, a majority of the property was timbered, leaving existing mature trees along the perimeter of the property, as you can see in the screen in green.

[02:03:38] In this case, the applicant has proffered to keep 100 foot of these mature trees and also provide enhanced buffers and screening throughout the property. As previously mentioned, the proposal will include 100 foot buffers along most of the property boundary adjacent to Linear Farms, Amberley Station, Linton Hall Road, and Devlin Road.

[02:04:02] The applicant is also proposing a 50 foot landscape area along University Boulevard. This slide shows the 100-foot buffer areas and the starred locations on your screen. In the next few slides, I will show you what those existing buffers look like.

[02:04:25] This is the 100-foot buffer from Chris Young Elementary School. This is the 100-foot buffer from Lanier Farms. And this is the 100-foot buffer from Linton Hall Road.

[02:04:44] The applicant has also proffered... Will you stop for one sec? If people can't stay quiet, we're going to ask you to leave. It's just a quorum. It's our board chambers. Thank you. In addition to the buffers, the applicant has also proffered a solid sound attenuation barrier, which is shown in here on blue.

[02:05:08] The applicant has also proffered a 250-foot building setback adjacent to Linear Farms and Chris Young Elementary School. And the applicant has proffered a no vertical build area adjacent to Chris Young Elementary School and the area you see in red.

[02:05:29] There was a question asked of us today as to what the no vertical build area means. and does that mean that a substation could go there? And that answer is no. Supervisor Lawson? And proffered as such.

[02:05:45] It has not been proffered as such, but I was expecting that would be a request to you. So currently the proffer says there can be no vertical construction within the no-build area. If it needs to be clearer that that includes substations, we're more than happy to make that request when there's an ask.

[02:06:03] And why don't we wait till late two presentations and then we can get into that. Thank you. In the next few slides, I will review with you the line of sight exhibit showing the view sheds on the property. The applicant conducted two balloon studies and had two balloon test sites that you can see test site number one and test site number two. For the balloons at 105 feet and that flagged area below the balloon is 80 feet. To be clear, this applicant is only proposing a maximum building height of 80

[02:06:35] feet. This is a visual and a line of sight exhibit from the parking lot of Chris Young Elementary school if you're looking at the area from the parking lot in a car and I apologize I can't point because the mouse isn't working but if you're looking at the area in the parking lot in a car there's a hundred foot buffer and then the building and the distance is approximately 375 feet away from the property line and what you would see essentially or you wouldn't see very much through that vegetation looking up what we did to actually visually show you all what you

[02:07:14] would see is we modeled a data center building and this will be a repeated theme through the next couple of slides so the first picture is the picture that's taken from that line of sight the second is a building being modeled that third picture at the bottom is somebody standing behind the buffer 100 feet to show what you would see so as you're looking at this slide you would see you see the 80 feet and portions of the blue are sticking out so that would essentially be portions of a building the applicant is not proposing a blue building but did this to see

[02:07:52] what is actually visual from any of these line of sight exhibits this is the line of sight from night watch court so again if a person is standing in the road on night watch court there's existing vegetation the 100 foot buffer the grade is lower than night watch court and then there's the building so again what does that actually visually look like so the first is the picture the second is the model and the third picture is what the building what would be visible of the building

[02:08:29] this is the slide from devlin road and university when university boulevard actually is punched through and constructed and this slide shows the intersection there is a retaining wall that would be located on the right side of University Boulevard and then the buildings. This model does

[02:08:59] not include the 50-foot buffers that are proffered to be planted along University Boulevard. This is the view from Layton Hall Road. This is a view from Dennis Court. Again, the light of sight exhibit, the existing vegetation. Dennis Court is further away, so there's also the substation, more

[02:09:33] vegetation that would be planted on the applicant's portion of the property and then the proposed building and this is that line of sight exhibit and somebody asked what the view would be if you are at victory lakes standing from a porch so we did this line of sight exhibit as well to show that and again there's existing vegetation it's more than a thousand feet away from the building there's an existing vegetation buffer devlin road the proposed right of way a 100 foot buffer and

[02:10:11] and then the building from Victory Lakes. As we were going through this process, we realized that noise was a community concern that needed to be addressed and mitigated. The applicant to their credit has provided proffers that no other data center has provided previously to address input pertaining to potential noise concerns.

[02:10:36] And this slide is a good illustration of exactly what different sounds are and where they measure from a DBA standpoint. So, your normal conversation is 60 DBA, motorcycles are 95 DBA, sirens are 120 DBA.

[02:10:58] The applicant in this case has proffered the noise ordinance with more restrictive carve-outs to address concerns that were heard. And so, by proffering the noise ordinance, the applicant has provided additional measurements for enforcement for the county that they otherwise would not have.

[02:11:16] Currently, the noise ordinance is enforced by Prince William County Police. So not only would the noise ordinance be enforced by Prince William County Police, but also in this case, if you're in violation because they're proffered, it would also be considered a proffer violation.

[02:11:32] The applicant here has specifically proffered that heating and cooling systems will be included within the DBA limits. And so currently the noise ordinance has a carve out and exempts heating and cooling systems from the noise ordinance requirements.

[02:11:51] This proffer does not do that. In addition, the applicant has also proffered a limit to prominent discrete noise, also known as tonal noise. This is like a constant hum noise and is required to be three decibels less.

[02:12:09] Prominent discrete noise is an instance when one-third octave band sound pressure level and the band with the tone exceeds the arrhythmic average of the sound pressure levels of the two contiguous one-third octave bands. So very technical, but essentially, it's a constant humming noise.

[02:12:26] The applicant has also proffered to provide sound studies to be conducted and reviewed during the site plan stage to confirm that the sound measure limits can be accommodated. If there are any suggestions to mitigate noise, either by the building design or site layout, the applicant will make those revisions prior to site plan approval or building permit approval.

[02:12:51] In the next few slides, I will review with you the proffered architecture that you all have in your packet. This is standard architecture. The data center overlay district has a set of standards for design and architecture for data center buildings.

[02:13:10] There is a criteria that requires you to have two out of five different measures to mitigate your impacts or make the data center essentially not look like one block building, but break it up. In this case, the applicant has proffered four out of five of those requirements.

[02:13:28] The applicant has also proffered other standard architecture, included outward glass facades, and the applicant has proffered enhanced architectural building facades that require 20% of outward-facing glass if the buildings are visible from Lane Hall Road and University Boulevard or the nearby residential.

[02:13:58] And the applicant in this case has mitigated all of the potential negative impacts from a community design and buffer perspective. The applicant has proffered screening of loading and service areas within 200 feet and visible from Devlin, Layton Hall Road, and University Boulevard.

[02:14:14] They proffered screening of ground level equipment if visible from Devlin Road, Layton Hall Road, University Boulevard, Chris Young Elementary School, or adjacent residential. They've prohibited outdoor storage within 500 feet of residential. They've proffered lighting fixtures that should be energy saving and include focus sharp cutoff designs to direct light downward and interior to the parking lot. They've proffered sustainability measures, 100 foot buffers along Linton Hall Road and Devlin Road, which is 70 feet more than the required buffer, 100 feet buffers adjacent to most of the residential subdivisions, which is 50 feet more than the

[02:14:52] required buffer, a 50 foot buffer adjacent to University Boulevard to match the buffer provided by the adjacent data center developments. This buffer is 20 feet more than the minimum buffer requirement. They've also provided noise mitigation measures by proffering to include the heating and cooling systems and the maximum noise levels permitted, provided noise levels for tonal noise and sound walls, and has provided several transportation mitigation measures.

[02:15:19] With a positive recommendation approval from staff and a recommendation approval from the Planning Commission, we respectfully request this board recommend approval and I am available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Ms. Cameron. I'd like to go to the staff presentation and then do all the questions at once, if that's okay.

[02:15:39] Ms. Doss, are you ready? Okay, thanks.

[02:15:51] Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Ms. Robel, County Exec Shorter.

[02:16:18] Very good to see everyone this evening. My name is Mika Doss. I'm the Deputy Planning Director with the Planning Office. I'm also here tonight also welcoming our new Planning Director, Mr. Mark Buena Vista we're excited to have his leadership on the Planning Office so didn't want to miss mentioning his attendance tonight we also have a few county agencies in attendance that hopefully be able to help answer questions related to in transportation and environment as well so here I'm here to go over the staff analysis for the Planning Office for Devlin Technology

[02:16:57] Park this is a multi-part request and just a few notes and comments regarding the staff analysis the request includes a few parts it includes a request to rezone approximately 270 acres from plans mixed residential to light industrial to allow for light industrial uses including data centers as you've heard tonight as as restricted by the applicant they are gonna they're proffering in the proffers tonight a maximum of 4.25 million square feet for and uses on the property. Pursuant to this rezoning, the application also includes a building

[02:17:36] height increase. That's an increase in the M2 district. The light industrial from 60 feet to 80 feet, that does not include provisions that allow for an additional 15 feet for mechanical equipment on top of the roof. Also, this application, if approved, would entitle three substations on the property in the locations that are shown on the generalized development plan that Miss Cameron has gone over with you we also have a request with this application to incorporate the site into the data center opportunity zone

[02:18:12] overlay district which allows data centers to be approved without the requirement for an additional special use permit approval so that's what that the significance of that staff does recommend approval of this rezoning and requested overlay expansion the Planning Commission reviewed this application on July 27th and recommended the project be approved with some revisions so while the site is currently zoned for residential uses we're looking at the

[02:18:44] zoning map on the left now with the red it's currently zoned PMR for residential uses as shown here it was replanned if you switch over to the right the right portion and look at the industrial planning that was approved on the site to I3 this was replanned as a part of the 2040 land use chapter update to the comprehensive plan this property was discussed at some length at multiple meetings with the board and this area was changed to IT3 in December so now

[02:19:24] the land use is industrial IT3 that's a classification that encourages a wide range of industrial unemployment uses including data centers and this classification of the IT3 it's compatible as you look in the land use slide with the properties to the west skipping through a little bit of the history as the board knows the site was the properties the north and west excuse may they're located in the dad's in an overlay miss Cameron has gone over this

[02:20:02] in some detail as you've heard and know very well the overlay was established in 2016 to protect private properties and residential communities from impacts associated with specifically your high voltage transmission lines that can be required to serve the use the overlay includes industrially planned areas also includes industrially zoned areas in areas planned or excuse me in those areas that are zoned for office industrial in the overlay data centers are allowed by right in areas that are planned for industrial office in the

[02:20:41] overlay staff does not have any objections to including the site within the overlay essentially to match the properties to the north and the west a A few reasons for that, as Ms. Cameron explained and showed in detail, there are a number of data centers under development adjacent to the property.

[02:21:01] Specifically as well, this site was replanned to tech-flexed uses with Pathway 2040 comp plan update. Additionally, you do have your transmission line infrastructure that's essentially kind of bisecting and going along the western edge of the property.

[02:21:20] I believe the applicant's done a thorough job highlighting the mitigation proposed with their rezoning plan, specifically highlighting the buffer widths around the property edge, also highlighting the locations for potential future substations, those gray boxes that 1, 2, 3 run along the top of this slide here.

[02:21:44] The applicant has explained that an end user has not been identified for the project, therefore a specific layout cannot be provided and was not provided for the staff review. Now, that type of conceptual approach to an industrial project is not uncommon.

[02:22:01] Nevertheless, we do raise this as a weakness in the staff report. To try to overcome this weakness, the applicants provide a number of proffered commitments to support the overall proposal, including community design commitments. And just to go over those, for example, since Planning Commission, the applicant provided a sample of two-story and three-story data center buildings to give an idea of what future buildings could look like.

[02:22:27] Additionally, they proffered general conformance to a sample of these elevations and committing to incorporating the standards in the data center overlay in brief. And again, just some images of data center concepts with the architecture.

[02:22:51] Additionally, as you've seen, a number of viewshed studies, balloon studies, were conducted. We do believe that the studies that have been provided show that buildings won't be highly visible. Nevertheless, there are some locations that the buildings will be visible, specifically as shown here on Amberley Station.

[02:23:12] Now, this balloon, I will say, just to note, that balloon height is at 105 feet, so nothing in the proposal as modified is quite that high. So even with mechanical equipment, you're still coming in a little bit lower than the way that balloon is shown.

[02:23:29] We do agree that with the reduction in the height and also the architectural standards and concepts that there is appropriate mitigation shown here. I believe the image on the left is born place and the right is Dennis, those cul-de-sacs at the terminus.

[02:23:51] And really in conclusion, and sorry, there's a lot of text on this slide, but this did go to the Planning Commission on July 27th of last year. The Planning Commission recommended approval with a number of revisions. The staff report does outline the planning commission's recommendation and specifically what revisions have been proposed to address that. We believe that the revisions have been fairly responsive, have been responsive to those concerns of the planning commission. And of course, you will have an opportunity to take another look at those here tonight.

[02:24:29] a staff maintains the recommendation of approval we do have and you've been presented with revised proffers dated February 6th we recommend approval for a few reasons one we believe that the rezoning has mitigated impacts to a budding uses we understand and just want to reflect that this rezoning does implement the planning that's on the site this i3 tech flex long-range land use designation that was recently approved and also extending the Datsun overlay boundary is consistent with the goals of the overlay here which would

[02:25:06] minimize some impacts on your budding residential uses by keeping the overlay largely contiguous and that's my presentation thank you thank you Ms. Doss we do have a lot of people for the public hearing are there any quick questions for staff or the applicant at this time I'm sure I was just gonna ask So right now we're just asking questions in terms of requests and other things we're going to wait until after the public hearing to hear from the public first.

[02:25:34] Yes. That would make sense to me. That's correct. And I think I just got rid of my screen. Yeah, I know. I'll figure it out. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So now it's back.

[02:25:50] Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mika, and thank you to the applicant for the presentations. Just a couple of questions before I'm good until the public hearing. With the proper changes that Ms. Cameron mentioned at the very outset where they're lowering the square footage to $4.25 million, what's the approximate FAR at that point?

[02:26:15] That FAR over the whole acreage with the 270 acres is about a .36, .37 FAR. So that's going from an allowable 1.0 down to .36? That's correct. Okay. So a much reduced scale. Okay.

[02:26:33] My second question has to do with the proposed University Boulevard extension. Is there anything in here in terms of when that's going to come in vis-a-vis the rest of the application?

[02:26:53] We were looking for county transportation as well, but essentially the applicant would need that access point as part of the development.

[02:27:09] So we have proffered that the applicant would construct their portion up until the development and they would do essentially a roundabout or a cul-de-sac at the end of that. That is proffer 36. The county, as you all are aware, has received some funding for University Boulevard.

[02:27:33] So there are alternatives to this because it could be that the county comes first. So if the county comes first, the applicant is responsible to reimburse the county for the funds for that construction.

[02:27:50] So we've also included that in a proffer. That's proffer 36C. And my last question for right now, Madam Chair, is some of the folks that reached out to, I'm sure, my office and others, they talked about water and water supply.

[02:28:10] And some folks mentioned that there might be some folks in the periphery of this application site that have wells and septic. I don't know if folks could address that. So is this specific question, what are the impacts to those wells and septic?

[02:28:30] One, are there folks around that are wells and septic, and two, what are the potential impacts there? Can I get back to you on that question? Thank you. Okay. Supervisor Lawson. Thank you. Probably...

[02:28:48] Me or staff? Probably staff. Okay. Thank you, Jonelle. so for everybody's knowledge you can't hear me is that better for everybody's knowledge Mika Doss just inherited this case so I got a lot of questions for her but I you know she's great at what she does but in all fairness she did just inherit this case Mika I do have to correct you the board really didn't get into conversations during the comprehensive plan pathway to 2040 except

[02:29:26] the night on december 13th when i tried to keep it planned for residential and and didn't win that vote so and in all fairness this that this has not been an ongoing conversation it had a comprehensive plan amendment and rezoning um so just set the set that record straight thank you you're welcome stantec yes ma'am um the the applicant's attorney referenced stantec um what what did stantec do to study noise related to the recommendation of of this site Stantec did not do a noise analysis on

[02:30:05] their recommendations on the data center overlay there was not a noise study component to that okay is it okay if I explain a little bit more sure go ahead sure so they evaluated land use existing land uses that might be consistent with data centers reconciling that with our draft recommendations being planning office draft recommendations and then now looking at the approved comprehensive plan changes looking at existing zoning where there is existing electrical infrastructure and water so those were the main areas of analysis not there was no noise component to that okay and

[02:30:44] noise has become a really big concern of the community in mind and I'm gonna leave some of those questions up to supervisor Vega because ground zero on noises in the coals district right now um although we have a campus in brentsville with similar problems um so it's probably fair to say that stantec was already working on this um report prior to great oak do you know yes that's accurate yeah thank you i think it's important to note though uh if we're gonna recommend i mean if we're gonna bring stantec into the conversation

[02:31:23] so let's talk about height height is absolutely a concern um the application came in with an 80 foot request then went up to 105 feet in their second submission and did come back down to 80 which i would say isn't much of a concession because they originally applied at 80 to begin with and then again it's important to point out 15 feet in mechanical so this is zoning district m2 right yes what's the normal maximum height for m2 60 feet okay so that's a waiver request to get to

[02:32:02] 80 right yes that's correct do we have existing data centers uh in the county right now operating at 80 feet oh i i i would absolutely expect that to be the case but i don't have um a list i don't have a list of data centers and their height i don't believe we do oh i don't you don't believe there are any that are 80 i don't believe we have any existing right now at 80 feet um so that's

[02:32:33] that's my understanding that we don't okay um so uh regarding the height in your slide can you show me um the balloon test um do you mind showing the balloon test for dennis court so what's oh this is correct is everything okay okay um and and if i can on the data center heights

[02:33:10] if there's a possibility that I can do some more research on that and get back to you sure before the night's over I'd be happy to okay I don't believe that there's any existing data centers that have been approved and operating at 80 feet correct me if I'm wrong okay um so Dennis Court and I was out with the community last September when the balloon test was flown and and that the slide that that you're using for Dennis Court I think it's important to note that this was taken

[02:33:48] at the bottom of the cul-de-sac my planning commissioner one of my aides and myself stood at the top of dennis court which is also the entrance to amberley station and it was quite visible from that location so and in all fairness i think that this picture doesn't give a true representation of the visibility and i have slides i could show later i don't want to hold up the public hearing too long but I do want to point that out that there is a very

[02:34:22] strong concern that 80 feet is still really too high for this proximity to these neighborhoods thank you and staff did not these are images that were provided by the applicant especially with their view shed analysis I did not personally take these photos and so there could be a better yeah advantage point on which to take the picture did you have photos from linton hall because linton hall obviously is a very busy road with um visibility i mean there's an opening where that power line

[02:34:57] runs through i have seen images from the view shed study from linton hall but i don't have them in my presentation the applicant might have those okay i do i can show them later but it's quite visible um all right and um can we get back to uh the electrical or not get back to well the applicant mentioned the substations yes um my question though is related to that proper do you not want us to madam chair did you mention that you don't want us to request no i would rather wait till after the public hearing so we understand what the concerns are from the public

[02:35:35] Okay. Ms. Robel, will you help me remember later on to confirm the language on that in the no-build area, the substation? Okay. Generators. So generators can be a culprit of the noise, and I'm going to let Supervisor Vega talk more about noise in general.

[02:35:59] But recently, the Virginia DEQ announced that the data center industry is requesting some, I guess, some waivers on their emissions. Are you familiar with that article?

[02:36:17] No, ma'am. Okay. Because I believe this applicant is using diesel generators, and there are a lot of environmental concerns related to generators as well as noise, which I guess we'll get into later on when we want to dive down deeper into proffers.

[02:36:42] Is everything okay? Okay. All right. I do have some requests, but I'll wait until later on. Thank you, Mika. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to kick things off with noise, but I'm going to get more in-depth as to the specifics of the proffers that are being made here tonight once we hear from the public, because I think that that's the most important part of this meeting.

[02:37:08] But considering what I've been dealing with, with folks at Great Oak in the Coles District, I certainly don't want folks in this area to be the guinea pig. And although I want to commend the applicant for the proffers that they're making, I can make the argument that AWS, despite their best efforts to do these types of testing in a lab, were not practical, if you say, when you applied it to real life.

[02:37:29] Hence, all of the issues that we're having and how this noise issue is impacting people's quality of life, their mental stability in some cases. and I've shared on this day is some of the concerns that have been brought to my attention where nurseries have to have been moved to the basement because of the noise where people are not eating because of the noise and I certainly don't want folks in this community to have to deal with that so my question to you Mika is what if any studies has the county done to address any negative health impacts that data centers might bring specifically next to schools

[02:38:03] Oh, what studies has the county done on the impacts of data centers on schools? And you're talking about specifically noise? Yes. Now, I'm not aware that the county has done any studies on that point.

[02:38:20] I'm looking at Ms. Roble because the board did ask a directive, did provide a directive to our county attorney's office and other staff to do some research and provide some potential recommendations for the board to consider related to noise after evaluating the issue.

[02:38:40] I believe a response to that was just provided in the last 10 days or so. And I'm not sure if the board has looked into that anymore since I've been briefed on that. But I'm not aware of any studies outside of that directive and the response related to schools and noise.

[02:39:01] And I specifically asked of a mother of two children that attend Prince William County Public Schools. And as a mom, I'm concerned, right, about everything pertaining to their learning environment, to their mental stability and whatnot. And so when you're talking about noise issues, not just that folks are experiencing in a residential neighborhood, we have to consider what that noise is going to do to the learning environment of the kids that are going to be sitting in this classroom, you know, for eight hours a day.

[02:39:25] And so that's why I ask, right? And so if we don't have, like, a concrete answer, that's fair. but I raised the issue because we already have a fine example in my district with my community and we don't want to subject these folks right to the same pain and suffering that folks in the Coles districts are going through just because we don't have enough information which would be a fair argument to make that perhaps we should not be moving forward without having all of our studies in place but we're going to dive more into these proffers because I have very specific questions after we hear from the public we're just kind of setting up things right now thank you

[02:39:58] thank you supervisor franklin sure um i guess to that point um so with the issue reference with the noise on um the the other data center i would say um that's essentially like a design flaw um is my understanding is that not right i'm probably not the best person to to speak to that but noise is very location specific the grade the topography the architecture sure how things reverberate sure so it's very detailed and I do I'm not sure if there's someone

[02:40:35] else that wants to speak to that point but yeah I think I think the what I like to say with regards to this particular project I think the discussion and I guess we'll get into this when we start at you know talking about the actual project and things we want to see we just need to make sure that I think the design of how these buildings will be built don't create kind of this man-made issue that becomes a noise issue and that also goes to the type of equipment you may even have to get down to that level of detail the type of equipment that data centers may use that can also

[02:41:11] produce higher levels of noise than other data centers I think what we saw with this particular data center that we're discussing I'm not sure and I could be wrong and I would love for those that have been on the board longer than me to tell me I don't have we had that issue with noise before with other data centers that have already been um that have already been built supervisor lawson madam chair all right thank you um well i got a couple things i do want to talk about

[02:41:41] substations again but um page five of the staff report specifically says proffer 16 through 21 provide for noise attenuation of varying degrees at this time staff is concerned about the specificity of the proper availability of very specific technical resources needed for enforcement and the process through which the proper would be administered it is incredibly technical poor mika is up here you know having to answer questions related to noise and you want to get

[02:42:21] into tonal noise that that's very technical certainly something i i can't speak on as an expert um how how would the county enforce these noise proffers at 11 o'clock on a saturday night when nearby neighbors can't sleep or what other you know problems their families are experiencing because of this hum like great oak and how does that play out mika with with property code

[02:42:57] enforcement not not noise because of a Super Bowl party that goes on too long and the police officers show up this is specific to property code enforcement if it's possible I think it would be helpful for the applicant to just go over how they've designed their noise proffers and then I'd like to come back and specifically answer that question if that's okay it is it it would be as far as code enforcement of proffers it would be a neighborhood services code enforcement issue that they would have to address but the proffers are

[02:43:35] extremely specific about how they would be enforced and what information the applicant would provide and I I don't know if we've gone over those in high level of detail just yet I have with the applicant yeah my office and we I've asked these questions well how does that play out at 11 o'clock on a Saturday night and property code enforcement do they carry proffers around with them from different sites and I mean this is this is very difficult and and how does that how do you address the noise proffer related to the site plan with

[02:44:14] Wade Hugh and his department and I think all my questions are exactly why in this staff report they're basically expressing that they're concerned that we're not going to have enforcement mechanisms in place and practicalities and staffing in place.

[02:44:31] So, yes, the related to enforcement late at night, okay, just to kind of walk through what that looks like with a potential code enforcement issue. There would need to be a complaint made and a complaint received, okay, and then a case would potentially be open and there would be need to be an investigation to the issue so it isn't something that that happens right at the spot in general in the county that's addressed in an hour or two of

[02:45:04] people might expect to be able to you know call call the police and have their neighbor turn down the noise on their stereo it with the code enforcement process it's a bit different from that because you're right the inspectors are not walking around with proffers there need to be an investigation and then some sort of some findings associated with that um and then some some recommended remedy for the issue um usually in writing um i don't know specifically the time

[02:45:40] frame for that exchange of actually citing someone um but it's not something that happens overnight or potentially even um i don't think it's it's something that would happen over the weekend for example. So Ms. Johnson would not have relief at 11 o'clock at night like she might if it's her neighbors having a Super Bowl party and they're really loud. I agree with that. Or the great out community or the community in Hornbaker, the apartments in my district. That's a huge problem for me. And I did vote for the initiation of this comprehensive plan amendment last May.

[02:46:17] And when I did, I made it very clear that noise had to be studied. I have the quote here, Madam Chair, one more question before Supervisor Bailey. Noise seems to be raised with the public and not just this afternoon with public comment time, but we hear that in a lot of cases.

[02:46:36] And I know that the industry has measures to mitigate noise. Is that something that planning staff will include in their study? And David McGettigan answered yes. I'm not confident that this county has properly addressed the problems with noise.

[02:46:55] And Supervisor Franklin, I agree with you. I think that this is absolutely can be case-specific with data centers. The problem is that we've got a growing problem of them now. There's at least one complex in Supervisor Vegas District.

[02:47:15] I know of at least two in my district. One, thankfully, is not close to residential. This is a growing problem within the community, and it was a lot of frustrating meetings with the community, with Supervisor Vegas community staff before AWS actually decided that they were really gonna do something about it.

[02:47:39] And meanwhile, Great Oak is still suffering from this noise. And here's another concern that I have, and I know this from past problems. When we have a property owner who is in litigation with us because our property code enforcement inspectors have gone out there and cited them they're in violation they contest it they either come here to the board of zoning appeals and they don't like the ruling of the board of zoning appeals so they go to the circuit court or in this case that i'm thinking of in my district we've gone to the virginia supreme court

[02:48:19] years of litigation are we able to continue to keep citing them for violations while we're litigating should i ask the county attorney that i would hope so i would hope i would hope you'd ask the county attorney okay her legal guidance on that Madam Chair, members of the board, this would be a civil violation, and there are ways each is going to be case-specific.

[02:48:44] We would first, if there, we believe, as Ms. Doss said, we work on a complaint basis. If we receive a complaint, it's received. If we think that there's a violation of VINCO, which is a violation notice and correction order, would be issued. They have time to correct it.

[02:49:01] The property owner may appeal it to the BZA, and if so, it stayed at that time. If they don't appeal it to the BZA, Neighborhood Services would contact our offices. We would analyze it, see if there was abatement.

[02:49:17] If not, we would go to court on it. Pending the court action, which could take some time, the court may stay it, et cetera, it's all going to depend upon where it is in the court process, and it could then go to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

[02:49:33] Okay, and it's my understanding from Alan Smith that we cannot, rarely is there a case where we can continue to cite violations, issue violations, while we're in litigation.

[02:49:50] So, in other words, while this is being litigated, our hands are tied at what we can do. That's another big concern of mine. Okay, substations. Are these questions? I mean, because I really want to get to the public hearing to make sure that we're not here.

[02:50:06] I mean, Madam Chair, you didn't bother to tell me that you scheduled this for February 7th. And so I had to hear through the grapevine, and I've been scrambling to do my homework on this case. This is in my district, and you bet I have a lot of questions for staff. I will only say it one more time.

[02:50:30] If you cannot stop clapping, we will clear chambers, and we will go take a recess. I mean, we can do that. If you do it again, we'll just call a recess, and we will all leave, and we will clear the chambers. I would rather not have to do that. and supervisor lawson it is not my responsibility to let you know when cases are coming up i've already talked to staff about this i know that you i've seen emails that you sent that i didn't give you that courtesy but it is not my responsibility i am sorry you didn't know you know and so in the past when you've emailed this board with with cases you did you have in the past done that it is a it's also professional courtesy and on december 13th i told you

[02:51:07] specifically that i was willing to work with you and the applicant and the community to see if we could find something that would work you agreed to it and then you blindsided me so you know you're guilty of it all right um miss dawg after supervisor angry bode franklin and bailey but we are going to try to keep moving on thank you um page i think it was page 17 of the staff report regarding the substations page seven i'll let me know when you have it there yes ma'am i

[02:51:44] i had it the three substations proposed are located abutting the existing power infrastructure which is not visible from the public road infrastructure abutting the site i i highly disagree with that okay how how how can that not be those substations at least two of them not be visible from from university in particular and then of course the one on the furthest end

[02:52:10] Linton Hall. I believe that's probably fair, Supervisor Lawson. The substations are located as close to the electric infrastructure as possible. Certainly there's going to be some

[02:52:44] visibility from a public road. I think the setbacks are extensive, but we don't have information now related to the heights of those facilities. So I think that's a general statement that their locations are appropriate on the site, but whether there's going to be no visibility associated with that, I don't think it's fair to make a statement like that when we don't have more detailed information. So you agree that it's wrong in the report, which is not visible from the public road. I mean the fences alone are 12 feet high. The existing power infrastructure I'd say

[02:53:24] is visible right. I mean we I believe the existing transmission lines are are visible. It says the three substations. Yeah I am I think I'm agreeing with you. Okay. The existing the existing power lines are visible and with the substation the connections from those power lines I unless the applicant can clarify the evaluation that they've done I would expect there to be some visibility although I do I do agree that the location is probably optimal because it's far away as possible

[02:53:58] from to have those reduced impacts but yeah there's to say it's not visible without more information I don't feel comfortable saying that. Okay I take issue with that piece of the staff report I just think it's blatantly wrong because it's going to be they're going to be very visible especially from University and it's page 17 at the top proposed substation so again I know you just inherited this case if Miss Horner's in the house I think she should come down here and answer these questions she's more familiar with the case but if people are going to mention that in the public

[02:54:34] hearing I don't blame them last question I have for you for now and then I'm going to get into a lot of well after the public hearing we'll go back to a lot of other big concerns regarding height noise and whatnot 100 foot buffer around the perimeter or most of the perimeter yes and staff is staff believes that the applicant has appropriately mitigated the the impacts of the because of the incompatible uses adjacent to the property and nearby where is that 100

[02:55:13] foot buffer coming from or what I guess I remember reading something in the staff report I think is the new draft of the overlay does that include a hundred foot as the is this new standard it does include some discussion about buffers up to that I believe next to adjacent residential property it there are there is some language in there which has not it's been posted online but hasn't receive full public feedback on that yet so it's not a by any means a final draft but yes

[02:55:52] there are 100 foot buffers into my recollection in the last draft next to adjacent residential encouraging tree preservation birming can be helpful but preserving existing trees is even better because you you're able to keep the height and the you know you're able to keep the trees and the buffers that are there instead of trying to make the berm and then plant on top and you're gonna have smaller plant material okay so yeah so Mika this is where I'm going with my question

[02:56:23] to you or to staff in general the chair and I have had a lot of conversations at least I have and I think the chair has too with residents of nearby Amberley and Silverleaf adjacent on the other side of the power lines when we approved the hunter rezoning that was referenced earlier tonight in September of 21. At the time, the standard buffer was 50 feet, and the applicant was proffering to double that. At the time, I thought, okay, we're getting double. I don't know

[02:56:59] if that had, you know, to my recollection, that was more than what we had in other data center cases, at least in recent history. They have made it very clear to me that they are very dissatisfied with 100 feet and I'm doing all I can to improve those buffers and working with the owner of the property and the developer related to that I would argue to you that we absolutely need to have

[02:57:35] stronger buffers far more than 100 feet so that we don't repeat problems and I'm going to ask the applicant later tonight for for that but I really really really caution that and one other question regarding um this because it just came to my mind amberley and silver leaf and madam chair you can chime in too because you've been part of these conversations amberley and silver leaf have had um they've endured a lot of of disruption with fiber easement and an in it and an easement that

[02:58:12] um they lost 20 25 feet of of what was supposed to be a buffer because of what mango or otherwise known as Google had had to pull the fiber through that neighborhood and I have photographs of the disruption and new fiber poles in in front yards what do we as county staff know in advance about these data projects when they need to lay the fiber because I think that is another thing that

[02:58:49] we as as county staff and as this board and the planning commission need to have a deeper understanding before these projects are approved of where this particular utility is going to basically run is it is are they always running the easements of the existing easements we we have to do a better job of knowing in advance where these fiber installations are are going through specific areas of the community. I mean, oftentimes they're run along roads, but in this case,

[02:59:28] homes were completely disrupted, backyards. Madam Chair, did you, you went out there and saw it yourself, right? I saw where they had cleared it and they would replanted trees. Okay. I mean, there was a wide swath behind the houses and it was where the easement was and they cleared it. They put the thing and I know it wasn't pleasant when I was going through it. And then they had, I think they had started replanting trees while I was there, but I don't, i think yeah well they also did uh like a sewer connection through the very bottom of a cul-de-sac so my whole point is is what do we know about all these different utilities but specifically in this

[03:00:07] case fiber also that are so disruptive to communities yes um in this on this site the applicant has some very specific information regarding where the utilities would be coming from and so if if you would allow them to come up and explain that they can get that on the record and i think that will be helpful but during a standard rezoning review when we negotiate buffers we do try very hard and our county arborist just came and sat down here in the front to negotiate and make sure that it's clear that easements are not put put in buffers that are negotiated on a

[03:00:43] generalized development plan there will be limited crossings okay so that is something that we we try to make sure happens so that if we negotiate a 50 foot or 75 foot wide buffer that that's what actually can be implemented and that easements don't come in and take it all out because I'm sure people but I know people in my district have noticed the ugly poles that keep popping up along roadways and in this case in front yards of folks in Amberley station with the bright orange caps that say fiber optic cable you guys have heard me talk about at the dais before and we're still trying to drill into why all of a sudden this is acceptable to have

[03:01:22] these poles they're yellow they're orange they're not easy on the eyes and if one popped up in my front yard I'd have a problem with it the public might want to hear where the utility is coming from um jonell would you miss cameron would you please come up thank you good evening sorry I'm going to lean over uh in the absence of touching all the buttons uh my name is truett young with stanley martin holmes just uh I can't speak to what was going on in hunter with regard to where they were pulling their fiber from um we have direct front it was actually from mango i'm sorry

[03:02:00] mango my apologies uh through the the easement there correct all of our buffers we did an alter survey all to survey of the property to ensure where easements are and are not we have no buffers that are uh currently planned over existing easements uh there is uh the ability at some occasionally to do a perpendicular crossing through an easement but never parallel to an easement. Our sewer is connected to the new trunk main that was actually installed by Mango.

[03:02:30] Our water is connected in University Boulevard with a future extension. Our fiber is actually connected at Devlin. We also have potential to connect at Linton Hall Road where we have direct frontage. We're not going through any other neighborhoods to get there, if that makes sense. Yes, that's a big relief that you're not going through Sheffield to get there or Lanier Farms.

[03:02:50] Yeah, the infrastructure already exists around our property, hence going back to the slideshow earlier, the infrastructure that's in place for the project. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me just start by saying we are not here to argue with each other, disrespect each other.

[03:03:11] We are here to govern. Okay, so we've got to do a better job of that. The people are here for everything they want, which is transparency. This conversation we're having for governing is right here. And this case is the force to discuss. While we're talking about this case, I want to say as the public comes up here during the public hearing, hopefully by the end of that I can get this question I'm going to ask, which is the schools and the sound from the generators, AC units, everything on those schools.

[03:03:42] What is that sound decibel DBA? Is it louder than data centers currently? And what times a day do those things run? Now, if you can't answer all those, my point here is just to prove what's going on around schools currently. If that's going to be an issue and we're going to talk about sound issues, we're not going to just focus on data centers.

[03:04:02] We're going to focus on this county. And if schools are having an issue because it's louder than what we say it should be, then that's either going to be a problem for the school system or a problem for this board that we will have to figure out how we're going to pay for it to adjust. But I want to make that really clear that as we go down this road of discussion, what is currently happening out of schools that could be affecting our kids' learning, mental hearing, all this stuff.

[03:04:28] So if you could have that for me by the time we finish this, that would be good just to put into perspective of this discussion. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate your comments, Supervisor Ingrid, about the cross-talk that goes on.

[03:04:46] Because the folks are here to listen to the presentation, listen to hear us, deliberate, not sort of cross-talk and argue. So I appreciate that. That said, we're going to go back to noise, because Supervisor Lawson, Sardis Vega, I appreciate your questions and comments about that, especially when we're dealing with buildings that are potentially within hundreds of feet of residences, hundreds of feet of schools.

[03:05:07] It matters. So that said, Ms. Cameron and then Mika, can we look at proffers 19 and 20 and 21 in concert with each other to sort of talk through that conversation about noise measurements, about the sound studies that the applicant has requested, is offering to do, and then the sound barriers that they're proposing as part of the overall development.

[03:05:44] Thank you, Supervisor Bodie. I can talk generally about the proffers, but if you have any specific sound technical questions, we have Scott Harvey with Phoenix Acoustics with us. So the way the proffers were set up, you know, the biggest issue we had, or the county had, When we were deferred in September, the Great Oaks situation had just really started taking off, and people really became concerned about those facilities, and a couple of things became obvious.

[03:06:22] The county didn't have HVAC systems included in their noise ordinance because they didn't want homeowners calling the police on each other when their compressors outside made noise during the summer months or whatever. And secondly, even if it was included, the ability to enforce the noise ordinance is actually quite limited.

[03:06:44] So I worked with Planning Commissioner Gordy and a number of other folks, both from the industry and both from our acoustical engineering firm, to understand how to create a standard for developing data centers in areas that are transitioned between your residential areas and your industrial uses, which this property is.

[03:07:05] If you look at this property on one side, it's clearly data centers. On the other side, it's across the street and adjacent, not just across the street, but also adjacent to some residential homes and communities. So what do we do in those areas, and how do we prevent noise from being a problem for them?

[03:07:21] So we started off by understanding the problems that they were having at Great Oaks, which were driven a lot by equipment, which is the biggest driver of noise, and site layout. So even if your equipment's not necessarily the loudest, if it's oriented towards other equipment that makes similar noise and it bangs into it, the noise effectively bangs into each other and channels and creates the problems they have, that's a site design issue. So we decided that we would proffer, prior to the issuance of a site development permit, before any construction takes place on the site, that we would do an in-depth analysis of the sound for the project

[03:07:59] that it talks about, that analyzes both the site layout as well as the type of equipment used in its construction to determine how, from an engineering standpoint and a proper planning standpoint, you can ensure that you won't have the noise issues at the property line into other uses.

[03:08:17] Secondly, when you get to actually constructing a building and getting it fully operational, you have the applicant is required to come back and do a secondary study of those buildings at completion with each building. So, you know, we're talking about a technology park here, which is a number of different buildings.

[03:08:35] And I know there's a lot of concerns about additive noise and what that means and what it doesn't mean, but at the property line with the residential uses, we have to go back and measure every time a new building comes online to ensure that we are in conformance with the noise study that was produced at the onset of the project.

[03:08:53] Similarly, we took it a step further, and that's been the conversation about what exactly happens if there's a problem and how often you do studies and whether or not, you know, if the developer is using their own noise engineer. The issue is it's extraordinarily technical, so we set it up to where the applicant can present the noise study findings and bear the cost of all those noise studies, And the county has the ability to approve the consultant.

[03:09:27] So it's not just a fox in the hen house type of situation, so to speak. Did that answer your question? It does. It answers sort of the first two segments I wanted to have you guys speak to, I guess. So the current proffers talk about site plans, but it sounds to me like you're going to be doing a little bit more granular than that, where as each building is built, there's going to be a subsequent study.

[03:09:48] Is that correct? Correct. There's the first one that's done prior to site plan approval that sets the assumptions for, like I said, building orientation and equipment. You can deal with it from an engineering standpoint. The secondary or follow-up sound studies are there only to make sure that you met the obligations that were outlined in the original study.

[03:10:12] And then so my third question then is about the sound barriers. Can you talk a little bit more about what you guys are thinking in terms of sound barriers? how they come into play, how tall they're going to be, those kinds of things. So there's sound barriers. I don't know that the sound barriers are going to do a ton for equipment that's higher up on the building.

[03:10:31] So sound barriers are generally 20, 25 feet, 30 feet, whatever. It'll be driven by the actual sound study to determine how high they need to be. But I think that it's only practicable to build sound barriers so high. They serve a dual use when you have buffers that are made up primarily of hardwood trees.

[03:10:52] And in the summer months, they look great. But in the winter months, you start losing those leaves. You're looking through. You're going to see more of the buildings than maybe you'd like to see. So at that level, you've got a noise barrier, a solid barrier behind that buffer that helps with that aesthetic view. It also does a lot with dealing with noise at the lower ground levels.

[03:11:11] But to be clear, the noise from the equipment at the upper end of the building that's above those barriers has to be dealt with from an engineering standpoint with regard to better equipment. So to be clear, though, there would be screening and some other things done to make sure that equipment isn't amplifying noise out.

[03:11:28] Absolutely. So my sort of final question before I shift to Mika to see how staff use these mitigations is one of the things that was discussed with me with a group of residents over at Chris Young was the fact that, one, you have children who hear more subtle noises.

[03:11:48] And so there's a difference there when you're testing on an adult who hears different frequencies, but also the fact that we have a lot of special needs kids which back up right to where some of these property lines are and how some of them have sensory issues. And as a father who has a couple of kids who have sensory issues, I completely get how that can make it uncomfortable, especially in a school situation.

[03:12:07] So is there anything at all as part of these studies that are going to look at a sort of gradient of frequencies and sound level. So even if it's something that an adult fully grown would be able to be fine with, they would be able to barely hear anything, a younger child, especially someone with sensory issues, would pick up.

[03:12:26] So two things. With regard to noise in general on an elementary school site, we did some work there and went out and actually to understand what noise already exists. The day I was there, it was a relatively cool day.

[03:12:45] Only one of the chillers of the three were running, and it ran just right at 65 decibels. Naturally, schools are louder. However, their issues, I think that they function just fine. We're not adding to the problem, I think is the issue, by virtue of the fact the way we set these proffers up with regard to noise in general.

[03:13:07] As dealing with tonal noise, which is the low hum that you may be talking about uh that was actually an issue from uh the great oaks also that there is you know not just even if they are at the proper uh decibel levels within the noise ordinance as they are from time to time there they were dealing with a frequency issue which we identified in our profits it's extraordinarily technical but it's an ash toe standard which is the standard you know the people that define these types of things so both our engineers and the county staff could look to something and go, okay, within the noise study, we have to deal with tonal noise. And

[03:13:42] then we take a penalty or a reduction of those noise levels below what's actually allowed within the noise ordinance as it exists. Appreciate that. And so to shift back to Mika, just from your analysis on the staff, and again, going back to her laws, we know that this was sort of given to you relatively recently. What is staff's view on it? Do they feel like that's adequate? Do they feel like that really gets us the harder issue do we foresee any other weaknesses with with that and that that those mitigation strategies that with the noise proffers to be honest their acoustical

[03:14:20] engineer I believe has been consulted in depth with these there are very technical they're extremely technical proffers I believe that that there are tests submitted at the right time with the site plans. I believe the annual review is helpful. This is the first time we're seeing proffers that are like this. So there is a lot of information in here. I believe there would be

[03:14:52] enough opportunity to ensure compliance based on the structure. But again, we're looking at something like this for the first time. I'm not an acoustical engineer. This is very technical information. It looks like it should be right, but again, we're having to depend on third parties to evaluate this information because I don't personally have this expertise on acoustical engineering to be able to fully evaluate these proffers as they've been planned, but I do know

[03:15:27] the review process, the different points, and the checkpoints, and I believe that they're going to be submitting analysis at the correct points for us to be able to be effective in ensuring compliance but again this is a this is the first time we're seeing proffers structured like this so I so my last point before I yield the rest of what I was going to say until after is so basically from at least your standpoint not being an expert or someone that's into this stuff from a professional standpoint at least from a planning standpoint you think it's

[03:16:05] iterative enough deliberate enough and methodical enough that as this were to be built out hypothetically there's enough touch points there that we'd be able to hopefully foresee issues if they were to arise in a very sort of deliberate way I would think so because these projects very large data center projects they're phased over time so there are numerous plan submissions numerous site plans and then the annual checks so i do believe that it's iterative enough to be able to to to catch an individual issue or collective issue as the site gets built out over time thank

[03:16:41] you chair uh supervisor lawson and then supervisor bailey i i thought we were okay is it questions well supervisor bode again i'm going to point out staff's own report on page five specifically addresses the red flags the concerns that that our staff does not have this the the specific technical resources needed for enforcement and the process through which the proffer would be

[03:17:17] administered so sorry we can spin it all we want but the reality of it is is this has this these are proffers that have never been tested right now there is a growing concern about noise that at various data center complexes and we have crystal clear on page five in the staff report red flags to our board about the enforcement and administration of it the practicalities of it nika has admitted how technical this is heck the applicant had to hire somebody to come and speak

[03:17:56] to us about it i just want everybody to know especially my colleagues to know there are some serious red flags on this and the applicant doesn't even know who the end user is going to be so the end user could be the culprit right now in the community that is creating all these noise problems so i rest my case with that it's page five we can't spend this anymore it's crystal clear supervisor bailey then supervisor franklin thank you very much ma'am chair and i i don't want to take up too much time because i understand the importance of this is uh supervisor lawson's

[03:18:33] district and she she's got some very important points that she wants to make and questions that she needs to ask but I also want to be respectful of the fact that we have citizens here that have concerns and would like to speak on this issue and that's very important that I hear that but the third thing that I want to say is understanding that there are a number of data centers that are established in this area already. And there's never been this level of attention given to the noise

[03:19:06] piece, which is essential. So my question, Mika, to you, knowing in your very equipped way, being the Deputy Director of Planning, my question to you, not to put you on the spot, but given your expertise and knowing what your occupant is, is this a good beginning to understand with the concerns that the community has and Supervisor Lawson, all of us have, with the noise piece.

[03:19:34] Are we going in a very practical direction to understand what the noise is so it doesn't affect mentally and, you know, educationally? Is this a good opportunity for us to really understand what that means so that we can answer the community's concerns?

[03:19:53] Is this a good starting point, I guess? And that's a basic question, but I want, I mean, we, there's been a lot of data centers established already. And so we, we've never done this kind of testing before, as you said. So my question is basically, is this a good thing for us to understand?

[03:20:13] None of us are technical. So please. I believe the county is at a point doing a lot of analysis on our current noise ordinance. and if there are changes that need to be made in the county to address the noise concerns we're hearing related to the data center industry.

[03:20:34] Without having more clear direction or guidance as far as where we're going to go and how our regulations are going to change, I believe the applicant is doing in earnest the best they can do as an individual property owner with a rezoning to try to address preparing sound studies, specific points.

[03:20:58] The proffers that they're proposing are the most comprehensive noise proffers I have seen of any project for data centers. With each of these, they get a little bit better. And it may be that this is not exactly where the county goes in the future, but I think for this point in time, they're doing the absolute best that they can with the information that we're providing them as we understand the concerns to be.

[03:21:23] And I did want to just mention one thing related to the weakness in the staff report, related to the noise proffers, and the county's concern that we don't have technical expertise to enforce these proffers.

[03:21:38] I do think it would be only fair to mention that since publishing the staff report with the proffers, The applicant has revised the proffers that are submitted here before the board dated February 6th today to try to better address our concern that we don't have the acoustical engineer on staff to evaluate this proffer.

[03:22:00] And so they improved the proffer to say that they will provide for consultant choices for the county and pay for that individual to ensure compliance with the proffer. so it would still be a third-party system that the applicant's offering to pay and invest in for the county, if that makes sense. So that was an amendment that was made based on our very earnest concern related to this very technical proffer language. And so that is essentially the new information that is now before you on the dais today related to the noise proffer.

[03:22:39] thank you supervisor Franklin sure um obviously the the largest parts of this discussion is going to be noise and I'm assuming probably uh the buffers and uh and maybe even heights those are probably going to be the three uh main things that it sounds like we've been talking about we're going to talk about probably even more uh once we actually um dive into the project um after the public hearing but i will say and we do have to acknowledge and and you've done that sounds like no other project or data center has put forth the level of measures to mitigate against noise

[03:23:20] that we've seen so i think that is important to note whether you like the project or not that is important and even going back to the couple of data centers we know that have been problematic particularly amazon i was trying to be respectful before but i'll just say particularly Amazon, it sounds like that was just a terrible buildout, just terrible. And I think we have an opportunity, and we're not even talking about Devlin, but any project that we do in the data center space or any particular commercial development that we do, we have the opportunity to look at the Amazon buildout to figure out how to prevent that from happening ever again,

[03:23:59] because that's just been a mess since it's come to this board. And obviously the previous board approve that particular data center but i think we have an opportunity here with this level of mitigation efforts even if it doesn't pass tonight we should still take these mitigation efforts and apply them really to other projects that that come before this board so i do want to be fair in pointing that out that we we have never seen this before this board and so that is something to take a close look into and and it is also fair that yes we don't know if those mitigation efforts will

[03:24:34] actually work. But darn it, it is just the furthest that we've ever seen before. And then even on the enforcement piece, I know I get phone calls every so often from residents complaining about certain businesses doing work before the hours that they are allowed to. And we do call enforcement. I also sometimes get the police to go out and kind of monitor the area. And I've even had, I'm not suggesting this, but I've even had economic development kind of make some phone calls to businesses and say hey can you be a better partner um in this neighborhood so i think we have a number of things we can do even in terms of relationships with certain businesses to make

[03:25:12] sure that we're doing as much as we can on the noise mitigation so i just wanted to kind of point that out madam chair supervisor vega just a real quick question for mr young i do agree with um pretty much everything you just said supervisor franklin i do think it's a good start and um which is part of the reason why I commended the applicant for the proffers that they've put forward when it comes to noise mitigation.

[03:25:35] But, Mr. Young, how many data centers has Stanley Martin built? Zero. Zero. We actually were not in the data center business, and so we approach things from a different way, meaning that I don't have to ask somebody from another state what I can and can't do when it comes to painting the envelope of where we should and shouldn't be developing and how we should be developing.

[03:25:58] I think that fact that we're relatively new to this and our willingness to learn over the course of the past year has actually provided a benefit to just about everybody by looking at it from a different perspective and a more of a, I know some may disagree, but from a community perspective and an impact perspective as opposed to just this is how we do it.

[03:26:19] Thank you. And again, you know, nothing against you, but the reason why I ask is because we typically tend to go, right, to industry experts, subject matter experts when it comes to building these things. And when you were, you know, doing your very best to answer Supervisor Brody's questions, there's a lot of technical terms that are thrown out there and very specific, you know, things to how we're going to do things different than, you know, whatever was built by Amazon.

[03:26:40] And so, you know, I think it's important, you know, your bread and butter, your area of expertise is residential. That's what Stanley Martin does. This is absolutely a new venture for you all, which was the reason that prompted my question that Stanley Martin does not build data centers. But, you know, again, do appreciate the effort that you've put into these proffers and that you've opened up the door for us to move forward.

[03:27:02] I should also warn you, I don't know how to build a house either. It's not what I do here. I rely on experts and I rely on the guys that actually do the work. And I brought my sound group with me specifically for that.

[03:27:17] I know just enough, and I want to make sure that what we're doing is correct. so i bring people that are actually professionals thank you supervisor lawson before we start the public hearing thank you um mr young i should have thanked you sooner and i apologize that i i don't think i did express that i really do appreciate your effort and the noise proffers i know it started with the summer i mean last summer before the planning commission right and i know the data center industry you you caught their attention and then you've you've added some other

[03:27:55] proffer since then and i do appreciate those efforts thank you my concern is is the execution of the proffers right that's my concern and that's the point i'm trying to make is these red flags i i think and i i actually agree and you know as you're doing something like this uh you do have to kind of as people review it and and comment back to you about you know what works and what doesn't work we actually when the staff report came out there was a hole in it uh you know not not necessarily a great set of rules for staff to follow when they're enforcing it and we actually

[03:28:33] came back to them and said okay well what if we did this and I think Mika or Mrs. Doss acknowledged that by modifying the proffers to make them a little more thorough actually relieved that concern I also you know we've done a lot of work with with you know the rest of staff and understanding from development services and even the county attorney's office about how this would all work to make sure that, you know, we do put something on paper that is actually, you know, enforceable is the word I'm looking for. Yeah. And I, again, I appreciate it. I think the execution

[03:29:11] of it is what's the big concern for me. And, you know, when I rely on the agencies, especially if I'm having problems with noise in my community on a Saturday night. I certainly know that this gets very technical very quickly and very specific to a particular property with proffers and whatnot.

[03:29:36] There's no proffers when my neighbor's having a Super Bowl party. Right. And it's way too loud. And that's problematic. Yeah, so that's my point. The absence of rules is actually the largest issue. The problem with Great Oaks is the absence of rules and the absence of an enforcement mechanism.

[03:29:53] Same thing with Hornbaker Road and same thing with every other data center that's been actually developed in Prince William County up to this date. Well, true, but the board's going to take up the ordinance later this month, but we're still, this is fluid.

[03:30:10] And back to Supervisor Franklin's point about, you know, the Amazon site over on Tanner, where Great Oak has been enduring all that. Right. I don't know what measures we can take as a board that allow us, by Virginia code, to tell data centers this is how you build them.

[03:30:31] They're all built different for each client. And so, I mean, in a lot of ways, we're probably handcuffed on exactly what we can do. not to interrupt you but just because i you know i don't want to lose the thought virginia code is very specific regarding and uh miss roble can probably further this very specific to dealing with the noise ordinance very specific there are limitations to the noise ordinance correct that is specifically why in working with mr gordy we i copied and pasted the language out of the noise ordinance and put it into my zoning proffers as a means of amending

[03:31:07] the zoning ordinance with this application yeah which gives an entirely set different set of enforcement mechanisms right and again I appreciate that but I can't get past the execution of it when Wade Hugh and property code enforcement the county attorney everybody has you know problems we just don't have the staffing for it sure the technical training and all that um I understand so we're to hear from the public look forward to talking to you afterwards i don't know what time that will be about all these things related to height noise um buffers everything that we've discussed yes ma'am

[03:31:47] thank you okay that brings us to our public hearing public comment time the board will hear in person and then remote public comments um we're going to be in with in person uh this evening we have right now we have 60 people 75 signed up to speak um in person people will be called up five speakers at a time um please each speaker will have three minutes to share their views regarding the public hearing item we ask that all speakers state their name and magisterial district

[03:32:23] or generally where they reside in the county at the beginning of their remarks i was gonna say but it's it doesn't get closed after 15 minutes um and we are going to call numbers tonight instead of names to make it easy i believe everybody was passed out numbers i'm assuming people didn't switch numbers um and the so the and just line up in the back and the first

[03:32:45] if we could just call up numbers one through five please okay please start i am mary riley

[03:33:19] gainesville district i'd say getting here at 5 15 paid off so a couple things first um related to this uh iron mountain um i'm really glad to hear that that has gone through smoothly it's right where it's supposed to be it's within the development district that overlay district wholly and entirely, and of course, that's what it's there for. Unfortunately, Devlin does not fall in that category. A couple of things on that. You're talking about sound, a really quick story.

[03:33:49] So, you know those little electric monitors that supposedly keep mice away or, you know, whatever it is, insects away in your house? When my kids were between 7 and 15, they could hear that thing. And I was like, they'd come in and say, Mom, when are you going to get rid of that thing that ticks I was like because I was taking it out of the wall and she says you're gonna throw that away and I was like no why she says it ticks it drives me insane I was like what do you mean it ticks I can't hear a thing so yes they do hear that stuff we're adults we don't hear it they hear

[03:34:24] it second of all uh twenty thousand dollars for water quality if I got that number right um that is a drop in the bucket. 80 feet plus 15 feet for the cooling, that's 95 feet. Why do we fly the balloons at 80? Why aren't we flying them at 95? That makes perfectly good sense to me. The screening, how high are those sound walls going to be to actually attenuate the sound that's at 95 feet? And what will they look like?

[03:34:53] We've heard they're going to be there, but there's been zero description of what they're going to look like when you could see through the trees in the wintertime. so a couple things you know on that 90 feet tall I don't expect those walls can go to 90 feet but what are the screens going to look like that's on top of the buildings to keep the sounds down because you are going to see those they are at 95 feet not at 80 feet let's get this you know square away I think it is a lie and misinformation to continue to put forward that these buildings

[03:35:28] are 80 feet tall or 105 feet tall. They are not. They're 95 feet tall or they are 120 feet tall. Let's stop calling the roof the top because it's not the top. The top is where all of the mechanicals end and that is what is producing a lot of the noise. Water quality, I'm on a well.

[03:35:53] I really feel for the people who are on wells. These things take a lot of water. I have been around and around and around on the facts with this board and planning commission on what the water impacts are i've tried to do the education and you're still not listening or taking the advice okay that's 36 years protecting water quality for the environmental protection agency i know what i'm talking about on that okay last minute defer if you can't just say no defer until all of these questions you heard tonight thank them answered thank you next speaker please madam

[03:36:33] chair supervisors good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is kevin smith and i am the president of the sheffield manor homeowners association located in the brentsville district at the intersection of devlin and university roads the sheffield manor community consists of 673 properties with over 2 000 residents like our neighbors along devlin road in the lanier farms and victory lakes communities the undeniable and nearly unanimous position of our residents is firmly opposed to the rezoning of the property in question from residential

[03:37:10] to industrial as proposed within the devlin technology park thank you to supervisor lawson and supervisor vega for hearing our community's concerns in detail last thursday evening the primary job of the supervisors is to represent the residents in this matter the residents most directly affected are firmly and unquestionably opposed to the devlin technology park rezoning proposal as well as a request to amend the data center opportunity zone overlay district leaders

[03:37:45] do not compromise with wrong and this proposal is wrong this proposal is irresponsible the propers are not sufficiently enforceable by law enforcement to address immediate noise relief the proposal does not have proper environmental impact assessments the proposal directly harms our residents and our children with continuous noise. The proposal directly degrades the quality of life.

[03:38:17] The proposal data center opportunity zone overlay will surround Chris Young Elementary School on three sides. This proposal is a betrayal of the residents who invested their families' lives into a zoned residential area of Prince William County. Anything less than a unanimous vote to deny this proposal is a neglect of duty and a misuse of office against the residents of the Brentsville District. Prince William County is not a for-profit county. Prince William County

[03:38:53] is for residents. Deny this proposal and stop the expansion of the data center crisis within our county. Vote nay tonight. Thank you for your time and I'm available for any questions that you may have. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Erin Adams. You might want to pull the microphone so we can hear you better. Yeah, that's better. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Erin Adams. I'm a resident of Sheffield Manor, which is in the Brentsville District, and we are

[03:39:31] directly across the street from proposed Devlin Technology Park. I am absolutely opposed to this park, what we'll call a park. I want you to think about that I moved into this house in 2007 and said this is the house that i am going to have my family grow up in i never would have thought that there would be a technology park or any hideous building across from our direction when i bought this house i knew that this was the house that i loved i love my neighbors i love my community

[03:40:05] i do not love technology parks across the way it doesn't matter how many modifications that they try to put in there. No one wants to live across the street from a data center. I would never have bought my house if there was a technology park there. And everybody else's house is going to go down in property value because no one else wants to live across the street from that. The pictures that the applicant shows us are misleading. They don't show us the wintertime pictures which are going on right now where you can see straight through. It also does not show how all of the

[03:40:43] trees on Devlin Road have been taken down. So even less that we have of blocking those hideous buildings. Visibility will be there even more so. And the trees that they say they will plant will take years to ever go ahead and try and cover up that mess. On a personal note, my daughter suffers from debilitating migraines. So much so that she has to be in a dark room and has massive sickness issues associated with it.

[03:41:20] It's exacerbated by noises, just like data centers. So, Supervisor, I appreciate you bringing up regarding special needs children. Absolutely very true in our community, but I'm also thinking about my own family where migraines are a big deal. I'd like to ask you to please vote no for this proposal.

[03:41:40] In fact, it shouldn't have even been here to begin with. You should have said this is a residential area. It needs to remain there. Please vote no. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Laura Barrett.

[03:41:56] I'm in the Brentsville District. I'm here to express my firm opposition to the rezoning and subsequent building of Devlin Dectonology Park. I live in Sheffield Manor with my husband and two children, and we moved to western Prince William County six years ago to live in a community, a residential community.

[03:42:12] And I'm up here fighting for you to protect the value of my home, support my neighbors, and for you all to show that you care about my family's livelihood and safety. Data centers do not belong in our backyards or behind our schools. There are no compromises that will be accepted.

[03:42:28] There are no mitigations that are guaranteed, and the county has not done the necessary research to guarantee the safety of my children and my neighbor's children. My family and I would never choose to live this close to an industrial area. Keep the land zoned as residential. I urge you to vote no. Thank you.

[03:42:44] And before our next speaker, the next number 6 through 10 can start lining up. I'm sorry, it's in the back. Oh, it was here last time. Oh, no, yeah, it's in the back. Sorry, yeah. Do you need an overhead?

[03:43:01] No, it's one of the places. Oh, I'm sorry, yeah. Okay. Okay. Dan Card, Brentsville District. Regarding the initial conversation we had, the PowerPoint presentation, I kind of find it disingenuine to include words like greater than required in the opening remarks because that's just kind of laughable.

[03:43:32] And that's what my kids would call eyewash. It's something that kind of looks good, maybe seems like it looks good, other people, but it really means nothing. Taking a 50-foot buffer, turning it into a 100-foot buffer, that's garbage. It's unwelcome, it's undesired, and it's unproductive. It's simply too close to residential properties. And then, going further in that presentation to point towards other properties that were approved that I would argue errantly approved, pointing at those doesn't

[03:44:06] really make your argument. They shouldn't have been approved either. But in a stovepipe, this project simply should not be approved. We're getting new information every single day. And I was kind of encouraged from some of what I heard with the folks today, talking about all the things we don't know. And new information is coming in every day. When I was in the Navy, officer of the deck of a ship charged with the lives and safety of nearing up on 400 people in the Arabian Gulf,

[03:44:39] coming back from a deployment, we had a plan, a meticulously laid out plan. And something changed. be it a pop-up merchant over the horizon who was tracking that i wasn't combat wasn't we had to adjust and the first thing we did was call an all stop me officer to deck stop the engines let's assess the situation let's receive and assess the incoming information and adjust course from there and that's what it is time to do now we're learning lessons from loudon county we're learning lessons

[03:45:18] from around the corner. And to continue to, Prince William County is going to go from zero to 60, from zero to a world leader in data centers overnight. It's insane. There's no planning along the way for that. So my recommendation and my ask of you is to please heed and hear what all of these people are telling you. Every person who speaks here today, there's a multiplier of two or three because of the people in their house, the people they care about, their neighbors, their

[03:45:55] friends, their family, your neighbor's friends and family. Do the right thing for them. Don't let this happen. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Karen Sheehan, Gainesville District, and I request five minutes representing the coalition to protect Prince William County. Sure. This country is in

[03:46:29] trouble. This county is in trouble. This Bristow community is in trouble. But the members of this board are also in trouble. Since I don't have Gainesville district representation on this board, I'm going to speak to the other district representatives whose vote tonight will affect me in the Gainesville district, all the people in the Brentsville district, and every resident

[03:47:08] in all the other districts across this county. Kenny Bode, you don't yet have a declared opponent for the Occoquan seat that you currently occupy. But I know for a fact, from having spoken to many, many Occoquan district residents, that they are your opponents. They are tired of your wishy-washy

[03:47:42] record and your lack of backbone. You are in trouble. Victor Angry, your opponent in the Neabsco District, Coach Nate Murphy, has the intelligence and courage to very succinctly state we need to give deference to the supervisor representing the district for each land use case.

[03:48:16] You are in trouble. Margaret Franklin, not here to watch, but hopefully listening. Your opponent in the Woodbridge District, Jeanne LaCroix, is spot on. She supports smart growth. She wants to preserve neighborhood character. She opposes unchecked development. She wants to bring back

[03:48:50] the voices of the community drowned out by partisan politics and policies. She says diverse cultural backgrounds, opinions, thoughts make this county unique and great, but only if the board of supervisors listen, learn, and live up to their duty to represent their constituency. She says we need to give our citizens a voice in what happens in their own communities. Andrea Bailey. Your

[03:49:29] opponent, Kim Short, believes that your constituents deserve a leader who will bridge the disconnect between our government and the people by actively engaging the community to hear and learn what is important to them and what wakes you up in the morning and keeps you up at night. Time for a change is now. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect whether you share my opinion

[03:50:02] or not, unquote. You are in trouble. So is Margaret. Ann Wheeler, your opponent for chair DeShundra Jefferson is your complete opposite. She has integrity. She is accountable. She opposes evil, your evil data centers anywhere and everywhere mandate, which will ruin our county

[03:50:40] if it is not stopped. Her position that data centers belong in industrial areas, not next to homes is a unifying voice to replace you. Her concern about Prince William residents feeling marginalized resonates across the county. Whether it is because of the recall, which continues to gather hundreds of signatures every single week, or because of residents across the county putting DeShundra in the chair in seat in November, you are in trouble. It is clear that the citizens of

[03:51:19] Bristow are united in their opposition to these proposed data centers next to their homes and schools. If you value your reputations, if you value your legacies, if you value everything that is moral and ethical, if you value your seat, you will vote to deny this application.

[03:51:48] I'd just like to remind everyone, this is a public hearing on the proposed rezoning, and typically, from a legal standpoint, we're supposed to talk about the proposed rezoning. Obviously, I'm not going to stop anyone while they're talking, but if anybody could take that into account, that would be appreciated.

[03:52:09] Next speaker, please. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Jimmy Brewer. I'm a resident of Sheffield Manor. I've been a resident, active resident, either on the Architecture Review Board or an active member within the community for over 22, 23 years.

[03:52:27] And what I would like to do is to propose that we become, why is it that there's such a sense of urgency that we have to do this amendment at this particular juncture in time when we've actually not had adequate time for the community and for the residents to actually get an opportunity to review the review of the actual proposed plans, the recommendations that have been provided to the board.

[03:52:51] I don't think there's been adequate time to do an analysis. It's been dedicated to propose adequate analysis of alternatives that will be proposed for this solution. We don't have a counterproposal provided by anyone else. We don't even know the information provided for who the proffer is, the subsequent design that this is intended for, for an intended use.

[03:53:17] One of the original proposals that is stated from the applicant was that they are billed and they will come. I don't necessarily become an advocate for that approach when we are having to field subsequent question after question where we don't really have adequate data to support why we're doing this.

[03:53:37] The data should be driving the decisions. We clearly see that the information that's been provided to the Board of Supervisors is substantiated enough to show that we have flaws within existing plans.

[03:53:53] The architectural reviews that we've provided are not substantiated enough with data to provide information for the Board of Supervisors to make a firm decision to support their residents. You have enough residents who are directly adversely impacted from the decisions that you're going to be making today that we can subsequently say, why can't we push this decision further down the road, or why not do this decision at all?

[03:54:17] A lot of the residents that actually live within these impacted areas are not advocating these data centers to come in. And in addition to that, I would propose that the number that we originally heard has actually blossomed and changed. When I originally heard the proposal, it was 9, then it went to 12, then it was at 13 when I did an initial view.

[03:54:39] Yet tonight, I saw 14 on the charts for the proposed data centers. I would propose that we actually take more than a moment, data centers anytime, anywhere, is not the proposed solution. I am a true, firm believer we don't need these data centers at all.

[03:54:56] I want to stay with the residential building as it was configured before, and I would propose that you provide a solution instead of all these unanswered questions. So, thank you.

[03:55:12] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, everyone. My name is Josh Aggerson. I live in Sheffield Manor in the Brentfield District. I'm actually Jimmy's neighbor, so glad to be here, glad to talk. First thought comes to mind is we don't know enough, right? It kind of feels like the rollout of the COVID vaccine, where we're testing the impacts of a data center on the community around them and letting the people go through the pain of realizing that that vaccine didn't work.

[03:55:37] And now I've got brain trauma and other things as we discoverly learn what it's going to be like to now clear all the trees out of the area to put in concrete walls and then understand sound later on. From my house, I can hear Jiffy Lube live, okay? I'm probably a mile and a half away. and there's a lot of trees in between them that are going to get clear cut to put in a concrete building and then you want to say what it's going to be like to mitigate sound i'm also a drummer i know what sound does probably have a hard of hearing but i can still hear jiffy lube live so principally speaking one of the veteran things we have to my navy vet is leadership comes with trust and trust comes with transparency okay i don't feel like there's transparency we don't

[03:56:14] know enough the people don't know enough and you're moving ahead with a plan when we really don't know what the impact is going to be. Okay. I'm not a ask for forgiveness versus permission type person. Grant is a Marine. We had to do a lot of stuff to bad people where you didn't really care what the impact was going to be as long as the mission got done. But right here, we're asking forgiveness, not asking permission. I'm not an opponent of change. I'm a business owner and entrepreneur. I get that we have to be innovative and I'm not opposed to innovation, but this is not right. Doing innovation at the expense of the people to bring in something we don't understand that the people are not for is the wrong decision. Understanding noise. Like I said, we're going to

[03:56:53] clear out trees which actually mitigate sound. 100-foot barrier, not nearly enough. I don't want this data center, but one idea if you're going to go forward with it anyway on political lines would be maybe the first buildings are 10 feet tall and then back from that you have 20 feet and then back from that you have 30 feet as a tiered approach to a data center so that the front wall is near where people can see it or the lowest ones possible, right? And I'll tell you, I've driven down Hornbarker. I don't know an 80-foot building out there nor want an 80-foot data center. If you had to put it in make it 20 30 or 40 feet at most and make the front edge only 10 feet tall right maybe that's a crazy idea for you guys to consider nature right one of my sad things was driving my

[03:57:29] kids going over to conway robinson park and seeing all the trees gone right you go over university driving and see where they cleared out to put parking lots in a massive data center rather than driving through the woods right we would out here five years ago when i left the military but i liked it because it was residential i liked it for the community i liked the neighborhood we liked the house. I would much rather hear kids laughing across the street in a neighborhood than hear the sound of a generator. Okay. So to Stanley Martin, I'd rather you build your homes. I'd personally prefer to see trees. If I had to trade one, I'd trade laughter over a generator. Last thing, this is another crazy idea. You want to put a proffer, put a proffer in the loss of home

[03:58:07] value for putting in a data center across the street. It says I will cover any percentage loss over the next five years to anyone selling a house. So you can make it back whatever it was before this amendment gets voted tonight, right? Take care of the people, take care of them with pocketbooks because that's what they're going to care about thank you thank you and before our next speaker i'll call up numbers 11 through 15 to line up please good evening my name is phil barger i reside in the victory lakes residential community in brentsville like the overwhelming majority of

[03:58:47] other victory lakes residents i strongly oppose the proposed zoning change for the devil and technology park from residential to industrial the data center's plan to be built in the proposed Devil and Technology Park, together with those to be built on the nearby digital realty, Hunter, Mongo, and Microsoft Parcels will comprise a high-density mega data center farm expected to host some 50 units within a one-mile radius, a farm that at present is projected

[03:59:23] to be the largest concentration of data centers in the world. If this mega farm is completed as currently planned, small residential communities will be nearly encircled with very short setback distances, and immense data centers 95 feet high will abut existing single-family home lots, nearly encircle Chris Young and Piney Branch elementary schools at distances of a mere 100 feet.

[04:00:01] abut the campus of the new Gainesville High School. That shows a lot of prior planning, I think. It's marvelous. Be located only a half mile from Gainesville Middle School and Bristow-run Elementary School, and worse, be located only 30 feet from the Bristow Montessori School.

[04:00:22] This construction scheme is undoubtedly the worst plan imaginable for safely and acceptably locating data centers in proximity to schools and residential areas. My principal concern is a potential neurologic threat to our children and to ourselves to be posed by near-continuous data center noise.

[04:00:48] Let me point out, this is not a new problem. It's not associated with build quality. It's a plague that all data centers around the world experience and report on. And no one has been able to satisfactorily solve it yet.

[04:01:07] So don't think it's going to go away with a better quality workforce. It's well known that data centers radiate noise that travels well beyond their boundaries. Individuals across the U.S. and abroad who have experienced prolonged exposure to this noise complain of new neurological symptoms, heightened stress, fatigue, irritability, and inability to sleep, and most troubling impaired cognitive function, such as a compromised ability to concentrate.

[04:01:36] Unfortunately, to date, this board has turned a blind eye to this looming health and safety catastrophe for our children and ourselves. But the clock's ticking. We've got kids in classes and schools 2,500 feet away, six schools, so the board needs to take immediate action.

[04:01:58] I'll skip forward since it's about to time. Sir, sir, I'm sorry, the clock has run out. Okay. Thank you very much. Do no harm until you know what you're doing. Thank you very much. Now, numbers 11 through 15. Alicia Gloss-Coles. So here we are again, another controversial vote meeting about another thing that we're going to do that we don't have the data or information that you guys are going to vote on tonight.

[04:02:34] Supervisor Bailey earlier had stated she stepped out of the room that, you know, she noted that people were waiting in the atrium to speak when other supervisors were answering or asking questions. I would say to Supervisor Bailey, he's not in here. If she was really concerned about public speaking, she wouldn't have voted with the chair to change the citizens to put them last after the developers.

[04:02:56] Because, see, that's a new precedent that the chair set. She changed that. That was one of her attempts to let it's public comment time. But anyway, I think it's interesting. I have lots of questions. I learned something that Stanley Martin is new to data center development.

[04:03:14] So we're going to use children, school children, and housing communities as guinea pigs in regards to noise with someone that's never developed a data center before. Interesting. The lawyer earlier talked about police were going to be called out for noise complaints.

[04:03:33] I'm confused. Police are going to come out with, like, what, special radar noise guns to shoot up in the air to find out if the noise... I don't get that boggling my mind here. The issue that I have is the race, you know, about the proffer language.

[04:03:50] They've already proffered all this. The proper language isn't the issue in regards to the noise. It's how you guys are going to enforce it. That's always the issue. It's not about what the intent is. It's how you're going to do it. I think that's going to be a huge problem for you guys. So why are you guys also voting with no representation from the Gainesville District?

[04:04:12] That's really bizarre. You're holding a vote about something controversial again, and you don't even have representation. And who knows if it would be for or against this, but you didn't even give that option. I don't know why the chair would be pushing that before someone is appointed in the special or elected in the special election coming up. So that's weird. I spoke a while back on the digital gateway because I knew once this was approved, the digital gateway, it was just going to bring in a flood of data centers. And I'm just going to tell everybody, just be careful. Now a new data center is going to be coming to a school near you, a neighborhood near you, and national park near

[04:04:49] you. At some point, you guys are going to have to do your diligence for the citizens to stop voting for things you don't have the data or knowledge on and how it's going to affect the quality of life at the community. So I would ask that you guys please defer this vote at the very least for the citizens that's going to impact their quality of life and the kids to you guys do the due diligence that's needed for these type of controversial issues. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Ellen Gloss-Colse. You know, I just want to follow up with what she said. I don't understand

[04:05:28] why our pants are on fire to try to get this thing seen or voted on prior to there being an elected official covering Gainesville I don't understand why we would think it beneficial for the Woodbridge supervisor to be voting on something that has she's clearly separated from geographically and the people in Gainesville have zero representation here tonight nothing I just think that you know you're disenfranchising an entire district by trying to vote on something as controversial as this without allowing them to have the ability to have representation here

[04:06:07] please stop ramming through your agenda i'm certain those developers will still donate to your campaigns your re-election campaigns if you simply gave everyone a voice i love prince william county and uh and i love that each and every one of you are up on the board i believe that you have successfully done something that no other politician, both local and national, has been able to do. You've united both Republicans and Democrats. They're all out there. They're in here. We're all here to speak in one voice, to tell you, stop building these stupid data centers.

[04:06:45] Stop allowing this to happen. I think this is, you know, you have the opportunity here, you know, and there's some, for some reason, you have a complete love fest with these data centers. What's going to happen when this technology goes to waste?

[04:07:04] What's going to happen to these areas? We're planning to bulltoze the entire county and put these data centers in, and we're going to rely on one single industry in this county. Where is your tax revenue going to come from when they're defunct? You know, this is not smart growth.

[04:07:25] It's nearsighted, dumb growth. And, you know, I just wish that you would get your minds out of your campaign contributions and focus on what we, the people, want. That's what you're here to do. And stop voting on things without everyone having representation.

[04:07:41] Thank you. Next speaker, please. I'm sorry, if you continue to clap, I will either ask you to leave or we'll take a recess. Thank you. Next speaker, please. All right, my name is, ooh, can you guys hear me? My name is DeShondra Jefferson, and I live in the Potomac District.

[04:08:00] Tonight's vote is about our values. Do we value one another? Do we value communities we created? or the neighbors that have become our friends and our family. I attended Supervisor Lawson's Town Hall on the Devlin Technology Park last Thursday.

[04:08:19] It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear the residents' concerns, and disturbing to hear that the chair of the board declined an invitation to co-host the event. The people who came out tonight to speak against Devlin Technology Park are middle-class parents and homeowners who are concerned about their community, and they should be.

[04:08:44] They never thought for a moment that their backyards would back up to data centers. Building data centers next to homes, schools, retirement communities, and national parks should be off limits. But it isn't. It's not an issue of creating jobs or revenue.

[04:09:02] Data centers only create a handful of permanent jobs. And we tax data centers well below neighboring counties, which needs to be corrected immediately. This is an issue of keeping a promise to the residents who have made this county their home.

[04:09:22] The families impacted by Devlin Technology Park bought or rented in the area, thinking that residential areas would remain residential. So please, ignore the pretty PowerPoints. I ask everyone sitting on the dais, is this something that you want in your backyard?

[04:09:43] If the answer is no, then you cannot or should not vote in favor of Devlin Technology Park. And I apologize to the residents who are here tonight to speak out against this because I never thought this board would give credence to the actual thought of building industrial warehouses, industrial businesses in people's backyards.

[04:10:14] It's hurtful as a Democrat to come up here and to address you, people whom I thought better of. Let's do better for our community. Again, this isn't about jobs or revenue. It's about protecting people and their communities.

[04:10:33] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Keeby from Gainesville. Industrial warehouses, storage warehouses. Let's keep that in mind as we go forward. So the United States Fish and Wildlife Service enforces something called the Endangered Species Act.

[04:11:00] We're all citizens of the United States of America, and that's part of our guiding light that seems to be incidentally overlooked for some reason here. I'm not quite sure why that's happening.

[04:11:18] I even have an email from the United States Army Corps of Engineers regarding a wetland survey, only it doesn't say it's a wetland survey. All that was submitted was a request for delineation confirmation.

[04:11:36] These incidental oversights are dragging us into a very dangerous place. We also have something, did I just hear that there was a lot of trees removed along Devlin Road? So that was the incidental removal of long-eared bat habitats and the incidental death of those long-eared bats, which are highly valued right now.

[04:12:01] You might have the solution to the long-eared bat fungus white noise syndrome that's going on in the United States. This is why you want to consult with the agencies to work with the environmental agencies so you can do things the correct way.

[04:12:19] Incidental take of migratory birds, incidental take of woodpeckers' homes, incidental take... Chairman Wheeler, I'm actually speaking to all of you. Thank you. Incidental take of habitats, incidental take of wetlands is what causes issues, what causes problems.

[04:12:40] And what are we going to do when the children in these schools look at these incidental warehouses with incidental pornography in them and ask questions? Have you thought about that regarding zoning?

[04:12:59] Those are pornography storage facilities as well. Triple X, peace out. Love you. KeeBee, Skysurfer, please do the right thing. Madam Chair, just want to point out, I know the chair was looking down at her phone, but actually we got a message that those at home can't hear the audio very well, so she was just messaging Ms. Madden.

[04:13:25] So my apologies for the distraction. So I was sending her an email so she could read the text. Before the next, I'll call up the next five, which are 16 through 20. can I go ahead and start? Is that okay? Please. Okay. So first off, thank you for listening to me.

[04:13:46] I want to start out by saying I'm aware that we walk through. You need to speak into the microphone. Now can you hear me? Okay. My name is Rebecca Cottle. I'm with Sheffield Manor in the Brentsville District. I want to say first off, thank you for listening to me. I'm aware we walk through two different paths in our lives and your chosen career may have a different focus than mine.

[04:14:03] I have been a therapist for children and families who have experienced trauma and abuse, so my very nature prefers to make a positive impact on society over financial gain. You see, this isn't about money for me. This is about leaving the world better than when I found it. I suspect that's why you got in public office as well.

[04:14:21] I sat in the meeting when Sheffield Manor met with Mr. Young, and I asked him if he would choose to live in an area surrounded by at least 14 data centers. I also asked that of you. He chose not to answer the question because he, and I suspect you as well, actually do have a choice.

[04:14:37] Many of us in this area are struggling with two-income households and many even with second jobs. We don't have the ability to pick up and move. For example, I've been a school counselor with Prince William County Schools for 21 years and in private practice on the evenings and weekends. When we were able to purchase a home, we dreamed it would be our forever home.

[04:14:55] Now that dream is soon to never be realized due to the diminished quality of life data centers will bring. We researched and understood the open land near our home was zoned residential. This was especially important to us as one of my twin sons almost lost his life to a brain tumor in 2013 when he was six years old.

[04:15:14] I wanted to avoid additional environmental pollution that could create a relapse. I grew up in southern West Virginia and saw firsthand what industrialization does nestled beside communities. The plight of the coal miners, the water and air pollution, the mudslides, flooding, and cancer clusters are something that West Virginian people will never overcome as it has become generational due to the destruction that corporate mentality enmeshed with politicians created with their tax breaks and cries for deregulation and clever avoidance of regulations already put into place.

[04:15:46] I see that occurring in real time right before our eyes. The difference is that the West Virginians were steeped in that culture and nestled in the mountains. They were cut off from society and had no access to research. Prince William County doesn't have that as an excuse. There are ways to make it work without creating concrete forests.

[04:16:04] Just like coal mines, data centers are a necessity, but not at the detriment to neighborhoods and schools that will be within direct proximity. I'm hoping to implore to your innate sense of humanity and urge you to make decisions based on compassion and prevent our neighborhoods, homes, and schools from plummeting in value and being dwarfed by cement boxes.

[04:16:24] Please keep the areas running our home zone for residential. As Eleanor Rovis-Avelde said, it is not fair to ask others what you are not willing to do for yourself. So I ask again, would you want to live around and have your children go to schools in an area surrounded by at least 14 data centers? Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Michael Turley, a homeowner of Sheffield Manor on the south side of Devlin and University Boulevard and in the Brentsville District. I'm a retired sergeant major and currently work serving and supporting our

[04:17:00] national defense. My wife and I spent months looking for the right community for our forever home. The one thing we knew is we did not want to live in Loudoun County next to all the data centers in Ashburn. We finally found our forever home. We fell in love with Bristow with all the trees, the wildlife, and the residential area. Why would you even consider this? I'm just amazed that it is even up for consideration. Would you live there? You've been asked that, but I want you

[04:17:35] tonight or in the morning when you vote before you say yes to this ridiculous data center plan with 14 buildings of four point whatever million square feet of data centers that require so much air conditioning that makes super loud noises. Have you stood several hundred feet from a data center and heard what it sounds like? And these are the small ones because the small ones you would have gotten next to because the ones they're considering, we don't have in Prince William

[04:18:12] County. Will Rogers once said, never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, they don't hurt anybody. When they do something, that's when they become dangerous. Let that sink in for a moment. I'm asking you not to do this. I'm asking the board to vote no. Keep this a residential zone for homes like Stanley Martin and Truett Young

[04:18:43] pitched saying that they wanted to build 516 homes and build it and get the zoning changed just to build the homes. It seems the citizens of our neighbor in Loudoun County have also started to realize that data centers are not the boon they once thought. Imagine that. Now imagine that Prince William County will only collect 30 cents on the dollar compared to Loudoun County. Hey, you're only considering this because of tax revenue. If you want tax revenue, raise your rates

[04:19:17] to match Loudoun County and you're done. You don't have to do this. It's ridiculous that you're even considering it. I'm mad and I know these people are mad. You're up for election this year and if you vote yes, guess what we're going to do? We're going to be knocking not on just our district's doors. We're going to be knocking on your district's doors because we're mad as hell.

[04:19:47] Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Jay Turley, and I'm married to that man. You think he's mad. He just has a better voice to do it. We moved here less than two years ago. We said no to the overcrowded cities. We're originally from Oklahoma. This is just too many people. We moved out here. We knew that we didn't want to be in the data centers. We wanted to be somewhere in our best interest.

[04:20:18] We loved the tree-lined roads, the quiet areas, the small communities, the historical heritage. These things brought peace of mind to us. What we failed to consider when we were moving is what the Board of Supervisors could ignore those desires of our little community and destroy our peace of mind. And make no mistake, you're doing just that. All for what? Tax revenues that are pennies on the dollar? False promises from the data center conglomerates to mitigate their noise pollution? It seems you're failing to consider if they are doing what's in their best interest, packing as many buildings as possible with no care to the neighboring homes or schools.

[04:20:56] I mean, why wouldn't they? They contribute campaign donations to you to ensure that they're getting what they want. Stanley Martin is no different. They fought hard to get approval to build homes on the property, but they eventually felt the sting from your data center fever. Now they realize that families will not want to raise their children next to those big concrete eyesores that berate them with noise 24 hours a day.

[04:21:18] So now Stanley Martin wants to profit from the madness and build more data centers right up next to our communities and school. This is a problem that you've created. You let them in. You were lured with tax revenue without thinking of any of the costs that were borne by your constituents.

[04:21:34] Don't make the mistake of thinking this won't happen to you in your district or neighborhood. Your homes and schools are not safe. big data centers just know that we're not no longer going to stay silent we discover something that should really scare you we are not alone we can only excuse me we not only can join together we are joining together we will fight for our communities and we will go into your districts and sound the alarm this is not a partisan issue by any stretch of the imagination this is a quality

[04:22:09] of life issue you said that you made a mistake before with data centers so please don't make tonight, your next mistake. And I do want to say that do consider the blasting that's going to happen over there. That's bedrock. That's going to rock our foundations. And think about the children.

[04:22:30] I mean, we're lucky we don't have a young child in our home, but so many of these parents do, and they need a voice. But adults need voices. Children need voices. Wildlife needs voices, including wildlife that's out there, our pets, everything that's going to feel that impact of those blasting. So please, please vote no. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Kevin Allen.

[04:23:00] I'm president of the Silver Leaf Estates HOA. Therefore, I request five minutes in time for my comments. I personally talked to numerous residents in our HOA. There's not one single person I have talked to that supports Devlin Technology Park. The residents of my HOA would rather have the homes that were recently approved instead of another data center complex. I urge you to defeat this proposal tonight. The residents of Silver Leaf Estates have numerous concerns with this proposal, including the impact on our property values, sound from the data centers disrupting our communities, our views from our backyards with buildings 95 feet high, light from construction

[04:23:35] and then the completed buildings, power shortages causing spikes, brownouts, and requiring new power lines to be installed, paid for by citizens, impact on schools, blasting, damaging our homes and disrupting our lives, adequate buffers, 14 data centers in a property that's just too small for that, the low tax rates that we have on data centers, and the lack of information on this project after it was put on hold in September, not finding out about it until middle of January, that it was going to be on the schedule for February 7th. Both school board members from Brentsville and Gainesville districts have personally told me they are opposed to this

[04:24:12] project and have communicated this to the board of supervisors because they are concerned with the impact on school children. The school board member from the Gainesville district represents 217 students who attend Chris Young Elementary School who will be directly impacted by Devlin Technology Park. I'm shocked that the board is moving forward with this vote with the Gainesville supervisor seat vacant for just a few more days. What's the rush? Our community, Silverleaf Estates, along with Amberley Station, is already going to have JK Moving developing data centers immediately around us without adequate buffers, protection from sound, buildings that are too close and the other aforementioned issues. There are too many unanswered questions regarding Devlin

[04:24:52] Technology Park. Too much still to figure out for this project to be approved tonight. For example, let's just consider the sound problem. The Prince William County Sound Ordinance that's currently written exempts HVAC systems, the exact source of noise causing problems at several data centers in Prince William County. The proposed fix the board is supposed to vote on in three weeks on the sound ordinance is a short-term temporary fix that does not adequately address the problem.

[04:25:18] Noise is additive, meaning different buildings coming together, the noise that they create is going to join together to make even more noise. We are going to be surrounded by data centers on three sides. In addition to this proposal, the board has already approved 4 million square feet of data centers in the J.K. Moving Hunter Trust property and another 2.5 million feet at the Mango Farm project.

[04:25:40] If this project is approved, that would be nearly 11 million square feet of data centers surrounding our two small neighborhoods. What is going to be done to stop the finger pointing from the data centers to say, it's not our data center that's causing your problem, it's your data center. How are we going to figure that out?

[04:25:56] Who's going to be responsible for figuring it out, and how is it going to be enforced? Remember, we only have a 100-foot buffer. Great Oaks has over 500-foot buffers, and they still have a significant noise problem. The noise from data centers is ongoing all day and all night, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

[04:26:14] It's a constant sound that will torment our neighborhood if we don't get adequate protection. Part of this problem, part of this fix must be the penalties. You can't expect a noise ordinance that's meant to deal with neighbors that are having too loud of a party to be an effective penalty to stop a multi-billion dollar company from when they're violating an ordinance.

[04:26:39] Additionally, as the process is going forward, you're only allowed to cite them once. You can't cite them multiple times. You can't cite them every day. You have to, the process allows for all this time for them to resolve the problem. So the penalties even of $1,000 that you can enforce, you know, once a year is just nothing.

[04:26:57] Fix the sound ordinance before you approve this or any other data centers next to neighborhoods. The developer has supposedly agreed to incorporate the sound ordinance in a proffer and therefore can be enforced by zoning. How will that be done? How will that be enforced? What are the penalties? What are the, does the county have the staff and the equipment and the ability to do that right now?

[04:27:19] If not, it needs to be fixed and figured out before that is done. The Supreme Court of Virginia recently ruled in a case, Albemarle v. Route 29, that a proper amendment was not enforceable because it did not have enough of a nexus to the problem.

[04:27:41] And that was a transportation issue. What do we know that is not going to allow the courts to throw that out? Another issue is there's just an extreme lack of trust for everything that's going on.

[04:27:59] We had a 100-foot buffer approved in Hunter Trust property, and a 25-foot by 1,100-foot swath of that was destroyed, and they put a bunch of little trees that are already dead in its place. It is just most ridiculous. I sent those to Supervisor Lawson.

[04:28:15] I hope you'll show those later today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please vote no on this project. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. My name is Brian Facing. in the Princeville District. I have a copy of a letter that I hand-delivered personally to Governor Yunkin on November 5th. I'd like to read some excerpts from it. The Honorable Glenn Yunkin, quote, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

[04:28:43] By putting these huge buildings within 100 feet of our homes, they are de facto reducing the value of our property and increasing the value of their data centers, putting the value of our equity, built over decades, in many cases, in their pockets, and essentially stealing the value of our homes.

[04:29:01] It is our contention that the board, given the outrageous idea of placing such buildings so close to a populated area, purposely ignored taking adequate measures to protect the people living in these subdivisions when such a monstrous upheaval of their lives and future of their economic prosperity was in the works.

[04:29:19] Such buildings would absolutely subject the population in such proximity to severe medical, psychological, and especially damaging economic results that would occur if these gigantic, noisy buildings are allowed to be built so close to our homes and schools. Clearly, no reasonable person would agree to such an arrangement.

[04:29:38] The average height of our homes is about one-third the height of these buildings, which would essentially put us in the shadow of these buildings with the noise all day and all night in perpetuity on top of that. Imagine the impact this would have on the people living in these homes, especially the children. The board thus far has turned a blind eye to our very real concerns and proceeded with the process over our protests and those of the local school authorities, despite their saying they understand our concerns.

[04:30:03] We come to you to help to stop this travesty in its tracks. We are not opposed to construction of data centers so long as they are far from populated areas and cannot cause currently unforeseen but highly likely physical, psychological, and economic consequences to us and other communities in Virginia.

[04:30:19] We ask that you use the power of your office to protect the people you have pledged to serve by using the power of executive order or other appropriate means to freeze the building of data centers immediately, not just in our neighborhood, not just in Prince William County, but throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, unless they are built at a reasonable distance from populated areas so as not to destroy the lives of the people living in those areas.

[04:30:42] Please note that Loudoun County, where Chuck Kuhn, founder and owner of J.K. Moving, built such data centers, has declared as of September 20, 2022, that future data centers shall not be built near neighborhoods because of the loud and constant complaints of populations near the existing data centers for noise and giant, ugly buildings near their family homes.

[04:31:05] We come to you as a last resort knowing you will hear our voices, that they will not be drowned out by the huge local, out-of-state, and international money interest. By the way, Stanley Martin is 82% owned by Daiwa, this gigantic housing firm in Japan. Attempting to destroy our beautiful neighborhoods.

[04:31:23] Everyone in our neighborhood thought we had a vibrant, attractive community with schools, shopping areas, and so forth. Few people were in the know who anticipated that this abomination would be perpetrated in an attempt to destroy our future deliberately, swiftly, and quietly without us being aware of what was really happening.

[04:31:40] They said they sent out cards to everyone about the meeting. Thank you. Your time is up. I have 10 seconds to finish this. We are not talking about replacing stop signs with streetlights. Certainly, much more attention and care and discussion should have been done and wasn't. Sir, I need to cut you off to be fair to everyone else.

[04:31:58] Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. And while that speaker is coming up or speaking, the next five can speak, 21 through 25. Thank you. Please proceed. My name is Sandy Facing.

[04:32:19] I live in Bristow in the Brentsville District. And I just want you to imagine you're getting in your car. This time, you didn't park in the garage. And so you have to turn your fan on for the air conditioner or the defrost.

[04:32:37] And you're driving, and you get distracted, and then you think, what is that noise? And you turn down the fan, and the noise disappears, and the stress disappears in your car. But the residents that live near these data centers cannot turn down the fan, and that will cause stress.

[04:32:58] And it doesn't have to be that way. And I'm urging you to vote no tonight and leave this property as residential, please. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

[04:33:18] My name is Andy Corey. I'm in 7th grade at Bora Middle School, and I live in the Gainesville District. I came to this meeting today to discuss the effects that data centers will have on schools and residential areas. Don't get me wrong, we need data centers, but they should go to industrialized areas, not in rural areas or near houses or schools.

[04:33:36] Plenty of land in Prince William County is zoned for industry. they have all the water and electrical infrastructures, why don't we put them there? As I'm sure most of you know, data centers emit noise. I even decided to do my science fair project about this. I chose four data centers in Loudoun County to conduct my study on.

[04:33:53] I found out that schools will experience 10.5 decimal levels more than they would experience if data centers are built at or less than 500 feet. Data centers will produce a significant amount of noise pollution that will be disruptive to students' learning if they're allowed to be built as close to schools. This will affect and disrupt the learning environment. We can't have this. A few weeks ago, I had a cold and put a humidifier beside my bed. It barely emitted any noise, but I still couldn't fall asleep. It was driving me crazy. This is what people in schools will experience. The plan data center will surround Chris Young. I can't imagine looking out of my classroom window and seeing buildings that look like prisons and hearing noise like a roaring jet

[04:34:32] engine. Data centers near schools harm Prince William County. On to my final point, Gainesville has no representation on this board. We've learned about representative government and schools. Our representatives are supposed to listen and act in the best interest of people they serve, but on November 1st and December 13th, I saw that Mr. Kalins, he was empty, and here again, it's empty tonight. The election to elect a new representative will be in two weeks. Wait till then, until Gainesville has a voice. I was also fiddling around with artificial intelligence today, and I got it to write this poem, The Quiet Menace. In rural lands where peace abounds, a new threat rises from

[04:35:09] the ground. With buzzing fans, a roaring sound, data centers disturb the peace they found. Even AI knows this is wrong. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Kara Kloss, and that's my son. I live in the Gainesville District, and I want to point out I live in Oak Valley, which is nowhere near where this proposed development is. And I know that the board members that didn't know where Oak Valley is know us now because we're suing the board over the Prince William Digital Gateway and that's how I became involved in data centers. So I'm here tonight not because I'm going

[04:35:46] to be directly impacted but we are one Prince William County. So what happens to these folks that a lot of whom I've just met tonight and heard their stories it happens to all of us and I'm not sure what happened along the way particularly some of you supervisors from the eastern part of the county. I saw this in the digital gateway. Our area was painted as a monolith and no one wanted to hear our stories, all of our individual stories. Supervisor Lawson had a town hall, which as others have pointed out, was filled with all of the stories of the people that are going to be impacted. Why doesn't everyone want to hear our stories? Like I said, we are one Prince

[04:36:25] William County and what happens to one of us happens to all of us. And these data centers are are spreading at such a pace that in this particular instance, smart growth can encompass data centers. And I've heard Chair Wheeler say that those of us that don't want to see this happen is in the digital gateway, that we're just saying, say no, but that doesn't make sense. We need smart growth. And in certain areas, data centers can be smart growth. In this particular instance, yes, the right answer is just say no. I think everybody in the room is old enough

[04:36:59] to have lived through the anti-drug campaign that was told to every child in the 80s and the 90s, just say no, because there are some subject matters like drugs that are just that dangerous that you can't have proffers that are going to make them safe.

[04:37:17] In this instance, you have a threat to a community, and not all of it is known, but enough is known that there will be harm. And all of these efforts to mitigate that harm, there will still be harm. So you are saying to all of these folks, you're going to get punched in the face.

[04:37:35] You want to take it in the left eye or the right eye. And that is not acceptable. This is definitely one of those instances where data centers are not part of smart growth. It is an instance where we have to just say no and stop it right there.

[04:37:51] Please, we have lost our way in this community. I really urge you to do the right thing that's why I've continued to bring my children here only one tonight the other one couldn't make it to see that our voices can have meaning that we are here for our entire community together and I assure you that all of the efforts this board has made to expand data centers in Prince William County is it a Faustian bargain of unimaginable consequences the rural crescent has already been decimated where I live or is proposed to be decimated, and I don't want to see that happen to the rest of the county. Please stand

[04:38:27] with us. It's not too late. Do the right thing. Just say no. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Paul Cudahy, and I live in Gainesville. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My comments will be brief. When I think about the plan for data center development in the Devlin Technology Park, the one word that comes to mind is incompatible.

[04:38:52] The dictionary defines incompatible as two things so opposed in character as to be incapable of existing together, such as oil and water, or data centers near homes and schools. You need to put the brakes on this type of disastrous development in Prince William County.

[04:39:14] Keep data centers in the overlay district and don't turn the county into a technology toilet. And I was enthralled by the scintillating discussion about noise earlier, and I'd like to propose a very simple solution to the issue of noise.

[04:39:34] Don't permit the construction of data centers near homes and schools. It's not complicated. Finally, just I ask, do the right things for the residents of Bristow and just vote no on the Devlin Technology Park.

[04:39:52] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Suzanne Copley. I live in Victory Lakes, Brentsville District. Me and my husband have lived here for 20 years.

[04:40:08] This was our first home that we bought. We were a military family. We decided to move here to Prince William County and stay here. We've educated two kids in our fantastic schools, one on the gifted spectrum, one on the autism spectrum.

[04:40:25] I didn't realize tonight, as Mr. Bodie had said, you have a child with special needs, sensory problems. I do, too. And my son is an adult, and I just never gave that a thought. When I went to your meeting last Thursday night, Supervisor Lawson, it brought up so many different issues that I was stunned by the time I walked out.

[04:40:51] I still see that I don't think any of you have a full grasp of what is happening to our neighborhood. And it sounds like, oh, a study will be done here. Oh, another study will be done here. And until you have those answers, I can't even imagine that you could vote and allow this to go on.

[04:41:15] As for Stanley Martin, I'm really disappointed with them. I believe it was in 2008. They had a beautiful community planned for that land. It was gorgeous. But what stopped it was our schools were so overcrowded.

[04:41:34] Stonewall was at capacity. Brentsville was way over capacity 120% I believe this the hallways had to be one way because they were so over capacity it it was advised to the kids not to say anything because it could go against the fire marshals regulations it was up it was absurd and so here we go along so the community really shut I didn't really shut it down but said hold the brakes we need schools the schools the school board never came back and offered any additional classrooms additional schools at the time so we

[04:42:14] fast forward to i believe 200 to 2020 stanley martin was still on board for the devlin park the the development of the 520 houses or whatever it wasn't ideal because they were going to be smacked in there now 2021 there's stanley martin in the prince william county times newspaper said they will not develop it because or develop it because of the the power lines going through

[04:42:48] which i don't understand the power lines were going through there in 2008 2000 2021 and yet here we are at 21 and they they're saying no we can't develop it and now they're they're profiting off of us they will sell it for multi-million dollars and and it's going to be on our backs thank you your time is thank you thank you very much i respectfully ask you to vote no thank you um before our next speaker starts if number 26 through 30 can line up in the back

[04:43:20] please please proceed hi my name is david g i'm a resident of victory lakes i'm a virginia native I moved out here from Fairfax County to get away from commercialism, urban sprawl.

[04:43:38] You know, I can't believe I'm here tonight talking about this. Very surprising to me. And I just wanted to key in on a couple of things that were brought up in the conversation by the supervisors earlier in the meeting. One from Supervisor Vega.

[04:43:54] She mentioned guinea pig and negative health impacts. And that's just something I had to immediately jot down in my notes. Basically, you know, please consider that when you're voting. We don't even know. It's all new. We don't know what the health impacts are going to be.

[04:44:11] It's very new. Please consider that. Pump the brakes. And the second thing I want to key in on is from Supervisor Lawson. She was talking about a few different data centers nearby. she made a comment about, well, one data center is not close to a residential area. Well, I don't even know which one that is, but that should be the rule. The rule should be none of them are close to any residential area or a school or a neighborhood. And lastly, just wanted to say there's more to life than money and tax revenue. I'm sure that Prince William County will continue

[04:44:49] to find a way to generate tax revenue and be one of the wealthiest counties in the country. even if these data centers are not built. So please vote against changing the residential zoning that's currently in place.

[04:45:04] Thank you. Thank you. So our next number is number 26. Please proceed. Yes, my name is Scott. I'm actually in the Brentsville District. Thanks again to the board for allowing us to be able to speak tonight. I know this has been fairly confrontational, and I apologize for Ms. Lawson for interrupting last Thursday, but some things have to be said.

[04:45:28] So without me getting too upset up here, I'm going to go ahead and go through my notes. We all remember the first time we ever got handed our keys to our new homes, right? We're so elated, me being a former Marine and had nothing when I was serving and got out and had something for once.

[04:45:46] And here I get this key from my realtor, so proud. You look around the room, these people are scared, you know. Our values are going down. I'm going off script here, but our values are going down with our homes and our moral values are going down. These data centers, I work in IT.

[04:46:07] We need them, absolutely, but they do not need to go in residential and school districts or zones. And I'm hoping Kenny hears me here because I know he has her back for this. There's a few people I look around on the board up here, and I can tell by body language alone, which they taught us in the Marines, There's a few of you who've already made up your mind and voted, and that is wrong.

[04:46:30] That's wrong. Some things about data centers that you may not know. You heard about sound and everything else, and this is not a proud thing, but in the United States, we actually have the most data centers in the world. Woo-hoo, right? That's great if they're in the right zones. Virginia, we're the top state in the country for data centers.

[04:46:49] Woo-hoo, that's great in the right zones, right? Northern Virginia, we have all but two. You know what county actually voted most of them down? Fairfax. They love their residents, and it's about time you guys start to look at us and love us because we're the majority of the taxes that feed this county.

[04:47:08] So when you start looking at what Stanley Martin proposed, I loved it. You know, maybe not 1,000 homes. That was probably a little bit oversight on their part, but 500 homes? Think of the residents that brings to our community, the taxes, the generations to come, the pride of ownership of a home, giving them that key that we had that we want to all share.

[04:47:31] So it was a mistake to disapprove those residential communities and plans, but it's not too late to reverse course and do what's best for our combined communities. We need them. We need multi-use paths and trails. Take a look at our neighbor to the northeast Fairfax.

[04:47:48] They do it best. Let's invest in the people. We need them. Don't build data centers adjacent to our communities and schools that will eventually be the ghost malls of the future, scarring our horizon, painting our landscape in black asphalt, ultimately corrupting the very character of our communities. Let's leave it better than what we found it and place the keys in the hands of the next generations to come so that they too can experience the same sense of pride that I

[04:48:16] had joining my community. Vote no. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Donna Gallant and I am here representing the residents of Amberley Station and the citizens of Bristow, Virginia. To let you know, I have lived in this county for 28 years. I came from Fairfax. I volunteered two years of my life with the fire department. My husband has been a volunteer serving this community for over 35 years. So we care about Prince William County. I'm here today

[04:48:55] to fight for the protection of my friends, my neighbors, and all citizens of Gainesville, bristow and prince william county i share the sentiments of many you have heard from and those you will hear from regarding devlin property this board has made some divisive and in my opinion irresponsible decisions regarding the comp plan and the rezoning of land that will industrialize properties adjacent to homes and schools tonight you have a very important decision in front of you that will send a clear message to the residents of this county the decision

[04:49:34] surrounding the Devlin Technology Park should be an easy one. That is to deny the rezoning application. This board was elected to office by the people for the people. The people are here to inform this board of their will. That will is to keep the parcel of land under the current zoning of residential. Email correspondence with Chair Wheeler last week. She responded to an email finally, from 2020. Asking for clarification on my position from 2020 and why I have changed.

[04:50:10] Yeah, I changed my position from 2020 when I opposed the rezoning to residential for Devlin. Why? It was solely based on the school situation and the overcrowding. I have since analyzed the published data from Prince William County School Board and focused on the schools in the Brunsfield district, which by their prediction shows schools are projected to be under capacity in 2023 to 24.

[04:50:36] That means the currently approved 516 homes currently potentially seeing 350 students. That was Stanley Martin's number. As evidenced in the data, the schools can handle it. So yes, my position has changed from 2020. And I share I am 100% for the rezoning to remain the same as residential. The demand for homes in this area is high and the supply is low. For those selling, that's great because it becomes a bidding war and drives prices higher. Many people making the decision to move to Prince William County is solely based on the fact that they're trying

[04:51:13] to get out of Ashburn. In closing, I leave you with this. Dr. Martin Luther King stated, the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moment of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at time of challenge and controversy with that being said there should be no compromise and deny the rezoning thank you next speaker please my name is laura mahoney i live in victory lakes the brunsville district i'm here to speak out against the rezoning of devlin technology

[04:51:50] park there are a lot of people here tonight and i'm sure some will talk specifically about property taxes noise concerns and outdated ordinances tax benefits or really lack thereof deficiency of our electrical infrastructure, health and environmental fears, and proximity to our schools, which are all valid concerns. However, what I'd like to address, or rather question the board, is how many residents must speak up about data centers? How many warning signs must flash before someone takes notice?

[04:52:18] Are the donations from landowners and data center developers funneling into certain board members' campaign funds? Or the rising value of data center stock options blinding people? I can only guess that is the case, because otherwise we should be learning from our own mistakes as well as others and making better choices from it. We have residents at Great Oak who are living with noise issues day and night, but might see a resolution sometime in 2024. Yet our board moves on. We have Chandler, Arizona to take note of. There was such an issue there with the county

[04:52:52] had to revise their noise ordinances. Yet our board moves on. Our board is holding a meeting on the 28th of this month, three weeks after Dublin is to be voted on, to discuss the county's antiquated noise ordinances and how it relates to data centers or really lack thereof. Perhaps a committee will be formed from this meeting in an attempt to tackle these issues, yet our board moves on. Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality has real concerns there will be a lack of electricity to feed these power-hungry beasts. So much so, they are holding a meeting on the 27th to address the use of diesel generators that will run 24-7 due to power outages specifically caused

[04:53:32] by data centers. This is three weeks after the Devlin properties to be voted on, yet our board moves on. The special election for the Gainesville supervisor seat is set for February 21st, two weeks after Devlin is set to be voted on. Chris Young Elementary School, adjacent to the Devlin property, is home not only to the Brentsville, but Gainesville district students. There is lack representation in the Gainesville district yet our board moves on we are not a small group of militant activists as I believe one page land property owner described us as but we are a large group of Prince William County citizens

[04:54:09] who are dedicated to our families community and future and who have a real stake in how the county conducts businesses since 2019 there has been a shift in dynamics in which I believe the Bristow area would greatly benefit from the 516 houses Stanley Martin has already approved to build. The Devlin property is zoned residential, and I'd like to see it to remain that way. So I demand the board to look past their monetary gain and focus on what you were elected to do, and that is not placing data centers next to residential or schools. Say no to Devlin Tech Park.

[04:54:43] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. I'm Bethany Kelly, and I reside in Victory Lakes in Brentsville. The time has come tonight for you to decide if you are going to make a decision that reflects the will of the people in this county, in particular the Brentsville District, or make a decision that reflects your willingness to side with the developers who have been lining many of your campaign pockets.

[04:55:08] With the vote for the dramatic rezoning of the land along Devlin Road from residential to light industrial, i.e., data centers, before you this evening, I am asking you to do the right thing and vote no for the Devlin Technology Park. land should remain zoned residential as it abuts numerous residential neighborhoods in addition to directly surrounding two elementary schools there's not there are also six other schools within a two mile radius of this area this is not an appropriate location for a massive data center complex with up to 15 data centers each 80 feet tall with another 15 foot of hvac equipment on their roof

[04:55:46] while many of us were not in favor of the initial proposal in 2020 by stanley martin to build a very large number of homes over a thousand on this piece of land back when our schools were extremely overcrowded in this area the reduced number of homes currently approved on this land 516 along with the opening of schools in this area have alleviated the overcrowding some of the schools here are actually projected to be under capacity for the 2022 i'm sorry 2023 2024 school year this makes it very easy for me to say that i 100 would prefer the zoning to remain residential and for Stanley Martin or another developer to build homes on this land, not data centers.

[04:56:25] In addition, as a local real estate professional who has worked in this area for the last 10 years, I'm very aware of the need for affordable housing. As long as we don't have enough houses to go around, and currently there are nine houses on the market in Bristow, not counting the new builds by Stanley Martin further down Linton Hall, which ironically are going to back up to most likely data centers.

[04:56:52] Housing prices will continue to be driven higher and higher as long as we don't have enough homes. In addition, most homes that have come on the market within the last 30 days have gone under contract in less than five days. This is clear evidence that we still have a shortage of homes in this area, and as long as we don't have enough homes, prices will not be affordable, unless, of course, your plan is to create affordable housing by decimating all of our property values in Bristow.

[04:57:17] In that case, yeah, we're going to have some affordable housing, probably housing we can't i'm also well aware that both stanley martin and rk realty both companies affiliated with this piece of land have made sizable campaign donations to many of you on numerous occasions and often right before the board was preparing to vote on something that they would benefit from supervisor vega supervisor lawson you get a pass we couldn't find anything as we searched for you guys as a matter of fact stanley martin sponsored a fundraising dinner for chair wheeler the night before the board of county supervisors meeting on the 20 on the 2020 comp plan In this case, we're asking you to please say no.

[04:57:57] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Leslie Salmon, and I live off Aaron Drive in Haymarket in the Gainesville District, where I have no representation.

[04:58:14] I moved into the area in 2001 when there was not much of anything. I also own an independent real estate brokerage called Salmon Home Realty, and I've owned it for 22 years. As the principal broker and owner, I can speak with confidence that we don't need data centers in this residential area.

[04:58:33] We need houses. There's currently only nine homes on the market in all of Bristol. We have the demand but no supply. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to approve Stanley Martin to build the homes they originally wanted to build instead of polluting the landscape with these monstrosities that can go somewhere else more conducive in industrial zoning that they should be in.

[04:58:54] There are so many reasons, from noise to not enough studies to residents' property values plummeting, that the only acceptable answer to the question of data centers being permitted in this area is emphatically no. And I wanted to read, since I have some time, a little TikTok that I put out the other day on religion, real estate, and politics.

[04:59:16] Today it struck me as I was thinking about the data centers they're trying to build all around our beautiful landscape, a landscape we bought our homes here for, thinking our property values would be safe because of the residential zoning. I yelled in my head is nothing sacred anymore. I then laughed at the thought of relating real estate to spirituality and then in typical Leslie style I challenged myself to ponder this further. What does the word sacred actually mean? One definition said devoted to one purpose or use. Kind of like how Christians are to keep the day Sunday set aside specifically for rest. That's what we were all banking on when we

[04:59:55] moved out here. There was even land set aside as the rural crescent or residential zoning to be exclusively protected. We were supposed to be able to rest easy in this fact. As money becomes more of an agenda, the area's integrity is being sacrificed. Data center land is going for two million dollars per acre. It's only through sacredness that we can find true enjoyment of anything our bundle of rights is being disturbed and that's just a subject for a whole other day we're in the midst of setting precedents where nothing is truly sacred anymore where true

[05:00:34] enjoyment escapes us not a sermon just a thought our next speakers are 31 through 35 please begin good evening i'm katherine kulit gainesville district vice chair of the hoa roundtable i'd

[05:01:07] like five minutes please that's the HOA roundtable of Northern Virginia yes that's fine she'll give you five minutes okay yes we are now a regional umbrella organization advocating for the residential quality of life and property value our participating HOAs and civic organizations represent now over 90,000 homes from the shores of the Potomac to the southern boundary of Dulles Airport from Mount Vernon to the beautiful Virginia Piedmont across Alexandria Fairfax Prince William Loudoun and Fauquier counties, and I couldn't be more proud of the residents of Bristow, Virginia today,

[05:01:45] the residents of Prince William, and across northern Virginia. We are with you. Stay there. Stay strong. And I've heard some questions tonight about why don't we hear data centers elsewhere? They're quiet. Why do we have these few that are noisy? Two reasons. One, the data center industry is gobbling up land, and it's moving out of traditional industrial areas next to incompatible uses, that's residential areas, schools, parks. It's happening a lot in Prince William County because we don't have a big area of typically and traditionally industrial

[05:02:20] area. So when you put industrial next to incompatible uses, you hear it. But you hear it even more now because hyperscale designs are being built taller, bigger, and they're stuffed more with servers. And they get hotter. And they're getting bigger and hotter every day with their design such as the big buildings 80 foot buildings that stanley martin's proposing we've got 100 105 foot being proposed in the rezonings with the gateway right so when they get bigger and hotter what do they need they need bigger hvac and air conditioning systems and they need bigger fans and fans generate more noise and when they get bigger they get louder it's pretty simple it's

[05:02:55] not rocket science although i do know a good rocket scientist he's really uh helpful these days so something on the overhead oops so that's number proffer number 17 out of the stanley martin proposal and it says prominent discrete tone noise for any source of sound that has a prominent discrete tone component the levels established by proffer 16 shall be reduced by 3 dba the term

[05:03:31] quote prominent discrete tone shall be defined as an instance where one-third octave band sound pressure level in the band with the tone exceeds the arithmetic average of the sound pressure levels of the two contiguous one-third octave bands by one five db for center frequencies of 500 hertz and above two eight db for center frequencies between 160 and 400 hertz or three 15 db for center frequencies less than or equal to 125 hertz do any of you understand that does anyone on staff understand that essentially stanley martin is agreeing to abide by the noise limits three decibels lower than specified in the county noise ordinance for certain frequency bands there

[05:04:11] you go. While that may seem responsive to data center cooling noise, when does that apply? According to the proper statement, sound studies will be conducted before each site plan is approved and one month after each occupancy permit is issued. The buildings won't be fully operational with servers by then. So what happens when they are? And the heat rises inside more and more and servers are installed and the cooling systems work hard and the giant fans get louder and dissipating what happens when it violates the noise ordinance. Can you actually revoke their occupancy permit? Will a data center shut down or claim mission critical and demand a

[05:04:48] protracted period to attain compliance? Will they drag the county into court for a protracted period they can well afford? They're not going to shut down the internet. This isn't the Hampton Inn or the Taco Bell. The county cannot afford to go toe-to-toe with some of the most well-resourced corporations ever in the history of mankind. The answer is no. The enforcement is the issue and until you work this out, this won't work for data centers next to schools, parks, and residential communities. You don't have an ability to enforce this noise ordinance. As fancy as it sounds, and yes, it does sound fancy. Prince William's now the center of the universe for data center noise.

[05:05:25] Everybody's watching it. All the characters are working together. Amazon at Tanner Way, Stanley Martin at Devlin, Amazon in Warrington, QTS and Compass on the Gateway, and everybody else. So They're all sharing information, and all this stuff gets repeated and repeated through various rezoning packages.

[05:05:45] You don't have enough information. This county doesn't understand what it's doing, and it's stepping into a dangerous area. Please vote to do not. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Tiffany Mears.

[05:06:06] I live in Victory Lakes with my husband and two children. We are in the Princeville District and been a resident of Prince William County for almost 10 years. Our family moved from Alexandria, Virginia, to a known residential area in Bristow, and therefore I do not support data centers being built in a residential neighborhood, and I do not support any compromise.

[05:06:25] I am in support of data centers, but not in a residential neighborhood. With our lack of housing inventory in the Bristow-Gainesville area, I would prefer houses on this land over data centers. Mr. Truett Young called our neighborhood an industrial park anyway, and I have it in quotes.

[05:06:42] While you sit on your 10 acres of property out in Haymarket, We are talking about our community and data centers will only bring the value of our homes down. Our home is our investment. We asked Mr. Young if he would want to live on this type of situation and he would not answer. The data centers will distribute a ridiculous amount of noise.

[05:07:01] Power increased costs will be incurred by us, the residents, and what about the impact on schools? Chris Young and the other five Prince William County schools will also be impacted. Outside of the environmental impacts, what a terrible learning environment. even more so detrimental for our children with learning disabilities and even children that have attention deficit challenges.

[05:07:23] The noise will impact these children. Are you okay with your child being affected by this? I am in government IT and deal and work in around data centers on a daily basis. They are extremely noisy. Noises can cause a lot of stress-related illnesses, anxiety, and challenges.

[05:07:42] The county is knowingly putting children in these schools and residents at risk by approving all these data centers without putting noise restrictions on them. As my previous person spoke, as the compute systems become more concentrated, dense, as additional servers are added because they will need to be, as it is originally built is not how it's going to stay, more sophisticated equipment is required to cool down the system.

[05:08:07] The loudest noise is coming from the generators and the AC units that are on top that are not going to be. Pictures are very deceiving. As mentioned by a few others, we are in the winter months and there is zero buffer. take a ride down Hornbaker, or visit Great Oaks community.

[05:08:22] Zero impact studies have been done as the effects that this will have on our community. Not acceptable when you're making life changes that will affect our family. Chair Wheeler, your lack of eye contact to the resident speaking is disrespectful. You're watching your screen countdown to go to the next person to hurry this along. You're acting like Mr. Turret Young at the community forum that he wasted three nights of our time on.

[05:08:41] We are here because this is serious to us in our communities, and we're all here to unite against your agenda. I restate my opening comment that I do not support data centers being built in a residential neighborhood with no compromise. Do the right thing and vote no. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Amy Goetz.

[05:09:02] I live in Victory Lakes in the Brentsville District, and my home is located close to Devlin Road. I know it's getting late, and I'm sure you all have had a very long day. You must be tired. I've seen several of you looking around and staring at what's in front of you, and I've noticed Chair Wheeler yawning.

[05:09:18] But I hope you're able to still pay attention to the citizens here tonight. I've lived in my home for 20 years and I've lived in this county for 39 years. I remember when this county was beautiful. As a child, I loved growing up in Prince William County. My father's job moved us out of the county when I was 13.

[05:09:35] But once I finished college, I moved back here immediately to find a job and I stayed to raise my children in the county I loved growing up in. But it is no longer the beautiful county it once was, thanks in part to the careless planning and development and lack of proper comprehensive planning over the years.

[05:09:53] Let's not continue that trend. While I'm not opposed to progress and proper development, I can confidently say that you are ruining our county by allowing data centers here, there, and everywhere. I'm not opposed to data centers themselves, but I am opposed to putting them within residential areas.

[05:10:12] It is irresponsible to put data centers on the Devlin land, yes, because of the noise of the completed data centers, but also because of the potential 20-plus years of construction and noise and blasting while building them. It's simply irresponsible. Noise is a huge issue.

[05:10:30] Visuals are also a huge issue. I saw the earlier presentations by the applicant and staff. The pictures and visuals of these buildings were not fully representative of the true and actual visuals of these eyesores. And if you were to go in person and stand at Chris Young or at any of the surrounding homes, you would know not only would you not want to live there, you would not want to send your children to any school in that area. This is not an appropriate place for these monstrosities. Proper studies and tests have not been completed. Studies paid for by the applicant

[05:11:06] are not enough. Mistakes have already been made by approving data centers that have been built without enough information and without proper studies done on truly proper mitigation of noise as well as effect on our water and electricity. I sat in one of the meetings the applicant held And I can tell you that the information presented by the applicant at that meeting, similar to much of the information presented by them here tonight, was often incorrect or incomplete.

[05:11:34] The diagrams looked pretty and looked well thought out, but there were many knowledgeable and intelligent people at those meetings that offered specific additional information that proved the applicant's information incomplete. Questions asked of the applicant by community members were often met with hostile I don't knows, and often audience members had much more information about things like decibels, noise buffers, and even numbers of jobs created and tax revenue that the applicant had.

[05:12:05] The presentations looked great, but they don't show the full picture. Thank you. Thank you. Please vote no. Next speaker, please. And I would ask if you're not in line waiting, if everybody can sit. Thank you. Hi, I will need the Elmo, please.

[05:12:26] Okay, good evening, my name is Mayor Jo Howarth and I live in Victory Lakes, Brentsville District. This is a screenshot taken today in our front yard near Devlin Road. Note that the average reading is 52.1 decibels.

[05:12:49] I hope you can hear me over the sound of one operational data center 150 feet away from an apartment at Regency Apartments on Whoremaker. The screenshot shows the average decibel reading 64.2 this reading is 12 times louder than the reading taken this morning in our front yard this gives you some appreciation of the continuously generated sound by the proposed devlin technology park so i ask you what will the noise be like with 14 data centers

[05:13:27] running 24 7. what is the noise level like when the generators are running how long will the generators have to run if there is a problem that needs to be fixed. There are eight Prince William County public schools and a private school nearby. How will teachers teach? How will students learn with constant noise? Will the students, especially those with sensory issues, be able to learn? And I am a retired Prince William County educator who worked with special needs students, so

[05:14:03] I know firsthand. Is this acceptable? Would you want this for your constituents, your family, your children, yourself? Let's stop approving data centers into our community as an opportunity to assess how many we have, the true value to the citizens, the cost, the dollar, where they are, and what the cumulative impacts will be.

[05:14:42] Retain the land's residential zoning. Thank you. Thank you. And before our next speaker, if number 36 through 40 could line up, please. Hi, my name is Tom Howarth. I live in Victory Lakes, Brinsville District. That's my wife, and she is mad.

[05:14:58] I oppose the rezoning of the Devlin Road property. Retain the land's residential zoning status. We would rather have a new housing development than data centers for a neighbor. I'm sure the businesses in Bristow Commons expected that they would have residential housing in this area as its customer base. Industrial zones are not compatible with existing neighborhoods and schools. You've heard that repeatedly tonight. We built homes in this area because we wanted to live in quiet suburban neighborhoods. As for jobs, data centers are constructed by teams of out-of-state workers, not local hires. Once operational, data centers require very few employees. This is not an employment boom opportunity for Prince

[05:15:38] William County. It makes no sense to allow a rezoning applicant to dictate what noise levels are acceptable and what noise is exempt. It makes no sense to develop a noise ordinance after the noise source is approved. It makes no sense to have a noise ordinance that is unenforceable.

[05:15:54] According to the proffer for the Devlin Technology Park, the only situation where this data center could comply with the noise guidelines is during normal operations. All other situations, including construction, maintenance, and demolition, are exempted, And we can expect that the emergency generators will run 24-7 during power emergencies, and they're exempted also.

[05:16:16] Given technology advances, these data centers may have an operational life of only 5 to 10 years. Once they are no longer profitable, they will cease to operate. Have you thought that far ahead? Nobody wants to live in an industrial zone. Property values will plummet. Residents will move out if they can sell.

[05:16:32] Do you want data centers in your district, in your community? Please do unto others as you would have them do unto you. vote no on Devlin Technology Park rezoning. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Bill Wright, and I live in Gainesville. I oppose the Devlin Technology Park, another bold masterstroke you can be proud of. Communities in the Bristow area are facing the prospect of being surrounded by the relentless onslaught of data center development. I'm talking

[05:17:07] about the already approved 179-acre Hunter property adjacent to Piney Grove Elementary School and the Amberley Station Subdivision. It is being developed by the Dutch Yonder Group for 11 data centers. Can you imagine what these residents will be enduring during construction and upon completion?

[05:17:26] So tonight, you propose to twist that dagger by adding the 270-acre Devlin Technology Park adjacent to Chris Young Elementary School and several residential communities. How would you like to have a park like this next to your house or your kids' schools?

[05:17:46] You don't even know this project's end user. It is common practice for our county government to enter into non-disclosure agreements to protect wealthy data center companies from the inquisitive eyes of our citizens who are merely trying to keep up with how quickly they're being sold down the river.

[05:18:03] Yonder's website even boasts, you'll never know what projects we've done or who we've done them for. Partner with us and you can be sure our discreet approach won't leave you exposed. Exposed to who? To citizens who would rail against their destructive plans if only they were aware of them?

[05:18:23] This board is complicit in this deceit and has become the principal enemy of its own constituents. Reckless data center development in northern Virginia is ruining our environment and our quality of life, yet you continue to fan that fire. Prince William County already has almost 50 million square feet of data center capacity operating under development.

[05:18:44] More than the study you commissioned said was feasible. That doesn't even count the 27 million square foot Prince William Digital Gateway Godzilla for which you are being sued. Twice. Many citizens are unaware of the landmines being planted beneath their feet because of your determined efforts to conceal them.

[05:19:05] Last Thursday, Inside Nova published an article entitled, Developers Focus Largesse on Prince William County Democrats. It is quite obvious where your allegiance lies. And come election day, you will find out where ours does.

[05:19:21] Reject the Devlin Technology Park. Next speaker, please. I'm Mike Golden from Victory Lakes in the Brentsville area. I do not believe that data centers belong in or surrounding residential areas, including the Devlin Technology Park.

[05:19:41] The proposed data centers along Devlin Road should not be approved due to the residential and school impacts. My concern this evening is primarily due to noise levels created by these proposed data centers. Additionally, others have raised broader issues that will impact the county and region, such as water quality, stormwater runoff, and power impacts with generator backups for Dominion.

[05:20:07] Let me remind you of a recent statement by the Prince William County Planning Commission. Mitigation measures are of a particular concern when inherently incompatible land uses, such as residential uses and industrial users, are proposed adjacent to each other.

[05:20:22] In 2020, you had approved a request for that area by Stanley Martin for 516 homes. That use is significantly more compatible with the surrounding residential communities than an industrial zone would be. I would like to see your approval in 2020 as a residential area continue to be maintained and pursued.

[05:20:45] Surely in this county, we can find ways to minimize the need for industrial zones to be created in the middle of residential areas. The Planning Commission statement above notes that incompatible uses should be minimized. This plan seems to go out of its ways to maximize the impact to schools and residences.

[05:21:05] Note that DBA is a logarithmic scale, so that a 10 DBA increase is a 10-time increase in noise level. 20 DBA is 100 times noisier. So when we look at the industrial noise levels, it's 100 times louder than the residential, so mitigations have to be monstrous, and the 100-feet barrier is unlikely to be enough.

[05:21:33] Numerous complaints from PWC residents near existing data centers highlight the noise issues with data centers adjacent to residential and school areas. Mitigations are not enough. Note that the Great Oaks has not been fixed. The planner earlier said that Proffers offers more, but doesn't know if it's going to fix the issue.

[05:21:54] So why are we proceeding? In conclusions, there are too many unknowns of industrial use in this area and the impact of the surrounding residential areas to proceed with data centers. Leave the Devlin Residential as you approve the 500 homes in 2020.

[05:22:11] Noise, water runoff, and power are all unknown and unstudied. It was discussed that the noise areas are being studied, but we don't have answers yet. This is the wrong time and the wrong place to produce.

[05:22:27] The OOD earlier talked about the Navy's approach, saying if we see something that we're not sure about, we stop, make a plan. Make a plan before you proceed with something you don't know what's going to happen. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is George Sherwood.

[05:22:45] I live in Sheffield Manor. We moved out here about 19 years ago, and you guys will have to bear with me. I wasn't gifted with the ability for fancy speeches, not a great public speaker. One thing I was gifted with was common sense. It's also a curse, too. Common sense tells me that when you build a program to talk to a community about something that you want to build, you don't put false information in it. Common sense tells me if a building is 95 feet, you don't continue to tell people that it's 80 feet. Common sense tells me if you're going to go out and take photos with a balloon up in the air to see what a study is going to look like when a building is put in

[05:23:20] place, that you don't put that balloon at the height where it's not supposed to be. You don't tell people at 80 feet because it's going to be 95. Common sense also tells me that you don't build a data center right next to a residential community, several of them. You also don't build them next to schools. Common sense tells me that when I look at this at a base level, why is this happening? Stanley Martin has approval to build over 500 homes on that property.

[05:23:48] Common sense tells me the reason that they're doing that is the same reason that what they're doing to us, you guys already did it to them. They have data centers completely surrounding the property they were going to build these houses on. Common sense tells them that their profit margins are screwed because they can't sell those houses for what they thought they were going to sell them for originally. So what does common sense tell them to do? Common sense tells them to sell that property to a developer that's going to go in there and put up a bunch the data centers, make some more money. Profit margins are right back where they're supposed to be. Common sense tells me that I'm taking the loss that they should have taken. I managed a business

[05:24:27] for 21 years. I know what happens in business. Every once in a while, you get screwed. You make a mistake. You don't buy the right part. You don't put the right people on the job, and you take a loss. Their responsibility as a builder and as a developer is they take responsibility for their mistake. They take responsibility for what this board has already done to them, and the past members of this board's already done to them. They take the loss, they build the houses, and they move on. They go to the next project. They don't screw the rest of us out of the money that we've already invested into our homes. By the way, proffers don't do anything for you. Anybody that lives in

[05:25:03] Sheffield Manor can tell you right away. There was a proffer in Sheffield Manor that the developer was to put sidewalks in the entire neighborhood. I live on the side of the neighborhood where the developer built his house. You know what he did? He bypassed that proffer because he didn't like sidewalks and you don't want them on the side of the neighborhood. We still don't have sidewalks.

[05:25:21] I don't care about the sidewalk. The point is the proffers don't make sense. Also, by the way, common sense tells me, even though somebody stands up here and tells me the police are going to come out and tell a data center when they knock on the front door, they're making too much noise, they need to stop, that that's not happening. You guys don't have what you need to make the proper decision. Common sense says you don't have all the facts to say yes to this property.

[05:25:46] This property is already approved for residential homes. Stanley Martin needs to build the homes. Thank you. And move on. That's common sense. Next speaker, please. Hello, I'm Stacey Shaw from Bristow. I want to start by saying it's now 11 p.m.

[05:26:03] and I've yet to hear one resident advocate for the Devlin Tech Park. Not one. I'm not talking about just Brentsville. I'm talking about any member of the public. So I'm asking if everyone then can support us, the residents who did come out tonight.

[05:26:20] So let's not act like this rezoning is normal. It's not normal. Placing data centers next to homes, schools, and playgrounds is just not normal. At one time, we might have thought that they were light industrial. It was similar to having office buildings, but we know better now, so let's not pretend we don't. We know it's completely and utterly irresponsible for Prince William County to go forward on this project. Data centers do not make good neighbors. Ask the people of Great Oaks, as the people of Chandler, Arizona. They're loud and that sound is additive.

[05:26:53] So, and you can't tell me it isn't because I heard it for myself and I was really surprised just how loud one building can be. So if we cluster 50 of them together, how far will that sound carry? If you approve the Starr Center, you will not only be negatively affecting a few people who live right next to them, we're talking about thousands of residents and their children and they will be hearing the collective sound of 50 data centers. Are we that desperate for money? Are our schools that bad? Are our employees so underpaid that we're just going to roll over for any data

[05:27:28] center? Are we going to cannibalize our county? Our problem is we don't have to do what Stanley Martin wants, and we do not have to do what big data wants. And data center HVAC sound is so painful. It's ugly. It's not comparable to any other sound we're used to. And our brains and our bodies are just not made for it. So it's going to hurt people. At the very least, they're going to be stressed. At the worst, they can have significant long-term damage. Are we going to

[05:28:01] send our children to school so they can get ill? What about a child who gets very angry and gets violent? What about people who have mental health issues? So what is everyone going to do? We're going to all move away and make it a ghost town. It's important that you understand you're placing them 100 feet from many schools. 100 feet is not that far and it is not fair. And if you vote to approve this, you will be subjecting children to harm. So I'm going to say that again. If you approve this, you will be subjecting children to harm. And there's no money that can compensate

[05:28:38] for that. So don't say, well, the majority of the school board hasn't spoken out for it because they're not the expert. Now I know that you're not experts on this either but this is your decision and it's a serious decision so don't make it for political reasons. It can happen anywhere if it happens here. So how are you going to protect your districts? You don't know what's going to happen after the November election and data centers are not that different from one another. If they could be quiet they would be. They would be coming here and saying it's different. Thank you. Your time is

[05:29:10] up. Next speaker, please. I need the Elmo, please. And while the speaker is speaking, if number 41 through 45 would like to line up, please. Good evening. My name is Andra Morton, and I am a Chris Young parent, and I have heard many sides to the data center debate, and what I have heard over and over is that data centers are noisy. The sound is piercing. On the other side, I have heard that there is new technology, and newer data centers are quiet and won't be a problem. I had

[05:29:47] heard about Great Oak and the challenges they face with their Amazon data center. Last Saturday I drove out to Great Oak where I ran into a couple that was taking a walk. They explained that the sound comes on and off throughout all times of the day and stays on for at least 10 minutes and when the weather is warm it is more frequent and stays on for longer periods most of the day. They described the sound like a hovering plane that simply doesn't move through the sky. If you recall Saturday was one of the coldest days we have had this winter, so we didn't hear the sound while we were chatting, but they told me to come back the next day when it would be warmer. On Sunday, I

[05:30:25] decided to drive by Hornbaker Road about four miles from my home. I've watched the construction on this stack infrastructure data center over the last year, so I figured this is a new data center where I could find out how noise might impact my children's schools. I have a map of where I was standing, which is right there, and the cooling units, and I was a little under 500 feet away from the cooling units. As you can see, it is unsightly, so I stepped out to take a picture,

[05:31:01] and because I had not gotten the chance to hear anything the previous day, I was shocked by what I heard as I opened my car door. I knew immediately what it was because it was so different than anything I had ever heard before, and I understood what everyone was trying to describe to me for the first time. It wasn't even the volume that struck me, it was the high-pitched sound that had no variance to relieve your ears. It grated on my ears and it sounded like a ringing in my ears.

[05:31:29] Here is a video from that windy day, Sunday at 2 p.m., last Sunday. Yeah, you can... This was only one, maybe two buildings. Every child and family in this county has a right to the peaceful enjoyment

[05:32:07] of their schools and communities. There is no mechanism for meaningful noise enforcement. Large corporations will be all but happy to pay county fines to stay operating. There are so many unanswered questions, and this is the future of my kids' lives and all my amazing neighbors and friends.

[05:32:28] I ask you to vote to keep this zoning residential now and always. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, my name is Jason Fox, and I am here today because I have to be.

[05:32:44] For the last 20 years, I've been a teacher for Prince William County Schools, and I've also been a registered nurse for Prince William Hospital. The two years prior to that, I served in the Peace Corps, where I taught health and nursing in Mongolia. And the truth is, we live in sacred ground.

[05:33:00] And I don't know if you guys have remembered this, but every time I go to Costco and I look at the gas station, I see the little sad little family plot. Or I go down Linton Hall Road and I see the family cemetery by the ABC liquor store. It reminds me of the fact that we've forgotten there have been biblical-sized armies that have shed blood over this county. And we're dealing with every plot of land as if it's got a value and as a price and not as a moral, I lose my words. I'm a teacher and I lose my words.

[05:33:32] But just, you know, I look at this and it just blows my mind. I have in my phone an iPhone 11. In two years, it's going to go in the trash. It'll be, go to Ghana, they'll harvest some gold out of it, and it'll be useless to me. And then I'll get the next iPhone. Ten years ago, I was using a track phone. The same is going to be true with this data center. By the time this thing gets up in operation, it's got five to seven years, and then the technology is going to be obsolete. It's going to be a teardown at best. It's not going to be repurposed as a mall. The technology, all the wiring, everything in there is going to be slop. And we're basically inviting blight into our

[05:34:11] community. We're turning sacred ground into Flint, Michigan, Gary, Indiana, Love Canal. These places are cautionary tales. We are in an area of the country that people wish they were, and we're dealing with property as if we are for sale. I don't have anything more to say, but I'm going to leave you with a thought. One thing I tell my students is everything has a price, and you never know what that price is until you're the one paying it. This has a price. We don't know the full price of it. We won't know until we're the ones paying it and then it's too late. Please slow

[05:34:49] down unless there's photographs of you guys at a Christmas party I don't know about. Slow down. Think this through. Do not rush this to vote and then wind up with something that in 10 years we all regret and there's no turning back. Thank you all for your time. Thank you. Next speaker please. My name is Karen Kennedy. I live in Bridalwood Manor directly across from Devlin Road in Brentsville District. I'm firmly opposed to this rezoning request from residential to

[05:35:26] industrial along with my neighbors. You've heard we treasure our residential peaceful community environment. My family moved to Bristow almost 20 years ago and we trusted this county to protect our neighborhood. From listening to the presentation and discussion this evening it's clear to me and obviously a lot of my neighbors that the board and the planning commission is not prepared to properly support this project there are too many critical unresolved questions on a variety of topics one of the top issues discussed obviously is sound our own

[05:36:02] commission doesn't even clearly understand the problems or the proffers and has not sought out not yet sought outside expert support to properly understand and digest this information the best they could do was to state that due to its highly technical nature that looks right that approach is wholly insufficient with this much at stake these and many other unknowns are so significant we cannot put our kids in the bullseye of those risks our community is obviously angry we don't

[05:36:39] understand why we are even here discussing such a proposal in the middle of a residential community Justifying this rezoning due to the proximity of your own poor past rezoning decisions certainly does not justify repeating them today.

[05:36:57] Don't make another mistake at the expense of our families. I implore you to go back to basics. Remember your duty as elected county supervisors to protect the health, welfare, safety, and environment of citizens of this county.

[05:37:19] Please show you care more about us than serving big business interests. Put our families first, do not compromise, and keep this a residential zone. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

[05:37:38] Good evening. My name is Mark Yackel from Victory Lakes in the Brentsville District. A number of supervisors were very anxious to hear what the voices of the community had to say tonight. I hope you have heard loud and clear what we have to say, And I appreciate you continuing to listen to the voices of the folks that have taken the time out this evening to come speak to you.

[05:38:01] And I appreciate you taking the time to listen to us as well. We asked two simple questions to Mr. Young during his presentation to residents when he wanted to hear what we had to say about the impending decision on the data centers.

[05:38:17] One, would you send your kids to a school that was right next to a data center? He refused to answer this question. I would pose the same question to you all tonight. Would you send your kids there? Would you ask your constituents to send their kids there?

[05:38:36] We don't even have a noise study completed or an understanding of what impact this would have, period, let alone on the children there. We do not know if Dominion Energy is going to be able to provide enough energy to all of these data centers.

[05:38:53] So what other impacts would this pose if they had to run diesel generators during school hours? I have a child who has an ADHD and dyslexia and struggle enough to provide the absolute best situation for him to learn in.

[05:39:11] What taxpayer money would have to be spent to ensure our children are shielded as much as possible from the effects of data centers? And how long would it take? Our children do not have a voice here tonight, so we need to stand up as elected officials and members of the community for them and be their voice tonight on this decision.

[05:39:34] The other question that was asked was, as a home builder, would you personally buy a home that backs to us at a center that is 95 feet in the air? He once again refused to answer. Now our residents did not have this choice of whether to buy or not buy.

[05:39:54] They already own their home, their savings in investing in their home. Would you buy a house that backed to this data center? Would you approve this data center if it backed to your home? What about your constituents' homes?

[05:40:11] It is not going to stop in Bristow or Gainesville. It is going to move to wherever they have land and wherever they are allowed to build. Loudoun County is now feeling the effects and have reduced tax revenue due to decreased home values and set up measures to stem the growth of data centers.

[05:40:30] Let's learn from them and band together. Listen to the people. I know this is approved for housing for 516 homes. That makes complete sense and why it needs to be re-zoned that way. I appreciate Janine Lawson for standing with her constituents who resoundingly oppose this, and I ask you to do the same so that we can help support you in the coming fights.

[05:40:50] Thank you. And before our next speaker, if we could have number 46 through 50 line up, please. Please proceed. Hi, my name is Roger Yackel, and I am from Gainesville. So what do we have here? A tug of war.

[05:41:07] On this side, you have developers with all their money and influence and claims. Look at Amazon's $35 billion. Some say it's a bribe. On the other side, you have more and more residents who are learning about the issues with data centers and pushing back. In the middle, you have government officials. So what are government officials supposed to do? Accept the huge amount of money from developers and blindly, yes, blindly support big tech and the developers.

[05:41:42] Listen to residents, study the data center industry and look at the risks, learn and then act. You can do the right thing for Virginia and Virginians. A number of us from seven different counties attended the Virginia Senate Rules Committee last week.

[05:42:01] A few spoke in favor of Senator Chap Peterson's resolution requesting the Department of Energy study the impacts on Virginia from the data center industry. The resolution was passed in committee. Yes, people are waking up and seeing the degradation caused by data centers on Virginia and Virginians.

[05:42:23] Senators, too. The risk to drinking water? Yes. Please don't say that I'm ignorant because I did attend Water Day. Dominion Energy is acknowledging the lack of power. The Chesapeake Bay Journal captured a story about this.

[05:42:40] I expect the journal will write another story about another big issue, data center noise. Let's see, when was noise brought to your attention, Chair Wheeler? And there's still no solution for the suffering residents. Can we expect backup diesel generators running 24-7?

[05:42:59] Residents welcome jet plane noise all the time. Supervisor Bailey, you may remember back in 2022 when we drove together on the windshield tour and you said that I shared facts and the truth. I still do.

[05:43:15] Of course, you can support the effort to better understand the issues by not approving Devlin Technology Park and other data centers near schools and residential areas. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Rebecca Timothy, and I'm a resident of the Brentsville District. I live in Kingsbrook neighborhood, which is right across from Amberley Station, which is right down the road from this additional, for the Devlin Technology

[05:43:53] Park, for these additional data centers. So when I heard people tonight talking about how This particular project was going above and beyond with their proffers. I appreciate the fact that they have the 100-foot buffers and all the things they're trying to do, but the major issue here is that we haven't had data centers this big before, and we have not had this many data centers close together, as other people have mentioned, but sound is cumulative, and sound does carry very far.

[05:44:27] It'll go much farther than 100 feet. it'll probably be heard a couple miles down the road i don't know how many miles but i would say at least two or three miles because of we have sound even from ocaquan i mean from um not ocaquan quantico we have sound from quantico that we can hear in our neighborhood we can hear also jiffy lube live which is several miles away when they have concerts so um i don't want to repeat

[05:44:58] what everyone else has said, but just to say that this new Devlin Technology Park is compatible with the other recently approved data centers, the problem is that that is a bad decision and why would you compound it by making it worse in such a small concentrated area to have that many data centers?

[05:45:26] So I should say my family and I have lived, did I say we've lived here 19 years? I'm a teacher in the county. I've been a teacher in the county for nine years, and I do really feel for the children. And so I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be a child at Chris Young Elementary School and to go out at recess and not to be able to hear my friends speaking or talk to them because of the loud noise or how could we play games together with all the noise not just so those kids are surrounded by it on all sides also the Montessori school would be

[05:46:05] the same situation I'm sorry so that's 800 students who are directly impacted by these additional 14 data centers at the proposed with the rezoning but there are also I added up how many students in the county would be within half a mile of data centers and it's 6,000 with these new data centers that are being built 6,000 students who will be within a half mile of data centers and I just think I just feel bad for these children the teachers who work in the buildings I'm sure you'll

[05:46:41] still be able to hear it inside it looks like my time is about up but I support your time is up I support building the homes instead thank you I I will call 46 through 50 or 51 through 55.

[05:46:57] Want to line up in the back, please? Number 51 would be first. I'm 51. I'm here to just ask you to please keep this residential area residential, not just this particular.

[05:47:19] Could you give us your name and generally where you live? Oh, sorry, my name is Christine Westfall. I'm from Brentsville. Sorry, I'm so tired. Please keep this area residential, not just this particular project, but all residential areas should remain residential.

[05:47:34] These industrial buildings do not have any place near our homes, near our schools, surrounding our children. You've heard it all tonight. We know that you guys are listening to us. We want it to stay residential, build the homes, not the data centers. Thank you.

[05:47:51] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi there. My name is Marianne Dwyer. I'm from the Brentsville District. I have sent you all a letter. I got one response. Thank you, Jeannie. I appreciate it. So lack of response hopefully means that you're going to side with what I presented, which was to say no to this rezoning and to keep the housing.

[05:48:17] and in that letter i sent a multitude of items as to why i believe that and they have been stated continuously tonight and it is just absurd and it's i just can't believe that you guys think that this is the best way to provide government for us as representatives of us you should be looking out for our best interests in addition to trying to find tax revenue i'd ever hear from you budget cuts. I never hear from you to find other sources. You told us we were going to have smaller

[05:48:51] classrooms. You told us we were going to have companies come out here and provide us jobs time and time again. Those things don't happen. So why do I trust you that you're looking out for our best interests in creating things? You're putting the cart before the horse. We don't have regulations in place. We're missing out on tax revenue opportunities. You're not looking to Loudon who's already been down this path. We have meetings coming up to fill a board seat that isn't even filled yet that probably has some skin in the game to have an opinion on this and yet you just

[05:49:29] sit there with your body language looking like oh dear god here's four hours of people saying the same thing over and over again. Well we did it because you aren't listening and as I told my kids teachers once upon a time I don't need to come to your classroom to tell you how to do your job so I shouldn't have to come to tell you guys how to do your job you should be protecting us and the fact that I've sat in numerous meetings you don't have your facts together you're listening to somebody come in and provide you information it's not fact yet you have no studies and again

[05:50:07] you've got the state trying to figure out what they want to do we have a environmental potential issue that's going to have a meeting after the fact so at a minimum i think you should say no and defer this until you can get some more information and on the homes i've always wanted the homes i wanted the thousand homes to be honest and yet we compromised and got the 500 at the end of the day we need housing we need inventory to keep things affordable in the area

[05:50:37] We need businesses who are going to be here to support the people that live here so we don't have to drive to Fairfax or someplace else to eat, to work, to shop, to do all this stuff. We're becoming a landfill of databases, and we need to do something better and figure it out.

[05:50:55] And to say Disney in 1992, they did not get approved. So hindsight is going to bite you in the butt. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I don't have to turn it on.

[05:51:12] Oh, can you turn that on, please? Good evening. My name is Dr. Steve Plykart, and I represent Amberley Station, a community of roughly 600 men, women, and children adjacent to the proposed Devlin Technology Park.

[05:51:32] My dental office is right next to the Devlin property. I am the poster child for abuse by our county leaders. My family is at risk living in Amberley. You see Amberley here. This is what was voted on in 21. We're surrounded by 11 monster data centers.

[05:51:51] Thank you all for that. My community has been dealing with the Hunter Trust property for over 10 years. And we are here tonight as a united community to say no more data centers in Bristow. We are angry at our county supervisors for allowing this plague to be visited within 100 feet of our homes and schools.

[05:52:14] We are angry at the billionaire developers and corporations who care nothing about the health of our communities, children, and even grandchildren for some. We are angry with Stanley Martin that rushed to place this rezoning on the agenda of the Board of County Supervisors tonight to stack the deck in their favor by not having the Gainesville District represented.

[05:52:37] And now it is our turn to push back. That includes knocking on doors in your districts to unseat you. Just say no to this rezoning of the Devlin property. Build your houses, Truett Young, not data centers.

[05:52:54] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Paul Segerst. I'm a resident of Brentsville District Victory Lakes. I want to thank the board for having the opportunity to speak this evening.

[05:53:12] My wife and I have been here for almost 20 years. I was a career naval officer. I'm a nuclear submarine captain, and I would go away for a couple years to another location, go to see on submarine, take my family with me, and we'd always come back. Two of us grew up in Fairfax.

[05:53:29] We lived in Fairfax until early 2000s. We decided we wanted a more rural area. We came out here, and we've stayed ever since, including since I've retired from the Navy. We came here because it was rural.

[05:53:45] We came here because it was a place where we could raise the children who are both adults and gone now. But it's still a great place to live, but it's not going to be much longer if we can't turn some things around. When the issue of the data centers came up, I went to the Stanley Martin Open House or the information with open mind.

[05:54:08] But what I heard was not a logical argument. All of the benefits were in Stanley Martin's favor and very little in the favor of the residents of this county. The data that they put up, which they admitted was optimistic, put the value of revenue at about two cents per resident of the county in the first year.

[05:54:33] And then when they did a 21-year runout, the business case was about 50 cents per resident. That's not a great business case. And based on the size of the county and the budget, it's not a big bump in your budget. So where's the value?

[05:54:49] The value isn't to us as residents, and I can't figure out where it is, so there must be something we're not seeing. The impact to the residents has been noted on some of the slides, including the balloons and pictures.

[05:55:05] If you really want to get the trust of the residents, and it's pretty clear, the residents here don't trust you, at least some of you. Some of you they do, others they don't. If you want to have the trust of the residents, go rerun the balloon demonstration. This time, make it a public announcement so that the residents can go out and look at it and have the balloons at the right height.

[05:55:25] And I am an expert in acoustics. I spent 28 years as a nuclear submarine captain. I understand acoustics. When you double the energy in sound, it goes up by 3 dB. Three decibels is a doubling of energy.

[05:55:44] So when you see those numbers go up, every 3 dB, the sound energy is doubling on the ears. That's how it works. It's logarithmic. Don't do that to the children in these schools.

[05:56:02] If you do, shame on every one of you that votes yes on this. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Megan Schneider. I am 24 years old, and excuse the novelty of my sash.

[05:56:21] Like I said, I'm 24. I've lived in this county for 24 wonderful years. I was born at Potomac Hospital. I graduated from Forest Park High School, and I'm very proud of this county. I think it's one of the best places in the world, and I am reaching an age where I want to have children, and I want my children to grow up in this county, and I want to buy a house. I don't want to rent forever on my property or on my apartment in Manassas.

[05:56:49] I really enjoy giving back to the community. I enjoy volunteering. I like to donate. I think part of the reason I love this county so much is because it raised me and I dream of sending my kids to the same schools and just giving back to this community that has given me so much.

[05:57:08] But with these data centers, these data centers are making it impossible for me to do that. I could go on and on about the better uses of this land, most notably and relevant, single-family homes or parks, more schools. You could even build another government building that's a little bit closer to the other end of the county.

[05:57:28] This land is far too valuable to be used in this irresponsible manner for these data centers. This is a place where I think Prince William County really prides itself on being a place where families like to live, people like to work, and having these giant buildings that are just for housing computers, it just doesn't make sense to me.

[05:57:53] not to mention the environmental impacts. We're living in a world where climate change is one of the number one issues, and this detrimental threat to the planet looms above the heads of the younger generation and the older generation. Generation Z is coming, whether you like it or not, and we are very concerned about all of the climate impacts of things like these data centers.

[05:58:14] And from what I've heard today and what I've learned today, it's only raised more alarm bells. And I can tell that all the work that's been done on the board today or in the past that you've presented you're trying to kind of paint it in this picture of oh we know that there's bad things but we've done our due diligence and we've made this 100 foot buffer 100 foot of trees is not enough leave the trees as they are or build homes that people can actually use that you can use to grow communities build these communities stronger it just please don't do this it's clear that there's not enough research it's clear that you

[05:58:50] all don't know what is actually going to happen if these data centers are built. And it's clear that for a lot of you, I hate to say it, but it seems like all you see is dollar signs. There are better ways to raise money. There are better ways to stimulate the economy of this wonderful county. You do not need to do this. This is not it. Even jobs created, there's only about 30 jobs for this huge facility. That makes no sense. Please do the right thing. Do your job and listen to your constituents. All of us who've spoken today, we're all against this. It would be

[05:59:24] crazy for any of you to vote yes on this. Thank you. Vote no. Next speaker, please. And before our next speaker, if I can call up 56 through 60. Good evening, or good night now. It is 11.36 p.m., and I'm pretty sure no one wants to be here. We all work tomorrow. We're all going to be tired in the morning. We're going to get some coffee. But my name is James Martinez. I'm in the Brentsville

[05:59:57] district, precisely Lanier Farms, adjacent to Chris Young. I'm a mechanical engineer and I have personally helped with the data center construction previously. I no longer work there, but I have witnessed what these facilities are capable of. I also happen to have a nine-year-old cousin who attends Chris Young. I support data centers. I believe they support the market for cloud storage. However, I don't support the development of data centers adjacent to residential and

[06:00:35] learning facilities. Everyone is right to emphasize the noise pollution that is curated by data centers. I have been directly involved in the construction engineering for these facilities. We were given instructions daily to always have PPE, more precisely earmuffs or some sort of ear plug. It has become a standard in data center construction. From the staff report I read that was obtained from the Prince William County government site. There isn't nearly enough data to make an educated decision to allow the rezoning, in my opinion. More so, I believe this

[06:01:12] is to be common sense to not move forward with this action to rezone. HVAC equipment such as chillers can be quite noisy. They are located on the roof. You cannot put walls to block these chillers. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of having chillers. And they don't sit just eight feet. They sit on dunnage, making them much higher. Data centers never remain as built.

[06:01:39] there's constant additions of servers and equipment to support these servers. As servers are added, the heat convected by these servers become directly proportional. Hence, the equipment added to cool these servers to keep it at an operating temp of about 72 to 79 degrees Fahrenheit, and they can get quite hot.

[06:01:57] I have been in a functioning data center. It is not a good time in there. It gets really hot. You get real sweaty when doing all this testing, all this commissioning to get this done, especially when we have Prince William County officials and surveyors there to give the go ahead.

[06:02:16] And now on to civil, it will cause a lot of traffic going in. The amount of cranes needed to lift this equipment. This equipment is heavy. You need multiple trucks. It takes a long time. Not to mention that there is not enough study done on the soil that could induce blasting, and the kids don't deserve to be in that kind of environment.

[06:02:38] I do not want that for my younger cousin. She's growing up, she has a bright future, and I do not want to be ruined by a data center. Thank you. Have a great night. Please, please vote no. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. Thank you for hearing us tonight.

[06:02:57] My name is Nancy Armour, and I live in the Occoquan District. And I'm writing, or here tonight, to ask you to please vote no on the Devlin Project. I sent an email earlier, so I'll just paraphrase a little bit. As you've heard tonight, many families purposefully moved to this area.

[06:03:16] They did research, and they moved to the community because of all the things that are around there. Many of the people knew that housing was going to continue to be developed in that specific area in their neighborhoods. So now if they don't want to live there anymore with the data centers, let's go through that scenario.

[06:03:36] So now they have to sell their house probably at a lower value because of the impact of the data centers. They probably got in on the lowest mortgage rates in decades if they've been here over the last five years. Now they have to go buy a higher-priced home somewhere because the price of houses have gone up everywhere else.

[06:03:56] They now have the highest mortgage rates in decades. They've got to find jobs maybe. We have the lowest unemployment rate in decades, so somehow these people are going to magically find jobs if they can't transfer. They have to get new schools for their kids.

[06:04:11] Their kids are going to be impacted by having to move. So it's very cavalier to say, well, if they don't like it, they can move. There's a little bit more to it than that. I've also heard about retired couples that moved here, too. Their kids moved back with their grandkids so that they could be there with their families.

[06:04:31] So if the old people leave because of the noise, what's going to happen to their families? Do they have to move too? So this is a ripple effect across generations. I went to one of the Stanley Martin meetings a few weeks ago.

[06:04:50] Stanley Martin said they'll be selling the land as soon as it was approved. There was a lot of discussion in that meeting about the proffers and whether they would extend to the company that bought the land from Stanley Martin. So I was a little confused by the direct question to Mr. Young earlier tonight when he didn't really, in my opinion, explain what was happening with Stanley Martin's long-term ownership of this land.

[06:05:15] Because Stanley Martin, as we know, does not build data centers, and I don't think this exercise is going to really excite them to go into the market. They also said specifically in that meeting they would not build houses there. They purposely bought the land to build houses.

[06:05:31] Now they're saying they won't build houses there. Please vote no to the zoning request. You're elected to represent these families, your responsibilities with the families, not with Stanley Martin. One thing Mr. Young also said in the meeting was that the buffers, the trees don't buffer the noise.

[06:05:50] The trees are just for visibility. So there's a lot of discussion tonight about buffers. But he actually stated that buffers don't address the noise problem. So I wanted to make sure that got back on the record on his behalf. Thank you. Please vote no. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

[06:06:18] Page, Kenyon Page, Coles District. Vote no on the Devlin Tech rezoning. Virginia is now the host of the largest concentration of data centers in the world. Why? This sprawl on steroids means deforestation, loss of farmland, i.e. food, and wildlife habitation.

[06:06:39] These data centers cover land, causing massive rainwater runoff, impacting streams in the Occoquan Reservoir. There have been 13 data center proposals since April of 2021, and we currently have 38 data centers operating in our county, with 52 new sites planned.

[06:06:57] We're talking over 35 million square feet of impervious land, more than all operating in Loudoun County, 2,669 acres. Why are we competing with Loudoun County? Why are we destroying our natural resources and building at the edge of our national battlefields, hallowed ground?

[06:07:18] Most people are unaware that this could mean up to 250 data buildings. That's absurd. Why don't you care about our quality of life? Why can't you hear us? We're speaking pretty loudly. Stanley Martin wants to rezone 269 acres from planned mixed residential to light industrial, located between Devlin and Linton Hall Roads.

[06:07:41] He's pitching to data centers for a million-dollar profit. There's nothing light about humming industrial cement blocks. Once again, one person's greed over the neighbors who actually have to live next to these loud, polluting centers.

[06:07:57] This location is in close proximity to at least three schools in Gainesville area. Where's your representative? Defer applications that are too close to our schools and neighborhoods until our questions are answered. Dr. Liver, a 25-year-old NASA scientist from Heritage Hunt, completed charts and research concluding that the noise from the constant humming of the cooling systems could extend for a two-mile radius.

[06:08:26] That's humming heard 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's insane. Plus, these data centers are going to be 105 feet tall, with cooling systems on top to be heard in every direction. The noise level will fall between 60 and 72 decibels.

[06:08:43] According to the PWC Noise Ordinance, Chapter 14, if you experience noise level of 55 to 60 in a residential area, you can call the police on your neighbor. Who do we get to call on a 24-hour cooling system?

[06:09:00] Dr. Liver concluded that the sound of the Bristow Run Elementary would go from 47 decibels to 69.8 decibels, which means the noise increase would multiply by 16,000%.

[06:09:15] 16,000. Do your kids go to that school? I think not. In my conclusion, Dr. Liber knows what he's talking about. You don't, and you were elected to protect us. Do your job. Next speaker, please.

[06:09:33] Hi, I'm Sherry Hickerson. First time I've ever been here, and I've got to say I'm coming back because, wow, it's better than a soap opera, and I don't like soap operas. So I have never been in a room where so many people have been in agreement.

[06:09:50] It doesn't matter. We're different. I don't know any of you, actually. We've been here for now for years, but I don't know a soul. I don't even know any of you. So why would you listen to me? I don't know. Maybe it's because government and for the people, by the people. You work for us, I think.

[06:10:06] Maybe. Do they? I don't know. Anyway, if you know, I'm talking just to the supervisors up there. If you know what's on the seal in front of that desk, you don't have to say it, but just raise your hand. Do you know what's inside that seal? Nobody?

[06:10:23] I mean, really? I'm sorry. This isn't an interactive experience. We're just here to listen to you. Please. Go on. Okay, it's a scale, and that's from the Bible, and it's the scale of justice, if you didn't know. And justice is, on one side, are your constituents that voted for you, and on the other side, It's billions of dollars, millions of dollars.

[06:10:47] I don't know how many million. I have no idea. I got into this Thursday because of this was in my, on top of my mailbox, because they don't put it in because that would be an offense, taped to my mailbox. So on Thursday, I came to the little meeting, and I learned about everything that's going on.

[06:11:03] Yesterday, my mom was 85. I drove to Ohio six and a half hours to wish her happy birthday, got her and my dad in the car, drove them six and a half hours back today, and they're sitting at my house, probably in bed. It was important to me because I found out about it because I'm busy.

[06:11:19] My husband works. I go and take care of them because she has Parkinson's. My kids, my daughter tried to buy a house here with her husband two years ago. Ten times she tried to buy a house. She got outbid $50,000 to $100,000.

[06:11:38] So guess what? They moved to Pensacola. They bought a wonderful house by the beach. That's what you're doing. But the scales of justice, I want to go back to that because I saw that because everybody knows about the noise. Everybody knows. You guys know.

[06:11:55] If you put it on your heart, you really know. Every one of you knows right from wrong. You do. So you have the choice of the scales. It's the widow's mite. We're the residents here are putting in our penny, and it's nothing.

[06:12:12] And the other side is corporations with lots of money that weigh down that scale. But if any of you know the story, Jesus balanced out that scale because he said the thing that she put in was worth more than tons that the others put in.

[06:12:30] Please do the right thing. Please vote for us. Please stand beside us. That's what we elected you for. First time I'm here, please do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I'm Tim from Brentsville District, and first time at one of these board meetings.

[06:12:58] I don't have a relationship with any of you. I don't know any of you. I don't know anybody else in the room. But I do know that I have been amazed. When I came here to this meeting, I did not know what to expect. But I am amazed that not one person, not one citizen has said anything in affirmation of the proposal. Democrat, Republican, nobody, nobody is saying, this is a great thing. Let's move forward and not really know what's

[06:13:33] going on if we move forward and not really know what's going on that doesn't make sense like the one guy was talking about common sense nobody if that doesn't i don't know if i don't know who's listening i don't know who's not listening but if nobody is on the other side except for the guys with millions of dollars maybe we should pause and say okay what are we doing what are we doing

[06:14:04] what are we doing to our neighborhood thank you next speaker please while he's getting lined up If number 61 through 65 can line up, please.

[06:14:25] Please proceed. Hi, my name is Steve Marin. I live in Bristow. I bought a house, thankfully, right before the market went up. And I looked at houses up and down Linton Hall, and I ended up down by Saybrook.

[06:14:41] So I'm not affected exactly by this, but I worry about my neighbors and what might happen to them. In fact, the person before me asked, please stay, no matter how late it is, so you can speak. this was a residential area. I looked at residential, and I would have bought one of those houses. It should stay residential. That's what it was zoned for. That's what people bought the houses for. That's what they expected. So please vote no. If you aren't sure about voting no, there's so many questions about this. I've been on a development side. Every time we went forward, we had all the studies done. We knew all the facts. When somebody asked something,

[06:15:19] we knew about it. I hear the things, what about pictures? What about they're not done in the wintertime? They should be done then. Was the noise done in the summer? In the winter? Winter is closed. It's less noisy. 60 dBs. Doesn't sound much, but 60 dBs is what they said is what we hear when somebody is talking next to you. So can you imagine living with somebody talking next to you all the time. Okay. I also heard about generators. What's fueling them? I hear it's oil. What about oil tanks? Are we going to have oil tanks there? We hear we have wells. How big are the oil tanks?

[06:16:00] What type of protection do we have for the oil tanks? How many trucks? You know that these data centers use huge amount of electricity. Okay. Requires the power plants to run. They burn a lot of oil. Is it going to be low sulfur oil? Is it going to be distillate oil? Is it going to be kerosene, aerospace oil? Do you know? All these questions basically need to be resolved before anyone can make any type of informed decision. Finally, I went to Supervisor Lawson's meeting the other night, and I heard that basically the rest of you can decide what's going to be built

[06:16:38] in my neighborhood. I don't think that's fair, and especially Gainesville's not even here. so why are we rushing this? I can't imagine if somebody wants to go build an NFL stadium in your area and your residents are against it and I can go, you know what, let's go vote for it because maybe I get revenues out of it. I can't believe that we would go ahead and shove something down people's neighborhood, okay, when they are against it. I can't just believe that happened. Please vote no and at least if you don't vote no, defer it until we actually know all the facts. Thank you.

[06:17:14] Thank you. Next speaker, please. It's number 61, and she needs the overhead. I have a note on here.

[06:17:31] Do I have to turn this on? It's on. Okay. All right. Anybody for coffee? Because I'm half asleep. My name is Linda Padrika. I'm in the Gainesville District. Here we go. All righty.

[06:17:57] So much has been said, I don't really know where to begin. But I want you to look at this map for the said proposal to rezone 269 acres of PMR to industrial data centers. And an undetermined amount of substations, and maybe I'm misunderstanding that, this area will really be humming.

[06:18:20] This is surrounded by eight subdivisions surrounding roughly 50% of more of this 269-acre parcel. Victory Lake, Sheffield Manor, Kingsbrook, Silverleaf, Amberleaf Station, Linton Hall Manor, Lanyard Farms, and Foxborough.

[06:18:38] And, I mean, when you look at this, it's amazing to me that this board would consider doing this to these people. Some of them have put their life savings into a home, and no one knows anything really to the developer.

[06:19:01] At least keep it as residential. That being said, I have to say, this board is dysfunctional. I have never, and I have lived in this county for 30-something years, I have sat on land use committees, I became an activist fighting Disney in 1993.

[06:19:27] In the crescendo, which is building here in this county toward you all for not representing the people will not escape you. This will be your legacy. To Chairman Wheeler, I don't know what you're doing.

[06:19:46] I can't comprehend it. We had Democrats and Republicans work together. We had people like Maureen Cadigan, who's a Democrat meeting with Republicans. We never, I never saw the supervisors go against the district, which is the district that Janine has right now.

[06:20:11] You should be voting along with her to protect the people. That being said, Loudoun County had to change their zoning to protect themselves from data centers. The reality of what data centers are going to reveal to be is just like Disney's America.

[06:20:30] George Allen, the governor, will be remembered for the one who was foolish and the mouse that got away because of what's happening here. I'm leaving this county. I don't even live here. I live in the Gainesville district.

[06:20:45] I'm here for the people. You need to be here for these people. It is your job. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Jim Reagan.

[06:21:07] I am a resident of Sheffield Manor in Bristow, Virginia, and these data centers will be a few hundred feet away from our home. We purchased our home just last year in Sheffield Manor, and we loved the community, but we had no idea what we'd be walking into a year and a half later.

[06:21:25] I am, my daughter is seven years old, and she is a first grader at Chris Young Elementary School. My son is three, and he'll be at Chris Young in 18 months. What really bothers me, and I'm sorry, my heart is racing, and I am not a very good public speaker, but I wanted to make sure I was here tonight because my kids don't have a voice, but I do, and I want to make sure you hear it.

[06:21:49] They, you know, there was a great question earlier about, well, what are the sounds like around school? We don't even know how the HVAC system at the school is. I completely agree. I have no idea how loud the noises are around a school.

[06:22:08] But you know what else I know even less about? How high the sounds are from 14 data centers. I have no idea what that is. I have a pretty good idea what school is around or what the noise is around the school. I've been, you know, we've all went to school. We all kind of know what the sound is inside the school. And I believe there's even ANSI standards that kind of set what the sound should be inside the school. But for my children to have to go through and listen to these noises, we don't even know what these noises are going to be, how loud they're going to be. We've talked about proffers

[06:22:43] and how they're going to be enforceable. And there's so many unknowns with this proposed changed that I just, I can't quite wrap my head around all of this. And to top it off, I hope all of you have watched the Nationals and win the World Series a few years ago. And one thing I'll note is the distance from home plate to first base is 90 feet. Take a few extra steps, you're at 100 feet. That is the proposed buffer. That's how far it is. I'm pretty sure my daughter can

[06:23:17] throw 100 feet. So I have 50 seconds left. I will yield my time back, but I vehemently oppose this rezoning change, and I'm glad I'm here to speak for my children and for their peers and for the other students at Chris Young and all schools that will be impacted by this. Thank you.

[06:23:38] Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. Good evening. Excuse me. My name is Paige McCullough, and I'm in the Brunsville District. I'm a resident of Victory Lakes. I've been there for 12 years. I have a spouse who's been a Prince William County School employee for over 20 years, and I'm the mother to two public school-age children.

[06:24:01] I'm here to voice my strong opposition to the Devlin Tech Park and the 80-foot-tall data centers. It's absolutely unthinkable that you are even considering allowing dozens of these concrete monstrosities with their constantly humming cooling units adjacent to so many schools and neighborhoods.

[06:24:18] The concern for noise levels, the environmental impact, the health and well-being of residents and school-aged children should be paramount to anything that the county stands to gain. There was an article in The Atlantic that I found pretty poignant. In it, I'll read an excerpt.

[06:24:35] It said, Scientists have known for decades that noise, even at the seemingly innocuous volume of car traffic, is bad for us. Calling noise a nuisance is like calling smog an inconvenience. former U.S. Surgeon General William Stewart said in 78.

[06:24:51] In the years since, numerous studies have only underscored his assertion that noise must be considered a hazard to the health of people everywhere. Say you're trying to fall asleep. You may think you've tuned out that grumble of trucks or downshifting outside, but your body has not.

[06:25:11] Your adrenal glands are pumping stress hormones. Your blood pressure and heart rate are rising. Your digestion is slowing down. Your brain continues to process sounds while you snooze. And your blood pressure spikes in response to clatter that is as low as 33 decibels, which is slightly louder than a purring cat.

[06:25:34] Experts say your body does not adapt to noise. Large-scale studies show that if the din keeps up over days, months, years, Noise exposure increases your risk of high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, dementia, and depression.

[06:25:54] Children suffer not only physically, there was a study 18 months after a new airport opened in Munich, the blood pressure and stress hormone levels of neighboring children soared, but also behaviorally and cognitively as well.

[06:26:12] A landmark study published in 1975 found that reading scores of sixth graders whose classroom faced a clattering subway lagged nearly a year behind the students in quieter classrooms, a difference that disappeared once the soundproofing materials were installed.

[06:26:31] I don't want to reiterate everything else that everyone has said. We need to just say no to the data centers or at least defer the decision until we can perform these studies to underscore that these conditions won't be present for residents and students in our county.

[06:26:50] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, my name is Carrie Compion, and I'm from the Brentsville District, and I live in Victory Lakes with my family. I am here speaking tonight on behalf of my neighbors who can't attend the meeting and my children and my husband.

[06:27:13] We live very close to Devlin Road. We would be about 500 feet from the proposed data center. We do not want to live next to a data center. This land is zone residential because it is in the middle of several communities and it must stay residential.

[06:27:32] We do not want to be constantly harassed with noise from air conditioning units and construction, including blasting through bedrock. We do not want increased light pollution in our bedrooms. We do not want our basements and backyards flooded by water runoff.

[06:27:50] we do not want decreased property values. We do not want taxpayers the bill for higher energy costs. We do not approve the change to rezone this land. There is no way to live next to a data center and not be disturbed by constant noise. Why has there been no discussion of blasting through bedrock when we can hear shelling from Quantico? We can hear concerts from Jiffy Lube. I can hear the bass of the concert from Jiffy Lube in my bedroom when I sleep.

[06:28:32] I want in writing the process for filing noise complaints and how they will be enforced and what phone number to call because I will be filing complaints and my neighbors will be filing complaints. I want more transparency. I want more communication by the county on projects like this.

[06:28:50] The lady that just the green flyer in that hand, she said she was just now coming to light on this project. And do you know why? It's because we walked around and put out those flyers. It's not because the county contacted us. I've been following this vote and these other votes and the other 2020 comp plan since the summer and the fall when my neighbor communicated to me.

[06:29:15] no one else communicated to me and that is unacceptable. And I want to know how many other families are in the dark about what's going in their backyard. It's unacceptable. Every resident should be notified by mail. I should not have to find out by word of mouth, what is the urgency of this vote? Why are you voting on a project that no studies have been done for? We can take all the

[06:29:46] time we want. When I put in a fence this year, I had to get approval from the neighbors. Why are the rules any different from Stanley Martin? Why is nobody listening? Do the right thing. Don't make Prince William another Loudon. Next speaker, please. And before you start, I'll call up number 66 through 70. Please proceed. Hi, my name is Kristen Coleman. I'm from the Princeville District and I live in Sheffield Manor. I'm not going to repeat all the issues that everybody has brought

[06:30:25] up tonight um i think we all have heard everything um i'm hoping you guys have kept your your hearts open to everybody as they've stood up before you and they've spoken their truths um i ask that you vote no uh on this project um stanley martin has the option still has the option Consider that, that we've heard evidence that there's a housing shortage.

[06:31:05] And so I just ask that they re-evaluate that. So if you guys would just please keep it in your hearts. Remember that you are elected officials. You were elected to do what your constituents ask you to do.

[06:31:23] And we are asking you tonight to please vote no on this proposal. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Tammy Blossel. I'm a resident of Victory Lakes in Brentsville.

[06:31:46] I've lived in Brentsville since 1999. In that time, I've gained and sacrificed much to live in 20136. Today, I stand before you to protect my most valuable investment, my home and my neighborhood. Madam Chair and County Supervisors, the fight is about the three Ps.

[06:32:06] Power, pride versus principle. Money and power versus the quality of life and trusting in one's leaders is something we've seen consistently throughout the ages. Which side will you be on tonight? The vocal voices around me on the subject are not opposed to data centers.

[06:32:25] Let me repeat. Data centers are needed at this point in history just not to be built in or around our neighborhoods and schools, period. The definition of inhumane, without compassion for misery or suffering, cruel.

[06:32:41] Any yes vote tonight that approves Devlin Technology Park is gross negligence and cruel. The Planning Commission and the Board of County Supervisors did not do the research. One asks why.

[06:32:58] It is the well-educated citizens of Bristow and its surrounding areas that has delivered the facts to the board days, weeks, and months preceding. A yes vote to keep this currently zoned area residential profits Bristow residents' quality of life.

[06:33:15] As the board, you get important residential tax dollars. Stanley Martin will then be directed by you to do what they do best, build homes or sell the land to a builder who will. These are your Western Prince William County citizens pain points.

[06:33:35] The health of our families is at risk. If you vote yes for data centers, you vote for citizen cruelty and mental anguish, heartache, headache, disregard for physical disabilities, and more. Children and elderly who suffer from autism, HDHD, respiratory inflammation, light and sound issues, migraines, etc., will suffer greatly. The lives of pets and nearby wildlife have no voice, but they rely on us to keep them safe. We don't have the power grid or the water supply to support these goliaths.

[06:34:10] Our property values will decrease or stagnate while the average Nova home value increases, which ranges 20 to 27 percent, according to Redfin. Our home foundations can and will likely be affected by the daily blasting of severe bedrock beneath us.

[06:34:28] We have no desire to challenge our nearby Quantico neighbor of becoming the dominant noise and blasting zip code. Our taxes will go up, even though you'd like us to believe they will not. Loudoun County is your example. The 600 proposed jobs by Stanley Martin is 390, of which will not stay in Prince William County.

[06:34:50] please vote no. Our next speakers, if they're not through number 70, 71 through 75. Anyone 71

[06:35:16] through 75? And the microphone's right in the back there. Good evening, Supervisor Lawson, Chair Wheeler, and the rest of the supervisors. My name is Ken May. I live in the Kingsbrook neighborhood in the Brentsville District. I am a citizen of this community. I was born in this

[06:35:51] country, sorry, in this county, and I was raised here. I found my career here, and I'm raising my family here. When we purchased our home in Bristow, I never imagined the changes happening now were a possibility. Every morning I step out on our street and walk my child to Bristow Run Elementary School, and I get to enjoy the community that myself and our neighbors have created. But that community is threatened. These massive data centers were so quickly approved by the Planning

[06:36:25] Commission and the board that Bristow community never knew what hit them. These buildings were not fit for placement next to suburban communities. Every proponent will regurgitate the same talking points, that they'll generate plentiful jobs, that they don't impact traffic, that they're not noisy, and that they are huge tax generators. Every one of these points is wrong and misleading.

[06:36:51] According to a 2014 CBRE report, Dana Centers only create about five to 30 jobs each, after construction, some of which aren't even high paying. They will not be a boon to local jobs that they claim to be. They will impact traffic while being constructed, and that length of construction could be unending. Loudoun County's own Economic Development Authority proudly states that there hasn't been a single day without data center construction in more than 13 years.

[06:37:24] Much has been said about the noise. However, I cannot believe that the information brought to light by Dr. John Liver hasn't been given more than a second thought. The fact that his assessment that Bristol-run elementary school's base noise level going from 47 to 69 decibels hasn't given anyone pause on this panel is staggering. And by looking at the map, you may as well put Chris Young Elementary inside of one of the data centers. These youngest students of the Princeton County school system are its most vulnerable, and it appears that no real effort

[06:38:00] has been made to protect them. With that, with what we've learned tonight about these brand new sound abatement rules that are being proffered that we think will work why are we willing to experiment on those on these on our children but oh the tax revenue that will fix everything won't it over the last seven years the county has targeted data centers as a growth industry we now have 38 existing centers 13 more under construction right now apparently this tax boon hasn't been enough uh as the county saw fit to levy a four percent tax on prepared foods further hurting our struggling restaurants industry this past July. These data centers do not belong in

[06:38:40] neighborhoods. They are not bringing jobs. They're not bringing revenue. They will clog our roads and destroy our communities. These data centers are coming here because you targeted them with low tax rate and smooth approval process. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Clifton Bukowski. I live in Victory Lakes, literally a stone's throw from this development. My house is only the second closest house to this thing. I back up to Devlin Road. I've lived here for 20

[06:39:17] years. We moved out here to enjoy a nice, quiet, peaceful neighborhood, and it's changing. Noise mitigation in and to itself cannot be left to devices of developers who gains approval and pass it on to the next person in line. They're basically going to sell this to the next guy.

[06:39:33] Along Devlin Road, there are no noise mitigation efforts beyond the 100-foot path of trees. And they're deciduous trees. So in the wintertime, there are no leaves. As far as I know, trees have never been used to mitigate sound, only to block a view.

[06:39:52] So in the wintertime, it doesn't block anything. Quiet and enjoying my property, it basically takes away my outdoor time. So anytime in the summertime when it gets hotter and they run these things a lot more, it's a lot noisier. I basically can't enjoy my outdoors.

[06:40:08] Although I heard mention of concern over residents who may use well water for drinking in this area, I haven't heard any mention of the diesel generators to be used in this facility and other sources of potential groundwater contamination.

[06:40:24] I've not heard any concern about the effects of potential groundwater to wildlife. Now, I live just across the street, and there's creeks that run from this property that feed Victory Lakes. Those lakes are bodies of waters and streams that we like, we enjoy.

[06:40:40] They've added much more wildlife. I've seen, since I've lived there 20 years, I've seen a lot more wildlife, including more fish, beavers, crawfish, snails, possums, raccoons, waterfowl, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and other insects have flourished. I know this for a fact.

[06:40:56] These streams and lakes feed our groundwater in this parcel, come from this parcel that's supposed to be re-zoned. I've located several groundwater springs just out the backyard of my property, just off of Victory Lakes. Those springs come from the water that comes from this property.

[06:41:13] If you're going to blast, if you're going to build, you're going to have runoff. You're going to have sediment. You're going to have potential contamination from anything that's coming from this property. Noise detrimental to our children's education, as well as my quiet enjoyment of my backyard, needs to be replaced with continued growth and the natural sounds that we hear.

[06:41:31] As an architect, I understand why developers are mentally trying to maximize their return on investment, their IRR. Stanley Martins is basically looking for the highest, best use so they can make their money back. Look, they're home developers. They're not developers of data centers.

[06:41:48] They're just trying to push this along, take their cash. They're going to the bank. They're going to leave the next guy to figure out how to worm their way through the loopholes to get this done. I urge the council to vote no for this. You haven't heard anybody positive that said anything positive about this tonight, and I guarantee you everybody is against it.

[06:42:06] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Jackie summer and I have lived in the Brentsville district for 25 years. I have concerns about the noise pollution from noise and pollution from diesel generators. Prince William County land use guidelines require extensive and extraordinary mitigation efforts when placing incompatible land use areas adjacent to each other such as an elementary school next to an industrial zone. Putting these data centers next to elementary schools is like putting our children on Interstate 95. The noise and pollution in diesel fumes from their generators will impact academic performance of the children in western

[06:42:44] Prince William County the proposed buildings are also way too tall for this residential area the only extraordinary mitigation that can be done to blend the data centers in in is to build them in industrial areas sorry far from far from property lines noise levels are going to be an issue just as they already are in other parts of the county if you can say extensive and extraordinary mitigation measures can effectively address all compatibility concerns I would worry less about the impacts of this project but I have zero faith in this board. These are our homes, our schools, our family's livelihoods that you are considering zoning away without proper consideration for its impact. Rather than rezoning the land for

[06:43:24] data centers, keep the zoning residential and build the 516 homes as they are desperately needed due to the housing shortage. At the very least, please delay the vote until you have a full board. Remember, you will only stay in your current seat if we the people vote you back in. If you vote to rezone the land industrial we will do everything in our power to vote you out of that seat flat on your arse thank you next speaker please and while this person is coming up um number 76 77 and 78

[06:43:56] can come up thank you for the opportunity to address the board regarding my grave concern with the growing number of data centers in the prince william county my name is joaquin azero i live in linton hall manor community at the intersection of linton hall and devlin roads in the Brentsville District. As a data center professional with 25 years of experience in the industry, I've built, outfitted, renovated, repaired, developed, and run data centers around the country, but mostly in the Washington, D.C. area. I know data centers and can address some of

[06:44:35] the concerns that Supervisors Vega and Lawson have brought up. Allow me to address a few. Data centers are loud. What is the loudest are the diesel generators that are used as backup power supply in the event of power outages. These gen sets activate within 30 seconds of a power outage, and will run until primary electric is restored.

[06:44:58] The gensets must be stress-tested weekly to ensure that they respond during an outage. They can run indefinitely, and they are deafening. It's basically like standing next to a tractor-trailer.

[06:45:13] You can't stand it. I don't know the decibel rating. It can't be good for your hearing. There are also many other devices that increase the amount of noise pollution, namely chillers, pumps, rooftop units, and basically all the devices used to operate what is essentially a big refrigerator running, cooling the servers that are inside the data center.

[06:45:46] Sound attenuation products are insignificant as they obstruct the heat dissipation that's needed to cool down these devices. They're open air. They don't do much good. I can confirm the concerns that many residents have brought up.

[06:46:05] However, my biggest concern is the impact of the construction in the area. Introduction of a massive amount of commercial vehicles, trucks, trailers, to an already congested area will not prove positive. The number of nails on the road, the mud, the rocks, the flying debris, the broken down haulers, trucks unloading wherever they want.

[06:46:30] As I mentioned, I know data centers. I know their impact. I question the need to shoehorn data centers into every available lot in the county. why. There are areas in the county that are set aside for commercial development. I personally experienced the downturn in the data center industry from 2005 to 2015 when buildings along the dullest access toll roads had empty for a decade. Upon resumption of demand, the designs of these idle buildings no longer suffice the industry standards. So they said, if you want to see what happened, you may witness the large number of 40-foot buildings along Pacific Boulevard and

[06:47:06] ashburn that have been painfully repurposed and some remain empty to this day that's what you want in this area thank you your time is up thank you next speaker please yeah just hello good evening i'm connie cernuke i'm in the brunsville district uh concerns regarding the data centers uh the industrial noise pollution on people's health and well-being the impact on bristol commons

[06:47:45] businesses, and the type of businesses that could move into these data centers. There are nine established neighborhoods, three schools, and 13 businesses that either share a property line with or are within very close proximity to the Devlin property under review.

[06:48:05] Two of the schools, Chris Young Elementary is at the top of the property in question, and Bristow Montessori School is at the bottom of the, or beside, the property in question. They both have outside playgrounds.

[06:48:21] The young children and the supervising adults would be intensely exposed to the data center noise pollution and the electromagnetic radiation from the additional transmission lines and power substations required to power the data centers.

[06:48:38] How will this constant noise pollution and electromagnetic field radiation affect the health of the supervising adults and the health and developing brains and bodies of these young children. I'm also very concerned about the impact of the industrial noise on businesses in Bristow Commons. Of the 13 businesses, there are four restaurants that have outside dining. So the industrial noise will especially impact the financial success of these independent businesses? How many customers will want to sit outside to dine with the constant

[06:49:17] loud buzzing sound? Also, what type of businesses could move into the data centers? Could these data centers be used for cryptocurrency mining? Many countries and even the state of New York have banned companies from cryptocurrency mining due to the excessive amount of power that the crypto mining data centers consume and the enormous amount of e-waste they generate. Whether data

[06:49:53] centers are used for crypto mining or other purposes, we need accountability and regulation on data centers within Prince William County. Limits should be set on what data centers can be used for, the noise levels, electricity usage, emissions, and e-waste limits. We need to make sure that prince william county will be able to support all its existing residents schools and businesses without uncertainty regarding electric blackouts lack of water or sewer services data

[06:50:30] centers should be restricted to industrial zoned areas and never built beside existing neighborhoods and schools please protect our communities please protect our children thank you please protect prince william county vote no thank you next speaker please hi i'm todd tapp i uh moved into the brentsville district recently along with my entire family so i could be with my grandchildren uh and that was about six months ago so imagine my surprise but uh i was wondering if i could

[06:51:06] indulge you guys and ask for five minutes because uh i am i was what was called a global engagement leader for eds so i spent 15 years creating three minutes but okay all right well i mean i want to offer some hard information about data centers.

[06:51:21] This is not political in any way. It's just information. Regarding the one gentleman who was asking about generators before, for the type of size of this and for who Stantec will probably sell it to, I don't know who, but I'm guessing Amazon, Microsoft, Google, something like that, you're looking at 100 megawatt data center.

[06:51:40] Generally, you can shoehorn about 4 and 1/2 of those into the space that you have. So here's a couple of facts. 100 megawatt generator will go through 369-- sorry, 101 million gallons of water a day in consumption.

[06:51:56] That's 369 million gallons a year for one. You can have four and a half roughly in the space that you're talking about. So in Brentsville, there's 80,000 people that consume about 1.7 billion gallons of water a year. One of these centers will consume on the order of, well, sorry, the four of them together will be about 2.3 billion gallons.

[06:52:20] It takes 1.6 to two times as much water to generate the electricity they consume. So for the center that we have here, if it's fully optimized, you'll be consuming between 6 and 7 billion gallons of water for just this place in Devlin Park, as opposed to the 1.7 billion it's currently consumed by people that live here.

[06:52:41] Generators are used to back up these things, and for this type of space, you're going to have close to a million gallons of diesel fuel underground spread across 40 to 60 generators. They're spread across for a number of reasons, and as the very smart person who talked before said, these things are turned on at least monthly and semi-annually for all kinds of load testing and things like that.

[06:53:03] But the water is your biggest concern here. You go through tremendous amounts of water. South Carolina spent two years litigating with Google to get them to reveal how much water they use. There is no industry standard, benchmark government standard for water utilization.

[06:53:20] You're really risking, in conjunction with all the other things you have, running Prince William County dry. And the diesel fuel is a real concern. Children's hearing before the age of 11 or 12 is incredibly sensitive. You can't fix the noise problem.

[06:53:35] It's going to be there. We would always move into rural areas when we did data centers to avoid litigation and so forth because it's something you can't fix. The solution has to be engineered. So the thing is, to wrap it up, I mean, I do this for a living in 20 countries. There are huge holes in this.

[06:53:53] And if you move forward, it's going to kind of be embarrassing for you, I think, because you haven't addressed some of these things that are core issues for data centers. Thanks for listening to me. Thank you. For our next, before our next speaker, I have non-resident speakers, one through six, if any of them are still here.

[06:54:12] Please proceed. Hi, my name is Deanne Lewis, and I live in the Brentsville District for nearly 20 years now. I live in the Victory Lakes community, and I just started my 34th year as an employee in the school division here.

[06:54:30] I'm a school counselor in a middle school, so you can pray for me. Many people have said brilliant things tonight, much of which is over my head, but I came tonight because this is important to us, and these are just my thoughts for you all.

[06:54:51] And I will say to you that my husband and I are praying people, and we've been praying for all of you that you make the right decision. This is what I have to say tonight. proverbs 21 3 says the lord is more pleased when we do what is right and just than when we offer him sacrifices what is right voting no period what is just just say no to data centers near

[06:55:27] schools and neighborhoods remember there is a day of judgment coming for us all we will all stand before God and give an account of what we have done, how we have lived our lives, how we have loved, and how we have treated others. Your decision on behalf of this county and its people matter. I hope you're able to sleep in peace tonight with the correct decision of no. Thank you.

[06:55:59] Thank you. Are any of the non-resident speakers one through six still here? Please proceed.

[06:56:17] Good evening, Honorable Chair, Supervisors. My name is Lou Spencer. I'm the Assistant Business Manager with the United Association Local Union No. 5, Plumbers and Gas Fitters. We are affiliated with the Virginia Building and Construction Trades Council. We represent thousands of plumbers and construction workers residing in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Many work and live in Prince William County. Data center construction has been good for the plumbing and mechanical industry. The data center owners and users have been professional and responsive to the mechanical plumbing and electrical sectors of the building industry. Tens of thousands, possibly

[06:56:54] millions of hours of work have come from data center construction, meaning considerable dollars in decent wages, medical, pension, retirement savings, and apprenticeship training contributions have been earned and those dollars stay in this community in this region. The residents of Prince William are blessed to have this debate. I travel through many regions of Virginia where there is very little, practically no, economic development. Some counties have no economic development director. That said, I want the residents of Prince William County and the board to know that the professional construction trades are eager to build what needs to be built. We will build it on time and under

[06:57:33] budget. We will do it professionally and responsibly. I urge the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to amend the data center opportunity zone overlay district map to incorporate the parcels into the data center opportunity zone overlay district and approve the rezoning for the Devlin Technology Park.

[06:57:52] Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Chair Wheeler. Thank you for the opportunity and supervisors to speak to you tonight. My name is Don Slayman. I'm raised in Annandale and live in Alexandria, Virginia, and I'm here speaking on behalf of my members.

[06:58:10] We have 760 members, Electricians Union, Local 26, that live in this county. A lot of us came earlier this year. A few came tonight on their own. We didn't want to bring everybody out. didn't think it was necessary to once again explain how many great jobs are created there.

[06:58:28] As you see, the slide earlier said there would be 500 jobs per building, 7,000 jobs. Half of those are electrical workers' members of our union. These are great six-figure blue-collar jobs. It's a great opportunity for folks to learn a great trade and a career that will carry them through the rest of their lives to a good retirement.

[06:58:52] Not only do we construct these data centers, but we also maintain them. So the figure's about so few workers working there. We have contracts to maintain. So we have folks going in and out of these data centers on a constant basis. And right now, we have over 1,000 members refurbishing the data centers built 10, 15 years ago in Loudoun County.

[06:59:12] And on top of that, we also do fabrication and modular. So our contractors have sites where they fabricate and prefabricate the components that go in there. And then we also monitor these, and so it's a lot of permanent work for our members.

[06:59:29] And we've grown from 7,000 to 11,600 members over the last five years, predominantly because of these data centers. And these are great six-figure blue-collar jobs, and that's why we're here tonight. And thank you for helping us create these jobs and opportunities for our members. Thank you.

[06:59:44] Next speaker, please. Good evening, Chair Wheeler, members of the board. Jason Asher with the Mid-Atlantic Pipe Trades. I think my colleagues Don and Lou, I think, said it perfectly. I just want to ask you to support this. Thank you.

[07:00:01] Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Madam Chair and members of the board. Greg Ackerman with the Northern Virginia Building Trades. We have about 26,000 members in the region, represent 17 construction unions. You know, most of our members are working at the data centers.

[07:00:19] They have these great jobs. They get free training. And because of the expansion of data centers, we've been able to go into communities in Prince William County and recruit folks who don't necessarily want to go to college but want to be able to work with their hands and live here debt-free.

[07:00:36] Most of our members live in Prince William regardless of whether or not there's work here. So they'll go to D.C. or they'll go to Baltimore in order to get a job that's family-sustaining. And so I think we are excited about this particular project because, you know, we know that the data center market is going to continue to provide these really, really great jobs for the trades that already have great density and market share within the data center industry.

[07:01:02] And we're also going to continue to work with the data centers to ensure that they continue to offer more and more opportunities in trades that are more oftentimes overlooked, particularly immigrant workers. So, you know, we think this is going to be a really, really great opportunity for a lot of marginalized communities in the county to be able to get, you know, really, really great jobs and be able to live here and work here.

[07:01:27] We want to thank you for your support of this project, and we want to thank you for your support of working families in the county. Thanks. Thank you. I believe we're finished with people who have signed up for public common time in person.

[07:01:42] Is there anyone here who has not spoken who, before I close the in-person public comment time, would like to speak? You're welcome to go to the microphone in the back. Just give us your name and generally where you are.

[07:01:57] Hi, I'm Tom Budryka. I'm a Gainesville resident, and it's probably refreshing to see a newer face. I've been in these chambers, but it's been a while, but definitely tapped in online and with the various residents. You know, when you all voted in all these different, you know, data centers and rezonings and changes and comprehensive amendments, I heard the board saying, hey, you know, now's the time to get together, unite, work together and do things.

[07:02:28] Well, you know what? You all have inspired us. We the people, because we have united big time and it's snowballing across multitudes of neighborhoods throughout this county.

[07:02:43] It's simple. it's like the kiss method okay keep it simple stupid data centers do not belong in residential areas it's that simple it's a non-starter we shouldn't even be like wasting all this time talking about this and deferring it and going on and doing studies that it doesn't belong there let's move on to some real business i'm telling you data centers in this county they're getting

[07:03:21] a bad reputation. I mean, listen up, Stanley Martin, is this what you really want? I mean, the people don't want it there by the neighborhoods. I don't think you like hearing from all these neighbors and neighborhoods, and we don't either. You know, you might want to learn from Disney America. Yeah, it's been brought up back in 1993. You know, we had Chairman Seafeld bouncing around here with mouse ears, you know, Disney this, Disney that, you know, next to a national battlefield. You know, just like some other rezonings that have been, not rezonings,

[07:03:58] but as amendments that have been approved in the Gainesville district, none other than Brentsville now, potentially. You know, let's stop this nonsense. I tell you, you know, if the supervisors that are up here right now, if you're so for it, and let's say this goes through, let's put your names behind these different buildings in a plaque so you'll be long remembered the ones that voted it in okay because i can tell you this next thing we're gonna you know i'm not a big predictor of the future but i can tell you one thing i think we're gonna have a new slate

[07:04:34] of people up here but you want to vote this in you'll be remembered for doing the data centers in residential areas where they don't belong non-starters so take heed you know behoove the advice listen to the people stanley martin i mean listen i mean you know disney went through this and through this and that you know it's like maybe you should just withdraw these applications in areas where they don't belong you know because what you're doing is you're setting a precedent and they're coming in and you know sir thank you is there anyone else here who would like to go up

[07:05:13] to the microphone just yeah just go up and just make sure you say your name and generally where you live in the county please first of all good morning and i'd like to thank you all for the opportunity on behalf of my friends, family, and neighbors to speak. My name is Jeff Schneider. I've resided in Sheffield Manor since 2011. Like every other resident here, I am here tonight to ask that you deny the rezoning application for Devlin Technology Park. My daughter attends Chris Young Elementary, and the plans, if approved as they exist today, will engulf that school on three sides with 95-foot buildings and a constant drone that will make it more difficult to concentrate

[07:05:48] indoors and decrease the quality of all outdoor activities from the moment the first one come online. The explosives needed to blast the bedrock will disrupt classrooms on a regular basis for years and years to come. My friends and neighbors have already made most of the points I came here to make so I've trimmed the vast majority of this so as not to waste your time but I do want to break this down to the most fundamental argument I can. You do not have the necessary studies in hand to make an informed decision at this time. Those studies are ultimately meant to do one thing and one thing only. Quantify the harm that operating these massive buildings does to the surrounding

[07:06:25] area. That area includes your constituents' private homes and our public schools. We then ask an expert to make a determination as to what is an acceptable level of harm and then mitigate to that point and no further. This study and this determination obfuscates a very simple truth, that harm is done regardless of the quantity. Voting to rezone this area does harm to our children both in the classroom and outside of it. We can debate the amount of harm but not the fact that harm is done please vote no and do no harm to our children thank you thank you next speaker

[07:07:00] please hello my name is jenny cobble and i live in the brentsville district and um i live in victory lakes and i just want to thank you for um for being willing to listen to us and i had i came tonight to you know hear everything not to speak but i do want to be heard um my husband works for the State Department. And so we travel every three years to different countries. And we bought our

[07:07:35] home in 2011, not really thinking that we would be, you know, staying here. And we did, in fact, leave for three years. We went to Bulgaria. This is the very first time in our lives that we ever moved back someplace because we just love Victory Lakes and the people that we live around. And this really is going to affect us and i know that we're just a small community but we're your community and we have nothing against data centers and we're so happy that that you guys all have you

[07:08:10] know jobs that are grown from them at all but i'm with everybody else i don't think they should be this close to our homes so for stanley martin perhaps you guys could maybe reconsider and build homes there instead. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, my name is Tim Judd. I live in Victory Lakes in the Brentsville District. You know, I grew up in Prince William County. I was born in Prince William County. I actually grew up off Hornbaker Road when it was a two-lane road

[07:08:47] and nothing but farmland, and we see what it is now. Something I've heard addressed today, I've been a police officer for 20 years. I actually just got off work and made it a point to come by here instead of going home to go to bed you know I keep hearing that you know the noise code and the violations and you know people are going to call the police officers and they're going to say this noise is droning it's keeping me up and we're the ones that show up and we're the ones that have to deal with it and we have to look them in the face and be like well there's nothing we can do because the fact that it was passed by the board of supervisors and there's no tools for us to enforce it and the citizens look at us and they get

[07:09:26] frustrated and they're like well why aren't you doing your job why aren't you doing something. It lays here with you. You're the ones passing this. It is your responsibility to make sure it's reasonable and give the police officers some sort of enforcement mechanism, and you can't do that. I was on the phone all night listening to this so I could speak, and thankfully I was able to get here in time. So it just blows my mind that this is going to be enforced, jammed down our throats, and everyone's going to have to sit there and listen to this, and nobody's going to be able to do anything. It was approved for residential. Leave it right residential and don't put a data center in our backyards so we have to deal with this time and

[07:10:06] time again for as long as we live there. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any, is there anyone else before I close the in-person public hearing? This will officially close the in-person public hearing and I will turn it over to Vice Chair Bodie to do our online public hearing. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[07:10:28] Ms. Van, let's begin. Your next speaker is Laura Harders. Good morning, Board of County Supervisors.

[07:10:43] This is Laura Harders from the Gainesville District. Tonight, we have heard county staff and the applicant present the Devlin Technology Park, and the citizens have been resoundingly against this rezoning application.

[07:10:59] I have a few remarks that I wish to make at this early hour. First, we heard tonight, once again, about the purpose of the overlay district, and that was to protect private properties.

[07:11:15] Secondly, we also heard that the Devlin Tech Park will keep the overlay largely contiguous. However, this still expands and goes outside of the overlay district.

[07:11:33] Thirdly, we heard that site design issues and the type of equipment could be used to mitigate the noise issues, but it could not be guaranteed. We heard that engineering could solve these issues, and Ms. Dawes did note that these proffers were the most comprehensive noise proffers that have been offered, and it is the best that they can do.

[07:11:57] However, citizens still have concerns and have said this is not good enough. Supervisor Franklin, you noted that these type of proffers should be applied to other data centers in the future, and that darn it, it's the furthest we've ever gotten.

[07:12:15] Although I do applaud the effort, I must say again, the citizens cannot accept this. I also want to point out that the IT3 designation, which was just adopted in December, was done without the knowledge of the vast majority of the Bristow residents.

[07:12:39] I stand with the residents of Bristow in asking you to vote no on the Devlin Tech Park. And I want to point out that it has been a breath of fresh air to hear the true input of people regarding the siting of data centers in inappropriate places by our parks, homes, and schools.

[07:13:00] And unlike the PW Digital Gateway applicants who are quite noticeably missing and absent from this meeting and public hearing, it is not the best interest of our schools. This will hurt our schools.

[07:13:16] Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Harder. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Bianca Ricketts. Hi, my name is Bianca. I am a resident of the Brentsville District.

[07:13:39] I am trying to share a video that I made this weekend, but it doesn't sound like I will be able to. So I will just move on with my speech. I live near the Dublin Technology Park proposal, and I'm here today to oppose the rezoning from residential to industrial.

[07:13:57] I am very concerned about what the residents will endure if this rezoning is approved. This rezoning has the potential of bringing about many issues, but I chose today to speak about the noise because I think it will significantly impact our children who have not a say on this yet.

[07:14:17] As you know, the proposed rezoning area is adjacent to Christy Young Elementary School and there is a proposed buffer of 100 feet. In the video that I made this weekend, I was right next to hard drives and cooling fans and I measured 57 to 59 decibels in each place.

[07:14:38] And all I heard was a constant high-pitched noise that made me uncomfortable to stand next to for two minutes. I cannot imagine children standing in this noise, which would be compliant with the noise ordinance if that would be, even if that would be applicable 24-7.

[07:15:01] These kids will play outside listening to this hum, will go to school listening to this hum because kids don't leave the district very often like we do when we go to work. Stanley Martin has claimed to have incorporated the noise ordinance into their proffers, but have also conceded during community meetings that they do not know how this would be enforced.

[07:15:24] We heard today how any enforcement action against a proffer violation would take a very long time. Another issue I have with their proffer is that they're proposing sound barriers, but also during a meeting that we had with Stanley Martin, they said that the barriers will very likely not be 95 feet tall.

[07:15:45] So an 80-foot building with a 15-foot mechanical equipment on top of it, which would likely be the culprit of the noise we're concerned about, the barrier would make no sense, nor would be effective.

[07:16:02] Even if HVACs are excluded from the current noise ordinance exemption, which they should be, do we really want our children subject to that constant hum, even within the ordinance? The area of the proposed rezoning today is a residential area.

[07:16:21] This board believed that that was an appropriate zoning a couple of years ago. I am in favor of that rezoning to keep it residential. I am in favor of the residential rezoning in that area, and I am not in favor of the industrial rezoning.

[07:16:40] So I ask you to please vote no today. Thank you, Ms. Ricketts. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Elspeth McCormick. good evening madam chair and supervisors my name is elspeth mccormick and i am the brentsville district in amberley station i am the parent of two young school-aged children and i share the same concerns as my fellow community members that you have heard from this evening but i am

[07:17:16] most concerned about the significant health and safety issues for our students as the short and long-term effects of the noise generated by data centers has not been studied data centers run 24/7 with their cooling equipment producing unending monotone pitches at frequencies similar to human speech which the human ear focuses on. This hum is estimated to be heard within a two-mile radius.

[07:17:42] Our schools in the Bristow and Gainesville area are about to be inundated with noise pollution. Our children will wake up in homes 100 feet from droning data centers. They will go to school 100 feet from more droning data centers. They will hear construction noise, which is anticipated for the next decade when they go out to recess, and they'll continue to hear it when they get off the bus at home. What will the long-term effects be? How will this impact their learning and cognitive growth? Our children do not deserve to be the guinea pigs in this scenario. I am imploring you

[07:18:19] to please deny this rezoning so that all of us who live in this area, and in particular our children, can continue to enjoy the quality of life that we were seeking when we moved to this area. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. McCormick. Next speaker, please.

[07:18:36] Your next speaker is Carla Silas. Good evening. My name is Carla Silas. I've been a proud resident of the Potomac District for 29 years. I hear you.

[07:18:52] We hear you. It's a sentiment I often hear from my very own district supervisor. But does she really? Does anyone on the board of county supervisors really hear us? We aren't asking, we're begging. Please stop.

[07:19:08] Please stop approving data centers that will in all probability be obsolete before the county sees any financial benefit. Please stop taxing data centers at lower rates just so they'll come to Prince William County, as neighboring counties have found out did nothing for them.

[07:19:30] And please stop accepting campaign money from developers who want the land for data centers. Would you hear us if all of our last names were Stanley or Martin? Why is the Board of County Supervisors so determined to put data centers near schools and homes?

[07:19:52] Why is the Planning Commission approving data centers without pertinent noise studies? Please vote no on the request to rezone the Devlin Area Tech Park, or at least have the decency to wait until those in the Gainesville District have representation.

[07:20:16] And please take note, we hear you too, and we are hearing that we, as citizens, don't matter. Well, we do matter. Thank you, Ms. Silas. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is William Caparula.

[07:20:35] Hello. My name is William Caparola from the Brentsville District. I live across the street from where you're planning on building this center. Major concerns with industrial buildings being built so close to our homes and our schools that our children attend. I have two young children that attend these schools that are going to be negatively impacted, one of which is special needs. So yeah, I have a huge problem with this. We've consistently been told from builders and other things that they're going to do this and they're going to do that. But we've seen so many

[07:21:15] times and times again that all their promises usually don't come true. They usually are false promises that are out there to appease us. And then when they come to fruition, whatever the word is, when it comes to being built, they don't do what they're supposed to do. The people that live in our community work hard for their homes. They want to be able to feel like they have their investments with them we right now we feel like we're being robbed you guys putting industrial buildings in neighborhoods that it doesn't belong there i don't understand where that came that's just common sense i don't understand who looked at linton hall manor and said hey there's these

[07:21:54] schools and there's these these houses let's put these industrial buildings there who would do that that feels like a money grab to me it doesn't feel like somebody that's supporting us we voted you guys in to protect us to to work for us and you guys aren't doing that you're doing the opposite of it. What you're doing is protecting your interests, not the interests of the people that voted you in. And it's really maddening and it's angering. My kids, my wife and I, we've had so many up and down feelings between hurt and anger and frustration. My kids only know one home. And now we're thinking about we may have to move because we're going to be so close to these stupid

[07:22:30] things that we're not going to be able to even enjoy our life in our neighborhood. This is absurd. And why this is even a topic of conversation. And for those gentlemen that came in here and are preaching about their jobs great yeah we do need jobs not those jobs in these neighborhoods you want to have jobs and have these people do these data centers and do all this and have these all these wonderful six-figure jobs you talked about great go put them out in the data form that you already have go put them somewhere else where people don't live you want those jobs you take those jobs where they belong they don't belong where we eat and where we sleep and where our kids play

[07:23:05] this is ridiculous and absurd and i don't i never in my i told my wife i feel like i'm in a movie I've never in my entire life ever thought I'd be part of something like this. This is insane. And I have no clue what you guys are thinking or what you're doing, who initiated.

[07:23:22] I don't know. But you just need to look yourselves in the mirror and ask yourselves what you're doing. Because if this was your kids, you guys would be fighting this too. This is the most insane, ridiculous thing I've ever seen done to this county. Whatever. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

[07:23:40] Next speaker, please. I was on mute the whole fucking time. I wasn't. Your next speaker is Stephanie Capparola. Hi. Sorry. I am following my husband.

[07:24:02] You're not on mute. We can hear you. We can also hear your husband. And I am just as excited as he is. We are here to protect our family. I spoke earlier at the press conference. We have lived here since 2007.

[07:24:18] We were part of... A thing that brought families into, that were teachers, firemen, and policemen. We've raised our, my children were born in this house.

[07:24:35] We're also teachers. I've been a teacher for 18 years in the county, and I love my students. And the thought of having any child having to endure loud noises or extra stimulus that they already are dealing with, they're already dealing with, we had the pandemic, we had, we have technology everywhere.

[07:25:05] and now we're gonna say oh sorry we're taking away your nature we're taking away things that make you maybe have a normal life um it's not it's not okay with me so also tonight earlier tonight I heard that you know something about if this doesn't go through that we will owe money back to Stanley Martin for something about the roadway I'm like I don't even understand

[07:25:39] why we've taken money from them in the first place so that's something um that i want to talk about uh the pictures that they showed all had full trees um right now i can see straight through my my my bedroom backs up to where i live off of linton hall right across from the devlin center um the trees do not look like that even in the summer they don't look like that so i don't know if they were showing doctor pictures. I have no idea. I also want to talk about the proffer.

[07:26:16] Is a proffer a promise? I don't think it is. And I think the board knows this. So we are basically pleading because we don't want to move. We're teachers. Me and my husband are both teachers. We want to stay in our community. But if you put a data center across from us, we are going to be forced to leave because we cannot we will not raise our children across from a concrete jungle where their mental health is going to be at stake where our mental health is

[07:26:54] going to be at stake um so we're asking you to say no to this we're asking you to to stop this it's it's it's it's saddening to us we are so sad thank you thank you next speaker please Your next speaker is Catherine O'Connor.

[07:27:26] Good evening, Madam Chair and County Board of Supervisors. I am Catherine O'Connor in Sheffield Manor, and I'm also on the HOA board. I echo the sentiments of my fellow board member, Kevin Smith, our president.

[07:27:41] Our residents are totally against this. I will say one thing. It has been very interesting to attend every single one of the meetings held the past week, including the town hall meeting that Supervisor Lawson held, because it brought our communities together for a unified reason. Everyone does not want the data centers. It's understood. In particular for us, for Sheffield Manor, we are environmentally concerned for two reasons. One of which is we're already being impacted by the University Boulevard Extension Project. A lot of our residents are upset about that. They don't like it. It is causing

[07:28:20] some havoc and a lot of tension within our community. So to have the data centers on top of this compounds it. In addition to that, we just got approved by the state. We're working with agencies to have our trail and our major university pond converted to a wetland. It's going to impact our wildlife. I did do some research. I contacted an agency about the impact that noise has on wildlife, and it is very detrimental. It affects their reproduction rights. It impacts their hearing. It reduces the population. We have 18 species within our community right now, and that

[07:28:58] is to our advantage. We have a beautiful pond. We have wonderful wildlife. We're going to lose some of that because of the noise. And I know that for a fact because we looked up the MIT study that they did on the Chandler, Arizona data centers, and the DB level was off the chart. And over a long-term that causes animals to not want to live here. We have falcons, birds, Canadian geese, 18 species total. So that's on that side. But on the other side, the environmental side, we've lost so many trees. A lot of our residents are very upset about looking down University and

[07:29:36] seeing where the road's going to be connecting across Devlin. The buffer zone is a no-brainer. 100 feet is nothing. We need more than that if this was to be approved. Understand, though, we are against it. We do not want the data centers there. We would much rather prefer that Stanley Martin did residential. So I'm asking you as our supervisors to please take into consideration that Sheffield Manor is greatly against this. Our residents are hoping and praying that this is come to fruition, but do your homework, do your research. Thank you so much.

[07:30:10] Thank you, Ms. O'Connor. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Delton Nichols. So, good morning, supervisors. And I have modified my comments because I don't want to repeat something that has already been repeated. But a data center does not belong next to a residential neighborhood. That's just like building a racetrack, a drag strip, a firing range, a strip club next to a residential neighborhood. They just don't mix. It's just like having a skunk

[07:30:49] colony next to a residential neighborhood. They stink the place up. You smell them 24-7, 365. Your friends don't want to drop by and visit. Relatives do not want to come by and spend time and visit. And you don't even want to go to your own home. You want to try to find another place to live because it's so unpleasant. I'm talking about data centers. So Stanley Martin doesn't care about communities that they encroach upon with data centers. They only care about dollars

[07:31:25] and winning and getting what they want at the expense of residential communities like Devlin Road. By the way, I'm in the Occoquan district. And if you approve that request, you will enable this bully to make life miserable for a lot of taxpaying county residents. So the question because. Why would you side with Stanley Martin and the likes of Amazon instead of protecting the taxpaying county citizens? Is it because of quick growth? They scratch your back by giving you

[07:32:03] financial contributions to your re-election campaign, and in turn, you give them whatever they ask for? Well, what about the taxpaying citizens who elected you and pay your salaries? Do you think that it constitutes ethical, political behavior to betray them, to turn your back on them at a time such as this when they need you to have their backs?

[07:32:30] So if you approve this, you are not worthy of the trust placed in you by those who cast their ballots to elect you. So many of us in this county are watching you, and we are attentive enough to connect the dots and to reach the conclusion that the same way that you treat these residents in the Devlin Road area with data centers will be the same way that you would betray us if when we are in need and we need you to have our backs.

[07:33:02] So that is why we stand with them. This time, will you have our back? And will you stand with the tax-paying residents of Prince William County?

[07:33:19] Supervisors, we need you, and we need you now. Where are your loyalties? Thank you very much, and have a good morning. Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Next speaker, please. Your next speaker is Erica Weaver.

[07:33:36] Good morning, Chair Wheeler and other board members. My name is Erica Weaver. I'm a resident of the Brentsville District. I want you all to vote no on rezoning of Dentlin Road property. The proposed 4 million square foot hyperscale data park is an unfathomably large site. You cannot properly proffer or mitigate something that no one has

[07:34:08] physical experience with. This is still an unvalidated concept. The developer and the county staff are all relying on modeling and simulation, which is only as good as the data used to inform your models. Plainly, we are being told by a developer, trust me and my models, as he pocks an unfathomably large sum of money and walks away. The project has more questions

[07:34:40] than answers. Residential adjacent properties are not for experimental industrial tech development. Until you physically experience a successful data center on this scale that you would want in your backyard, please do not vote to put this one in mind.

[07:35:02] You have two choices tonight for staff-recommended developments, yes or no. Yes is a large, unvalidated project with unknown consequences for mental and physical health, unclear methods of regulation, and unproven mitigation measures.

[07:35:22] No is a needed housing development with common and familiar issues that have established methods of resolution that your staff has experience with. Please vote no and preserve our community.

[07:35:41] Regarding the sound proffer questions brought up before the public comments, please look at the Warrington Sound Ordinance. It covers eight bans. The Stanley Martin proffer shows three. Amazon is having a very hard time with it.

[07:35:57] Strangely enough, your staff decided not to include their ordinance in the staff report, even though many other neighboring areas were reviewed. I have to assume this is because it was over our head. We need to understand this before we can regulate it. We need to regulate it before we build it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Weaver. Next

[07:36:26] speaker, please. Your next speaker is Luann Reuter. Hi, my name is Luann Reuter and I live in the Brensfield District and I had more to say, but I'm going to make it short because I've got to go to work in four hours. My family and I have lived in Prince William County for well over 30 years and in victory legs for the last 15. To make certain, you know that our family and our immediate neighbors

[07:37:05] are 100% against the data centers in the proposed Devlin Technology Park. Without going through a laundry list of the negative impacts of data centers near a residential area about which you are already informed, we are personally concerned about aesthetics, noise, housing prices, and changing the character of the county from a rural oasis to a checkered industrial belt. The box attempt to foist the data center project on the community is not supported by us, our family, or anyone that we know in our community. As to aesthetics, we're not persuaded at all that developments and building

[07:37:43] structure and masking the facilities will not damage the natural beauty of the area. We understand that everyone wants their data and speedy internet service, as do we, but not if it means changing the character of our neighborhoods these data centers would be a blight if the box intend on bringing more data centers to prince william county we have many excellent industrial parks and other areas that are remote enough to house the data centers needed to serve our county's residents without ruining homes and neighborhoods neither we nor our neighbors will vote again again for box members who are in favor of proceeding with the devlin data center plan

[07:38:21] and we hope that you hear us thank you and have a good night thank you for your comments next speaker please your next speaker is Vida Carroll hey um good evening Vida Carroll um I said I wasn't gonna speak tonight well I went to sleep but you know what I woke up um and you guys are still going uh I bet you guys really wish you lowered speaker comment time about now um but you know what I just thought it was so funny like I didn't watch all the speakers but I'm pretty

[07:38:59] sure not a single person was in favor um and once you take landholders profiting out of the equation it's just kind of funny how these hearings go um i mean i'm opposed to devlin you guys know that um i have a son with a genetic condition and he has like severe sensory issues you know he can't even drive in the car when it's raining without having a full-blown meltdown panic attack um and you know it's something we obviously are working on with him with his therapy team and

[07:39:37] everything but you know if he has to go to school in this with like that kind of noise like that's just it just sucks um what else nothing else um the only other thing i thought was funny mr young i guess he can't build data centers he can't build houses he said so like what can he do I guess I know he's throwing you guys some nice benefit dinners developed dinners to get you guys fundraisers for the developers is that all Mr. Young is good for and if so is is that going

[07:40:16] to get this project passed um and that's a real shame for the people who who live in Brentsville and the people who live in Gainesville without representation whose kids go to Chris Young which i think is about 500 students or so um you know as usual just do better um thanks to miss supervisor lawson for holding town halls on this um and being you know a big enough person to say i made a mistake and um i hear my constituents um which is a lot more than the rest of you can

[07:40:55] say so um i think i'm the last one so i'm gonna go back to sleep and i'm sure i'll wake up to this having passed but maybe maybe i'll be surprised this time so thanks thank you miss carroll next speaker please there are no more speakers for this public hearing thank you so much miss van for all your help have a good night thank you miss van and thank you uh vice chair bode for doing remote public comment time this will officially close our public hearing for standard agenda item 12a

[07:41:31] the rezoning 2022-00022 of devlin technology park in the brentsville magisterial district okay um there are a couple ways to proceed i see we have people who already have some questions so i'll i'll start with uh supervisor bode and then supervisor franklin supervisor lawson we'll give you time if you want to get up and late after that to talk about some of the issues that people brought up and i'm sure we still have some questions so uh supervisor brody thank you madam chair um question for the for the applicant um a lot was talked about in regards to the buffers

[07:42:09] uh you know 100 foot buffer here 50 foot buffer there 30 foot buffer here and there um and it's clear that a lot of folks that have voiced concerns that they don't feel like that's nearly enough buffer even though this is again as said by staff this is a more significant buffer than we've seen in the past with other dentist or projects around even this area is there something that you all can do can we

[07:42:38] maybe double those buffers you need to turn the mic on sorry can you give me

[07:42:54] one second to answer that question for you thanks the mouse isn't working

[07:43:35] properly or else I could sort of respond better. But the 100-foot buffer along Lane Hall Road, it's okay. It's fine. We can talk through it. It just requires people to look at the screen a little harder at 1 o'clock in the morning. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. So we could double the buffer along Lane Hall Road, make that 200 feet. The buffer along Devlin Road, make that

[07:44:13] 200 feet and then the buffer where linear farms is in christian elementary school that 100 foot buffer there and then right in there yes not where the cul-de-sac is but where the 100 foot buffer is in that area sure and some of the comments that i've received from folks also in regards to that

[07:44:41] buffer that adjoins the shopping center on the corner can anything be done with that buffer sorry of supervisor Bodie the buffer along the backside of the shopping center right now behind the Montessori school was proposed at 50 feet currently the owner of the Montessori school requested that in lieu of the 50-foot buffer that we

[07:45:15] had an option for a community garden within 30 I think 35 feet of of that buffer so it still maintains a minimum 15-foot buffer oh but has a community garden i guess that for vegetables i believe mr patel was explaining to me um i mean we could you know we could get that buffer to to 100 feet as long as it left that that community garden concept in it that's okay i mean if he if he was a community garden i obviously wouldn't want to

[07:45:46] override that right sure um so so i appreciate that my next question just frankly can i get clarity please currently the 200 the 100 foot buffer is an undisturbed buffer with supplemental planning planting so would you want those proffers to then say instead of 100 feet 200 feet yeah and i was about to get to that part um because the other thing i've seen happen it was mentioned by some of the speakers is sometimes there's also berms behind it right it would it be possible

[07:46:20] to put berms behind the 100 foot buffer that currently exists we could is it more important to have a undisturbed buffer versus a berm because right now we could possibly do 200 feet undisturbed and put any supplemental plantings required to be on a berm or we can do 100 feet

[07:46:49] and then clear and do 100 foot berm but it i think preservation is better i think preservation is better too i'm just also still concerned about view sheds when it comes to being able to see in and and what have you and but i i still assume that there would still be the walls the sound walls that you're okay so i think preservation might be better but of course i'll i'll let other folks jump in on that it was that is that clear enough i'm sorry yes like yes that's clear

[07:47:24] to clear visual oh yeah um yeah sure so the the only other thing that i really wanted to bring up at this moment before uh before going to somewhere else is just that entire sort of i guess it's north technically if you're actually on a map but it's east or to the right on this everything on that dividing line to the right of the university boulevard extension um that whole entire area

[07:47:59] behind la linear la linear farms that whole entire area behind chris young um i one of the biggest reasons why i i voted against the cpa um and why i i continue to be have difficulty with this is that we're literally putting in this case on this side of the road data centers right up against people's houses like literally right up against their backyards and I have issues with that I have issues with us also putting it within such close proximity to the school as well I you know

[07:48:36] I was there literally at last night at the school and I could see what the folks that took me there literally outside where those data centers would be um and i i mentioned it before there uh there are issues with that not only just from the noise and everything else that people mention but you have especially that back door goes out and right next to that door is where the special needs kids are kids with autism kids with sensory issues kids that this will be affect them a lot more than other other or other types of things um so my ask here is is it at all possible to keep

[07:49:12] everything on that side of University Boulevard as homes. We have to make a phone call. Do you want me to make a phone call and come back? Yeah, that's pretty big, so I don't expect you to just be able to answer that, I guess. So yeah, if you need to make a phone call, okay. Okay.

[07:49:48] Do you want the answer right now? Yeah. I... Well, like, whatever he's calling, he'll call again, I guess I mean this is well incredibly unusual that we would be it was my I apologize I thought we were people were asking questions and we were providing answers that is a very big ask obviously

[07:50:26] I don't have the authority to do Truett said he couldn't make that call so I'm assuming he's calling somebody that can well in full disclosure supervisor Bodie shared his request with the people the the moms that he met with last night which i found out about this evening so i have a hard time believing that this is the first time it's it's it's landed on your ears and mr young's ears so i'm sure that that's literally that you you were you were tagged multiple times in facebook

[07:50:58] last night in a community discussion about this uh so let's let's be transparent here i'm i might have questions too that possibly need to be asked by phone I just can't we can just wait and he's so so is mr. young gonna keep going in and out look I we've got I mean we're at that point where we're talking I didn't realize he was out with the community just to clarify it was an idea that was floated out that I because I've been talking to people about this it wasn't like oh this is

[07:51:36] what I was going to do I literally told the folks that I was with that it was an idea and i float it to them to see what their their thoughts were okay but sorry that was a relatively quick call as the people i work for watching um to make sure we all understand what

[07:52:09] we're talking about we are going to leave the area to university boulevard between chris young and linear farms as residential and leave the or and rezone the other side of university boulevard to data with the increase in buffers that we just talked about?

[07:52:37] Okay. We can figure that out. I mean, effectively, it just has this consolidating, it was not really consolidating everything to the extent possible, to the other side.

[07:52:54] So yeah, we can work through that. We want to figure out a way with the community if everybody feels like this is the best way to get there as far as, you know, proximity to the residential, you know, with the other, I guess, with the other areas, it's not as impactful. So, sure. It's going to require a change to the proffers. So, what I think I'm doing is compiling all of the requests. Supervisor Lawson just said she has more. Compile

[07:53:32] all of the requests and we'll have to take a minute to potentially remove some of the proffers that no longer apply to that portion of the property okay well I have Supervisor Franklin and then Supervisor Lawson I'm just looking do you need clarity I need clarity on what I just said okay so unless you all are a lot better at taking notes than me I was I didn't I I didn't get all

[07:54:03] that down I apologize what I said or the request well what Supervisor Bodie I mean what I what was being circulated was like 300 foot buffer 60 foot or lower in height I don't think you didn't go to that so this was a bit of a surprise to me because I thought you were gonna ask for 300 feet

[07:54:30] versus 200 and then yeah can you repeat that so so far the ask has been 200 200 feet along Devlin linton hall and adjacent to linear farms and the school that was the first ask okay adjacent to

[07:54:56] linear farms but then you all started talking about berms look at that teaching me something new today i'm going home now so i like this i'm gonna take it home um linton hall road 200 feet oh but then i messed it up somehow okay i don't know what happened nika i completely messed up

[07:55:36] okay can i just do it from here where i know how to use the mouse is that okay sure thank you sorry yeah as long as you have a microphone that's fine so what i heard was 200 feet along linton hall 200 feet along devlin and then 200 feet adjacent to linear farms and chris young elementary school

[07:56:11] I then heard that that 200 feet, the preference was preservation, but I'm waiting for confirmation, and that where we need to do supplemental plantings, so in areas where it might not be 200 feet of existing vegetation, we would proffer to do a berm in that area.

[07:56:33] Because of the tree clearings that had previously happened? Correct. That's what I was trying to get to was the tree clearings. Yes. Okay. So with berms, where's Ms. Flanagan's here? Or maybe Mika could answer. What's our plant unit count? And are those going to be obviously young plants and trees, which are going to take years?

[07:57:07] because supervisor bode did say that he's like the rest of us are concerned about the the view shed i mean what what was just replanted where that where that fiber easement was where which i referred to an amberley station is very young vegetation madam chair members of the board my name is julie flanagan i'm the county's arborist in the department of public works I'll back up a little bit Supervisor Bodie what you were saying about berm

[07:57:44] versus preservation so I think one of the things we would want to look at is what is the existing tree cover within those 200 foot widths the area obviously was logged some years ago there has been some regrowth so it may be worth keeping that regrowth it may be worth not keeping it and using supplemental plantings on a berm the standard of planting is going to depend upon the width if we're talking it'll let's say you have a 50 foot width there's a set 320 50 foot yeah 320 plant units per 100 linear feet and that could be

[07:58:21] designated to be on the evergreen emphasis so that you would have because most all that area pretty much right now is deciduous and so it is open in the wintertime and by putting evergreen trees in there and evergreen shrubs in there we could have a greater degree of screening at a lower level and upper level year-round they would be small trees to your question and they would take some time to grow and so the at this point what we're talking about are going to be solved through proffers so that would be a change to the proffers

[07:59:00] and it would be something that could be negotiated as to what the density is. We wouldn't necessarily have to stick to a given standard. The current proffer has a standard of 600 plant units per 100 linear feet.

[07:59:17] For a 100-foot-wide buffer, yes. And Supervisor, Madam Chair, and Supervisor Lawson, didn't we have a project in your district not too long ago where you increased that number? That was something totally different. It was different because there was already a plant unit amount that the county arborist wanted.

[07:59:40] So I think that was a bit different. Let me talk to Michelle and Mika and Mark. We have previously proffered on other projects, I think in probably everybody's district now, replantings and the plant unit type and design will be in consultation with the county arborist.

[08:00:01] At minimum, we would do the 600 plant units per 100 linear feet. We can proffer supplemental plantings in the areas where it's needed with a berm, and then the final location designed to be in consultation with the county arborist at site plan.

[08:00:17] And what would the height of the berm be? As high as practicable. In 100 feet, I'm going to do math in my head, so I might need some help with this. Because in 100 feet, you'd have a two-to-one slope, which means you go for every foot that you go over, every two feet you go over, you go up one feet.

[08:00:36] So you could go up as much as 50 feet would be the max in the height of that berm. But it would, am I doing that right? Three to 25? And actually, I'm sorry, I need to change it to a three-to-one slope. So it actually, yeah. How much? More like 30, wouldn't it?

[08:00:57] Yeah, so I'll trust that since my, on the spur of the moment, math's not that great. So maybe a 13, I think it would actually be a little bit taller than that, but 13 feet. 13 feet. 13 feet in height. And then have a plant on top of the 13 feet.

[08:01:13] Well, you would have plantings on the berm, probably on most of the berm. Right. These are important details. Yes. So can I continue with clarity on what you just threw out there and they agreed to?

[08:01:32] Regarding the north of university or whatever direction we're calling that, what did you ask and what did they agree to? If we could keep everything to the right as housing as per our original rezoning back in 2020.

[08:01:51] It sounds to me like you would reduce the rezoning area subject to this proper amendment. Okay, and Mr. Young said yes, right? That was the call he had to make. so what's the proximity now then because if if you're gonna put housing you're gonna build new housing back there well to the right of university now what's the proximity to presumably the data on the other side can we measure that sure

[08:02:29] I would suggest that what's the closest data center between the school and well he's doing that can I just ask that it would just generally remain the same as

[08:03:03] it was in the original rezoning then correct so what the proffers correct so what what did the question was everything on the other side would stay the same in the rezoning so we have a rezoning flat yeah and so then that's it might be helpful I put it up on a screen so you all can see it the rezoning plat essentially has three parcels personal a personal B personal

[08:03:32] see a majority of parcel a is closest to chris young elementary school and it's the last g pin we did the g pins backwards so it's the last g pin in the map so the proffers would only be part of parcel a because university boulevard is located on parcel a well and to go to rewind a little bit now that I've thought through a little bit more I don't see a huge need to increase the

[08:04:08] buffers if it's residential residential residential school right so so if that area is taken out of the proffers then that the old proffers that are or the existing proffers would remain I mean does anyone so I guess then my question is do we remember what is this currently sort of what where the old buffers were with the previous rezoning do we know can I answer Supervisor

[08:04:43] Lawson's question about the spacing you're asking specifically what the generally what the housing distance would be or that distance from the houses in that area of the project to the data centers that would be on the other side of university would be roughly 500 feet the one that's currently from the closest house is that based on your GDP from the housing like what where where where are you what are you looking at because that that rezoning was is three years old and I just I

[08:05:16] can't pull up sure and the top of my head what your layout was sorry for clarity you can see

[08:06:57] that's okay we can go back to the overhead it's fine so from the if you see the backs of the backs of those lots the actual engineering plan I don't have it handy with us supervisor Lawson from those the backs of those houses across the right-of-way because there's a significant grade difference it goes down and comes back up uh but that spacing is right about 500 feet based on scaling

[08:07:32] it from the plan we have now so you know is that laser working so uh which button okay that's okay short answer is no i do not have a pointer my apologies so roughly how many housing units there um i can count you mean do you mean the ones that back up or do you mean the ones in this area

[08:08:08] the entire the entire north side is about 135 units 135 correct if i remember correctly if people can stop talking that would be great thank you correct do you know the do you by chance know

[08:08:32] the land bay a so would this change the master zoning plan madam chair supervisor lawson would this change the master zoning plan I don't know what that means no actually sorry but I'm asking I'm well really I'm gonna look to the county attorney then

[08:09:04] right that there's I mean there's an MZP that was or maybe Mika you're a better one to ask like how does that affect open space how does that affect everything related to what the res the entire residential project was approved I mean this is unprecedented to me so i i don't okay um i'm hearing a lot of great ideas

[08:09:38] on how to improve the improve the project this does which project how to improve um this that's a great question too i know it sounds kind of funny me saying that but it is we're talking about because we're talking about really two different we're talking about two different projects um and there's creative discussions about maybe pulling back the boundary of this rezoning to let the other boundary of the approved rezoning like live and not be totally superseded the land bay a which actually I think sure was trying to give me that

[08:10:17] I don't see the number of units on that okay there's 135 units on based on the very small text on this plan there's appeared to be 135 units yeah that's what that's what mr. young so yeah so his memory is correct it's that's what's the mzp um but but yes um depending on how this is done with the proffers this could affect

[08:10:51] to to have two different rezonings on the same property um i i'm happy to answer any specific questions about it i i i do think that um we need to take a close look and think about how this is done um because i think there's a high potential in making uh substantial revisions right now that it might not be clear in the approvals how this is being done I'm happy to answer more questions about that but yes this if we're talking about reducing the

[08:11:29] zoning boundary of this then it would let the other project be partially superseded that I don't have the Devlin proffers in front of me to understand what that means but that could create some interpretation questions that could be left unresolved if this is not looked at holistically altogether do i have the floor can i answer something else just quickly on that so we have in the past worked with planning staff and there are often times where we do a proffer amendment on a portion of a project and we have

[08:12:04] done that several times in the county it's not uncommon especially when you have larger projects and different people buy portions of those larger projects so we have in the past done proffer amendments on portions of the property and made and there have been situations where portions of the property are subject to two different sets of proffers but i understand mika's point at making sure that there is not a overlap that causes confusion or how about problems problems with proffers uh so that's the problem when you try and cobble something together at two in the morning

[08:12:42] and um and frankly this hasn't been vetted by the public myself um the planning commission so what what you're saying would be a proper amendment no so we're doing a rezoning well yeah so but i was making the point that we've done proper amendments previously but it would be a rezoning but this would be a proper amendment on the fly without it would not be it would be a rezoning and it would be a rezoning of only a portion of the property we are not we are not proposing to change any of the proffers on the portion of the

[08:13:21] property closest to Chris Young Elementary School anymore so essentially and I appreciate that that you're saying that but my concern is is there's also a master zoning plan that was approved with is it helpful for me

[08:13:35] With a residential project that was approved in 2020, and my deputy planning director is doing her best, especially considering she just inherited this case 48 hours ago, to say, yeah, there might be other unintended consequences to this, considering she doesn't have the proffers from three years ago, you know, at the tip of her brain.

[08:14:03] like I I don't either so I would recommend that matter of fact I'm gonna move that we defer this vote and if this is if this is the direction that board members want to take this project then I move that we defer this vote give everybody a lot more time to dissect what you want to do rather than do this at 2:00 in the morning cobbled together it's not fair to the planning department I don't think the county attorney hasn't hasn't had an opportunity about this the community has spoke unanimously against this project as is they I believe that

[08:14:42] they would they they told us for many reasons to stop defer wait till you know more if we weren't going to deny it so I would recommend that that's what we do I see your motion supervisor Lawson yes so a bunch of us had questions before yeah before we well I understand but I have a motion on the floor I have questions too I absolutely have questions I'm the district this is this is my district I had plenty of questions but I wasn't expecting my colleague to

[08:15:18] to go and supervisor Frank unprecedented direction sure um so a couple of questions I think I guess for my colleagues so what we have here is a request by Supervisor Bode to change the I'll just say the right part I don't know if people at home can see but I think it's called the north portion to residential and actually what that actually means is to actually not even touch that part and just potentially

[08:15:50] rezone the left part for lack of better words so essentially we're not you know asking for a change if we were to go in that direction for any of the residential that I guess we've already voted on for the right portion and I guess my question to my colleagues is because we have heard a number people tonight say keep it residential now what mr bode is suggesting is that at least part of it be kept a residential so i mean and that's that's that's one suggestion but what we have

[08:16:24] here actually on the day is um is at least for a portion of it is that a starting point at all i guess would be my question and i'm talking to everybody keeping a part of it residential we've already heard that okay and we just ask that everyone just kind of remain respectful but the the what we've heard from the public from many people in the public was to keep the project residential as we voted on which also if i may ask when we did vote to keep it residential a lot

[08:17:00] of people were upset about that so just putting that as a note but we have this right now as it stands in this moment the entire project is residential what supervisor bode is suggesting as changing the northern portion or i'm sorry keeping the northern portion to be residential my question to the dais and supervisor lawson happy to start with you is is that a starting point well supervisor lawson uh the the resounding um you know voice of the community tonight was keep it all residential and i re i recall that i i voted against the residential i thought it was

[08:17:39] too dense wanted more time to reduce the density circumstances change a lot has changed in three years the community absolutely wants to keep it all residential um i i honestly can't tell you if i don't believe that what supervisor bode is proposing is what the brinsville district wants they want it all residential so that's your opinion okay madam chair supervisor vega thank you there is a motion on the floor so this discussion right now is irrelevant until we

[08:18:16] handle the motion right now on the floor okay supervisor lawson made a motion to defer and i second the motion did we press the buttons and do things like that okay and so procedurally we have to take action on the motion on the floor madam chair okay so motions on the floor discussion time about deferring it before we get more answers go on so so actually i was going to speak to that because i i appreciate the the the point there i guess if we're going to if we make a motion to

[08:18:53] defer and that's what we're talking about right now maybe we could back up for a second have everyone ask their questions and make requests and then package that into a deferral so then staff has more time to look at the entire package what people are talking about that would be some of my questions but i also had other questions about water and some other things i'm sure yeah i had bunch of questions yeah so there's a motion on the floor we're having

[08:19:29] discussion supervisor Bode just spoke I'll speak I I'll vote to not defer it so we get all these questions answered you know at this time and try I'll vote to not defer it until we finish our discussion tonight I mean you've sort of

[08:19:44] short-ended the discussion and so I'll you know yeah we're still in the middle a motion do what i said so what i said is is understanding and respecting the the the motion

[08:20:20] defer my thought is we wouldn't actually move to defer until we've collected all the information on what we're deferring to right yeah okay yeah yeah because i think several of us have a lot of questions and that's okay yeah i'm fine with that okay and we can table it and get all of our questions share it with Mika okay but yeah not with the expectation that we're necessary I mean I think that they should someone should planning and you

[08:21:00] can think about whether this is actually doable tonight because I think it is and so I don't want to just make that assumption it feels like you're just making that assumption madam chair that's the vibe I'm getting up here is that we all want to compile a bunch of questions I thought we were gonna do that right now well but but staff is gonna need more time this is putting the planning department the county attorney's office count the county organization in a very difficult unprecedented position position and I've I've never heard of a case getting do they ever dissected like this and and

[08:21:36] Miss Doss said so much that it's it's a lot nobody can answer me on the MZP and things like that I mean do people ever have rezonings where they make them smaller i mean this is like a large rezoning and we're just making it smaller is that correct do people ever do that leave out lots yes i believe that's this the suggestion um is that the overall zoning boundary gets become smaller um there is a master zoning plan that's before you so only a

[08:22:14] portion of it would be relevant in the approval um there it's this is this is the board's authority to do i mean it's but yeah there there is a plan and proffers there are a number of changes um that i'm that would need to be made to the proffers before you uh in order to implement um this change tonight okay well i have supervisor lawson and supervisor vega then supervisor bailey

[08:22:51] and i assume is a motion still on the floor or are we okay so i'll i'll withdraw it for the moment so we can continue this dialogue of q a and um i think that's what the consensus is up here um here are some other considerations you know i've mentioned the master zoning plan how about monetary contributions for transportation how about you know a transportation impact analysis so signalized intersections access to bristo commons design guidelines there's all i already mentioned the percentage of open space amenity package for the clubhouse and the pool 50 pool

[08:23:31] memberships to amberley and silverleaf scenic trail i mean there's so many it's it's just not as as easy as it sounds and that's why i think that if if we're going to explore this or the the majority of the board wants to explore it it it needs time to be processed through the planning department and frankly possibly go back to the planning commission i mean this is a case that is completely changing on face and the the board can and possibly should remand it to the commission

[08:24:05] i mean there's all kinds of things that are affected by something like this design guidelines do you want to go back to just making it all data center and having larger buffers no okay well what

[08:24:35] did you withdraw your motion okay oh yeah we assume supervisor bode is done right now it's yourself and supervisor vega then supervisor bailey putting a ton of pressure on planning staff and county attorney's office it's just it's too difficult to do on the fly yeah madam chair so i'm not on this list but I was on the previous list but I still need to address my concerns

[08:25:15] about this issue before we continue to move on because it the discussion then is irrelevant if it is the decision of the chair to have to make a decision to vote on this then that needs to be very clear and I take issue with you withdrawing your motion for Christ's sake it's 2:01 in the morning 2:01 and this is a big request that you just made Supervisor Bodie without Supervisor Lawson having knowledge and it is my understanding that some of these proffers are going to change and if not they have to be in writing otherwise we can't legally vote on it am i correct mika so to say that we're going to make a decision on this this morning does not

[08:25:53] sound reasonable in my opinion i'm going to defer to supervisor franklin and then supervisor bailey so i'll defer to whoever wants to continue asking questions about the residential portion what i wanted to ask about was there was a comment mentioned about it being 95 feet instead of the 80 that they're requesting so i just wanted clarification on what that was but i'm happy to defer to others that want to continue to talk about the residential portion but i think the

[08:26:32] point was i think there are myriad of questions so can you answer that while she's and turn your mic on if you can yes so as the county ordinance currently measures height parapet and rooftop equipment does not count towards your height. So the height of our building is 80 feet. We have then limited the rooftop and mechanical equipment to 15 feet. So in total, if you count the building

[08:27:10] and the parapet wall, it's 95 feet. As the county measures height, it is only 80 feet. Sure, I appreciate that. I do think that was important for clarification because it's fair to point out the technical part of that.

[08:27:26] Yes. And our resident was correct in what he was saying. So it is important to kind of point that out. It's easy, may I? I'm next, I'm next. Okay, so. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Franklin, for asking that.

[08:27:44] Is that a problem because the resident did, you know, have a concern about the height? Is it a problem with the 100 feet for us to have, not the burn, but the trees, 100 feet, just to assure, is there a problem with that?

[08:28:06] Because, I mean, the concern was the way that we were measuring was not the true measurement, or the way that you were measuring. It's not the true measurement. So is there a difference between 95, I guess 95 and 100 feet? Is that a problem? We are only proffering, so is there a difference, I think the question is, is there a difference between 80 feet and 95 feet?

[08:28:26] 80 feet meaning that's what the county requires. - So, the way the county measures height, they don't include the rooftop mechanical equipment. So, the zoning, let me back up for a second. So, the current zoning is M2. The maximum height in M2 is 60 feet.

[08:28:45] We are asking for a height modification to allow for a maximum height of 80 feet. I showed you on my slide, and I can pull it back up. There are two data centers, and I want it to circle back to this. The two data centers adjacent to us, the Microsoft and Google, which was Aura and Gainesville Technology Park, both of those proffers were approved for a maximum height of 80 feet.

[08:29:18] And so I do not believe, and I can double-check, that they had the height limitation on their rooftop mechanical equipment. So the other question that I have, just in listening to the citizens and being collaborative with what Supervisor Bode is saying, I think having the residential piece is essential, and making that as easy as possible would be essential also, less complicated.

[08:29:52] Now, the question that I have is if we make the north side residential and the back portion is the data portion, what's the buffering that would protect the citizens?

[08:30:09] What's the buffering on the south side? So along University Boulevard, you have University Boulevard, which is here. There's a 50-foot buffer on each side of University Boulevard.

[08:30:28] So there would be 50 feet of landscaping. The right-of-way for University Boulevard, I believe, is 126 feet. I will verify that. And then another 50 feet of landscaping on the other side of University. So while you're looking, so the concern was 50 feet, the comment was 50 feet is nothing.

[08:30:55] Can it be 100 feet? - Let me ask that question. So the right of way is 128 feet. So there's not fully buffers, but there's 50 feet on the, let's say, looking at the screen, the north side of university, 128 feet of right of way, and then another 50 feet on the south side of university.

[08:31:24] So the question I think I'm hearing you ask is instead of 50 feet along university, could it be a hundred on the south side can we start writing down all of these requests and have Jim draw them on a plan to make sure it works thank you

[08:31:58] sorry Jim is our civil engineer who's the quiet one in the back so he gets to draw drawing so Supervisor Bodie I an alternative way of I don't know if it's appropriate that I'm even speaking right now an alternative way of getting there would be to not shut down everything today is to go ahead and rezone the property and preclude any development on that land bay and we

[08:32:36] would have to come back with a rezoning application for the residential to be put back on it later I I mean, that's the cleanest way to do it is to just leave it as, you know, as advertised right now and, you know, just put a preclusion of any development on it.

[08:32:58] And candidly, the board, if they wanted a residential there, we would put residential there. If the board wanted nothing there, we would be rolling the dice on having nothing there. Supervisor Brody.

[08:33:16] Let me think about. Sure. Okay. Why don't we keep on going on? Who's next on my list? Supervisor Angry, because I have stuff, too. So, okay. So I have a request. Yes, ma'am. For me?

[08:33:31] Yeah. Okay. Well, it's a somebody, actually. It probably might not be you. You know, someone got up and talked about water, right? And we're always talking about water and the idea that data centers use a lot of water. And the vast majority of them, and the new ones, are in closed-loop water systems, so they don't use hundreds of thousands of gallons a day, okay?

[08:33:53] Would you be willing to proffer in a closed-loop water system? I mean, I know you don't have a user, and I don't know whether you'd be willing to do that. Most of them don't mind, but, you know, the guy who came up and talked about billions of gallons of, you know, that's closed-loop water systems, once they get charged, they don't use water except for potable water.

[08:34:21] But you can... He said yes. Really? Okay. Thank you. So write that down. I did. Please. Okay, thank you. Anybody else have questions?

[08:34:40] Comments, questions? Okay, no questions? I was just answering at Supervisor Bailey and I, so I missed. You were talking about the closed loop? I asked them to proffer a closed loop water system. And they said?

[08:34:55] Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean, because remember, you know, the whole. Well, so are we on Q&A for proffers, or I don't want to go out of turn. No, I don't have speakers requested, so if you want to request to speak.

[08:35:16] Anybody want to request to speak? Okay. If you're Supervisor Bailey, then Supervisor Angry. One of the biggest concerns I heard was really the school and the kids and the noise, and that was kind of brilliant.

[08:35:33] I wouldn't think about this whole housing thing. My question is, how far is the school now? Like, I don't know that distance. I couldn't try to pull it up. But since we're talking about either leaving that open or putting houses on that side, how far is the school from if theater centers are only on the south side of this road?

[08:35:54] You know, in comparison to the issues, the majority issues I heard, which was noise and the kids hearing this. And so is this now far enough away that if this were possible that the school is safe, I'll just say? Truett's measuring it.

[08:36:14] Supervisor Ingrid, it's 2,000 feet.

[08:36:46] Supervisor Bailey? Madam Chair. Oh, I can wait. You sure? You just hit your button. Thank you. This, I don't know. The question I had is, just in trying to create a win-win with this whole thing and what we're talking about, with the things that Supervisor Lawson had mentioned, that was the question I was asking her because it is an unprecedented kind of suggestion that we do this.

[08:37:19] The amenities that she was talking about as you're building the residential piece, the sidewalks, the swimming pool, and I can't think of the list, but would that be put into a proffer as well? No, and so those amenities were on land bays B and C.

[08:37:38] So they were not on A. So the amenities that are shown on A would remain on A. The amenities, the number of units that were required for A would remain the same. The open space that's required for A in the proffers, that would also remain the same.

[08:38:02] Thank you. You're welcome. Supervisor Lawson. Madam Chair, this is a little bit unique. The way I'm looking at it is with the initial request by Mr. Bodie, and correct me if you disagree, it's basically reducing the application.

[08:38:21] Correct. So you would be redefining your property with the G-PIN deleting Land Bay A from the G-PIN. So everything that's currently in the current zoning for Land Bay A would stay. Correct. And we would be going back to Mr. Bode's original questions to change the buffers on Land Bay A are no longer in.

[08:38:45] Correct. So it's not necessarily a substantial change. I don't think you would need to go back to the Planning Commission because you're just basically reducing your application. So you would only be looking at whatever proffers are applicable to the left side of the university.

[08:39:02] and anything that's currently in place with all the proffers for A would be remaining if that's the way the board would want to go that is a very accurate statement the one caveat to that is it would be we would need a portion of land bay A because that's where the road is but everything else you said is the same and the road was also shown in the original proffers as land bay A and So we would need time to go through and deal with all the current proffers that are here with this application to.

[08:39:37] And mark out everything that no longer applies. That's correct. Okay. So what I hear you saying is we could actually do this if we just. If that's the board's prerogative. And I think that the second suggestion by Mr. Young of going forward with the whole property as defined.

[08:39:57] But then adding another proffer to say no development on current A is another option for the board if you want. Or the other option is to go as is, as came to you. You have multiple options before you to deny, approve, whatever.

[08:40:17] Okay, so I have, so it sounds like we could get there if we wanted to from a rezoning standpoint, right? I mean, I tend to lean that way because everybody wanted, not around the school they wanted houses behind the other houses that takes care of the people who moved there and they they didn't want to you know have a data center in their backyard everybody was that linear forms is that what that's called um so i appreciate that supervisor bode i didn't

[08:40:49] know you were out there last night but okay um so can we proceed that way other input from my colleagues so montessori school the bristow montessori school and the bristow montessori school i met with the owners they prefer the housing the the community garden was a request

[08:41:22] if this gets approved but the bristow montessori school would absolutely prefer the housing to stay um yeah good question um jonelle do you have the laser was that the community garden we were talking about yeah so okay so he was okay with the way he was proffering a community garden okay right but but again i want to reiterate the the owners of the monastery school what's that

[08:41:57] no matter of fact it actually was reduced microphone i apologize we offered 100 feet in that area now it's an increase no it was 30 it was originally yeah so to be clear it was 30 now

[08:42:26] it's 100 it sounds like yeah it's um it's part of that shopping center development with 100 foot buffer yes so supervisor Vega you're I have you up for speaking it's really clear that this is such a mess that I don't even know what to ask at this point madam chair supervisor Lawson thank you so I definitely have other

[08:43:03] questions but I agree with my colleague that this has become a mess and I don't function necessarily the best of my game at 220 in the morning I think we we can probably all say that everybody's sitting in this room as as the district supervisor and somebody who did and may vote to initiate this comprehensive plan amendment and I and I you know own that and and if I could rewind the clock I

[08:43:43] certainly would have done something different and I would have said no I I won't even consider it. I've learned so much, so much more about this, this industry in the last nine to 12 months. And it's kind of got me thinking about critical mass. And when there's a new idea mentioned a few times, the next minute, everyone has it, and they're using it. And think of recent leap forward with artificial intelligence and chat GPT. Students are using it, business people are using it to write emails, real estate agents are using it to write listings, all of that in

[08:44:23] literally just a few weeks. And I just learned about it myself. I bet my 19-year-old son knows about it. That can happen in political issues as well. As unpredictable as circumstances and occurrences are, there is some logic to them explained by critical mass, which you and I may recall the boiling point or the tipping point critical mass is the point at which an idea belief trend is prevalent enough to grow or sustain some of you

[08:44:59] have heard me say that data centers have have gone from the the geico gecko lizard to now Godzilla some folks have even referenced it themselves at some point along the way there's a tipping point last June is the first time that I heard of this great oak community noise problem amazon web services complex and supervisor vegas district and great oak is absolutely suffering from the noise it's real and it's in my district

[08:45:36] now too one of one of the complexes is next to apartments off of horn baker yesterday i drove over there and listened to it myself i have it recorded on this phone of mine there's another one over off of freedom boulevard that is thankfully not near residential the noise is obviously a huge legitimate concern i have serious concerns that we don't know exactly how to grab this tiger by the

[08:46:12] tail and figure out what to do we we don't have county staff that can that are capable and no fault of their own no fault of their own but we just simply don't have the the tools to address all of the the proffers um and i appreciate the applicant's willingness to proffer but i don't think that we can get there at this time so in september when this was deferred because a lot of

[08:46:47] community angst grew from in august and september and i asked the applicant to make serious substantial changes for me to even consider it i was in a meeting with the community and the applicant last september and they made it very clear that the only data they wanted would be very similar to the project that exists on linton hall road by piney branch elementary very hidden very quiet it's it's data that just is not controversial i actually live across the

[08:47:22] street from it and for years people just didn't even know it was there so as you know as much as i would like to rewind the clock and applicants know that things change circumstances change political winds change public sentiment changes everything can change this is this is the tipping point for me and the the applicant has not been able to meet the satisfaction of the people that

[08:47:55] i represent and myself i and uh with that i'm i'm just not able to support a project and uh of data centers there and i move for denial for that reason second there's a motion made for denial my supervisor lawson seconded by supervisor vega any discussion yeah chair supervise can you let me just say you know this isn't a mess i'll just say that right now but what what i am a little bit

[08:48:35] kind of frustrated with is that I wish we could have had this plan before we got here tonight so somehow we were able to work out we we knew the concerns we heard more of the concerns I've always heard about the school I never thought about splitting this thing in half but honestly that makes sense because I'll tell you our biggest problem is this overlay district where it currently sits because we're going to have this problem again the data centers are going to be up against the neighborhoods as you saw in that overlay district that we have so a real discussion that we need to be having is what we're going to do about that and move it out of there and put it somewhere where it makes sense and that we don't have this situation again you know this last piece

[08:49:15] to this overlay district done this before because it kind of makes sense on the end of an overlay district where literally three sides of this thing has already approved data centers the biggest problem is going to come when those come online because they haven't cut those trees out yet we're going to be doing it well fortunately we won't be doing this again because it's already been approved but it's going to be very unfortunate because those don't even have what we just attempted to do here tonight with this one little piece that could be the model going forward for any other data center that we look at which at some point i will say this publicly right now we need to get out of this and move on to the real issue which is housing as we've heard people say

[08:49:55] so that day is coming as i said last year that we're going to have conversations about houses all over this county and that's as we've heard seems to be a real discussion but i will say And last thing is the real issue is going to be what do we do with this current overlay district that's literally running through houses and schools.

[08:50:17] So what did you just say, basically? I mean, you – I said I like what we just did with this project because we moved it off of the school. You agreed with Supervisor or Vice Chair Bodie. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And our real issue is going to be moving out overlay district because we're going to be here again.

[08:50:37] Next up is Supervisor Bailey. and we're in the middle of a motion so i'm keeping track of how many times everybody speaks so uh madam chair thank you very much i think we it's not a mess because i think we talked through it and we heard the citizens express how they felt about it and we were trying to take an opportunity to create housing because that's what they said and so i don't think it's a mess i think it was we did really good in talking about it so that it would make sense i see this as a win-win

[08:51:15] for us because it could be a template I'm sorry please excuse me if people feel they need to shout out then I will ask people to leave thank you I don't want you to shut up just let me finish please I see this as a win-win because what we are really trying to do as a board is to create so that we we will not keep going into citizens pockets we're trying to create a commercial tax base at the same time we're trying to do affordable workable housing housing is needed in this county and and so

[08:51:56] we're we're not trying to do anything personally to anyone but we're trying to come up with a different way of supplying housing as well as a commercial tax base and so we've got to come to a place where we make a decision about that as a board so that we're not sitting in and at the day is at two o'clock in the morning rehashing stuff that is old this is an old project but not rehashing it and at the same time we had an opportunity i believe before to provide housing

[08:52:29] here and not even talk about data centers and we lost that opportunity so you know i think we did a good job tonight and talking about it i don't think it's a mess when we talk about and we we collaborate, it's never a mess.

[08:52:45] So I just wanted to say that, and Supervisor Lawson, I appreciate what you're trying to do in your district and support your citizens, our citizens. I appreciate that. That's why we had the discussion, because they're our citizens too. So I just want to say that to you, because I realize it is difficult, and the overlay is going to be a problem going forward.

[08:53:08] It's going to be a problem. So I appreciate what you're doing. Thank you. Supervisor Vega. Thank you, Madam Chair. I stand by my comments this is absolutely messy and it became messy the moment that the district supervisor did not know about the proposal that's been made. Now with that being said I would have to say that I do agree to an extent with you supervisor angry that this is an opportunity for us to try to find some common ground where possible but today this morning I don't think that's the case right because the district supervisor did not know. We had over 60 people that live either directly where this is going to be built or around come here and every single

[08:53:45] one said that they not they do not want this the only folks that spoke in favor do not even live in this county they do not live in this county so this is why this is messy because you're literally telling the 60 plus individuals that came here that left under the expectation that we were going to approve something that that's not the case anymore so that's why it's messy but we can make it un-messy and if we really want it to be a win a definite win we go ahead and give what people want all homes that's a win but if that's not the case but if that's not the case then we can go back

[08:54:18] to the drawing board all right we made a motion to to to defer that motion was withdrawn now there's another motion to deny so we do still have an opportunity here to clean this up and I would also suggest that in our efforts of cleaning this up I know Mr. Alan Smith has been in contact with Supervisor Lawson in regards to this case specifically it would be ideal for us to have two different sets of proffers because that cleans all of this up. Would you agree with that, Mr. Allen? I would like to hear from you when it comes to the proffers and if having two separate sets would make it cleaner. Madam Chair, members of the board, I've been communicating with Deputy

[08:54:57] County Attorney Mr. Smith also on this matter. As I've stated to the board, if it is the board's prerogative, whether you approve, deny, reduce the application, go forward with nothing, if there is an approval we will have the board will have to take a recess and we will have to work with the applicant's attorney write everything down and make sure that it is signed off by the applicant and before the actual vote to if the board approves this so we would have to take a recess on that if that's the board's prerogative today to be clear today before the board votes the proffers

[08:55:36] would have to be cleaned up and signed if the board wants to defer it if that's the vote if the board wants to deny. That's the vote. We are here to do what the board wants to do with the multiple options before you. Okay. Supervisor Lawson, you want to go a second time? Well, no, I actually, I'll take my first turn before you take your second turn. So you can start timing,

[08:56:11] Ms. Madden, if you want. You know, I want to sort of begin discussing by, you know, how do we get here? And that's because people didn't want housing when Stonehaven was here. And long before this board sat here it got pivoted to data centers you know we won't have the density of the housing to bring in the VRE we're not going to have the town center to bring in the very very will never come to Gainesville or Haymarket for that matter because we don't have the density around the housing that we needed to do that and so you know we spent 13 or 60 million dollars on a

[08:56:49] school site because we didn't do Stonehaven and so you know here we are today where we have a compromise you know and I want to say I went back and looked to all the people who sent emails in 2020 and I had roughly the same amount of emails in 2020 that I did for 2023 because we sat here when we were rezoning this in 2020 and I know supervisor Lawson you were adamantly opposed to it and we said we needed more housing and we approved it because it had been languishing and it was it it seemed like the thing to do and people came out i went went back and looked at the

[08:57:29] public hearings um people came out and said some of the same things they did the night with the same kind of passion about putting in the the stanley martin housing you know and so here we are here we are three years later with you know some of the same people coming out saying different things. And so, you know, and I went back and read the emails and they had the same amount of passion that they do in 2023. And so I don't know quite what to do with that information, except to say

[08:57:59] that people may have changed their minds, but they're still just as passionate. And I, and part of it is they just didn't want anything there because they didn't want changes. And so I sort find that frustrating. And so here we are where the people who moved into Lanier Farms who thought they were going to be abandoned by houses were taking care of that. You know, I spoke to a guy on the phone, we're taking care of that where he thought he would have houses behind him and we would have houses around the school and it will be a walkable community. And so I see this as a

[08:58:37] compromise and I'm kind of frustrated because when we deferred this in September of 2022, it was deferred to talk about noise issues. And so the applicant went back. They knew that there were noise issues and came back with a list of extreme, like, you know, proffers with regards to addressing noise issues.

[08:58:59] And somehow they're being penalized for that because people don't believe they'll be able to adhere to them even though they've hired consultants and made them so detailed that we don't know even, you know, it's hard to even understand them. But with the idea that their main goal with redoing this was going back and addressing noise issues, and they did.

[08:59:22] But somehow that's not okay, you know, and that's why it was, you know, people talk about rushing things. You know, this went through the planning commission. I don't think anyone showed up, and back in September, you know, people talked about noise, and they went and it was addressed. You know, and here we have a compromise where we can move forward, and somehow that's not okay in your eyes either.

[08:59:44] And I'm, you know, always trying to just work together to try to get to something where, you know, a compromise is where actually no one's going to be happy. And to me, this feels like a good compromise. And we haven't, I don't think there's too much to bet because we're just cutting down the amount of the rezoning and leaving the other portion in.

[09:00:06] It doesn't seem that difficult to understand to me. So that's just my comment. Supervisor Bailey. Thank you. I agree with you, Madam Chair, I do, and I agree because here's the thing, we've got to make a decision, we have to make a decision, and I'd like to make a decision in an air of civility and not be insulted while we make the decision.

[09:00:39] We do well when we collaborate. We do really good. It's easy to insult, so we need to just not do that, but we, excuse me, no one's, I'm saying collaborate. Yes, you understand?

[09:00:54] No, I'm asking who's insulted you, though. I wasn't speaking to you. Okay, just want to make sure. Okay, I wasn't talking to you. I'm talking about how we talk to each other and how we collaborate. It's simple. So the reason why I'm saying that is citizens came to us tonight, and they gave us some very good ideas.

[09:01:12] But we need to think about that as we're making a decision. And we do have a compromise, and we are trying to support you, Janine, the best that we can. We are, but we have our own ideas. You know, we're all strong-willed. It's okay. But I think that at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, we need to come to a decision because I think it is an error of compromise.

[09:01:38] And I'm just, that's my two cents, but I'm going to give you my two cents without being insulting, and you know how I am. So that's all I'm going to say. Thank you. That's all I'm going to say. I'm not talking to you. Well, I'm trying to, you know, I always do want to.

[09:01:54] Supervisor Lawson, do you want to go for a second time? Does anybody else want to take a, okay, why don't you go, and then other people can jump in if they want. yeah okay couple things i want to point out this is not in the overlay so we we we if it gets approved it's in the overlay but right now it's not officially in the overlay um so to be clear about that um we do have a housing shortage realtors spoke about it um and if we're going to

[09:02:27] take 516 approved houses and reduce it down to 135 or maybe not even any because i'm not real sure if what the proffer is going to be about land bay a it may be zero houses you know then we're going to continue to dig the hole deeper on the housing prices escalating because the inventory is low we all know supply and demand we all had simple economics madam chair stonehaven was thousands

[09:03:01] of units at a time when linton hall was the worst commute in the united states of america i lived there. I know it. My family lived through it. That's exactly why the community rejected the Stonehaven proposal at the time. Things change. Things change often. So for you to not understand why the community did not want Stonehaven, then that tells me you were out of touch with that community at the time because our schools were so overcrowded that we had some of the most overcrowded schools statistically in the Commonwealth of Virginia. So for you to dismiss

[09:03:40] the the community's rejection of Stonehaven is to me just either you have a short-term memory or or you just you just simply are dismissive again of the overwhelming majority of Prince William County residents in the Princeville district I was elected on that platform of rejecting Stonehaven thankfully we have Gainesville High School now that is not busting at the seams because we have high school site that did not come with thousands of new homes I don't know why you think that long before this board this site was picked for data centers

[09:04:20] you've made that comment I have no idea what you're referring to a lot of the Stonehaven site was was planned for FEC flex employment which is what mango and other area other data center projects are back behind Jiffy Lube live but I have no idea what you meant by long before this board this was picked for data centers I have absolutely heard loud and clear from my community that I

[09:04:54] represent that they do not want this project to be data centers they they made it very clear to me last Thursday they've made it clear in hundreds and hundreds of emails that they prefer this to be housing things change public opinions change and that's exactly what happened here three years ago you're right they did not want they if you recall they were okay with housing in this it was in the comp plan for housing they didn't want and I didn't want the number of housing units that's that's that's what the contention was it was the

[09:05:30] the density they've they have made it very clear that they will settle for 516 houses over a data center tech park of 4 million square feet tonight we've heard from multiple teachers we heard from school counselors we heard from hoa presidents we heard from a police officer we heard from emotional parents with disabilities with i'm sorry emotional parents with children that have disabilities, kids with migraines, sensory issues. They spoke with their legitimate

[09:06:10] concerns about what a data center complex might do to their personal families. And the reality of it is, as good as these proffers might be intended, I will remind the board that our own county staff on page 7 says at this time staff is concerned about the specific specific specificity of the proffer came to say that availability of very specific technical resources needed for enforcement in the process through which

[09:06:45] the proper would be administered I've repeated that over and over again tonight so if the board wants to hang their hat on a proffer it great if if you think it's actually enforceable and but the county staff is telling you and in a separate CXO memo a couple weeks ago they said the same thing staff can simply not handle this type of proper and we're we're being willfully ignorant if we're not willing to accept what our own staff is waving the red flags on

[09:07:19] madam chair supervisor Franklin sure and so I know we're in discussion but I guess my question is realistically what would an advanced compromise look like right so we know there are some people that want all housing supervisor Bodhi pushed for at least what maybe 30% housing and we know that compromise means a little give-and-take and so one of my channel and I know there is a motion to deny on the floor but one of my challenges with the deferral is always

[09:07:54] I'm always I'm not always optimistic that anything will change if we defer a project right and so and so my question is like what does a compromise actually look like right because if you have people that say we want all housing then that I guess that's not a compromise right like all housing or all data centers if you have any excuse me okay ladies I'm sorry I appreciate you all's enthusiasm and i know you all have a stake in this and so i appreciate the fact that you all are here at 2 30 in the morning with us it really shows how committed you all are i just ask that

[09:08:33] you please be respectful as we have this discussion really i appreciate you all being here my point is if i say i only want data centers that's all i want and then a person over here says i only want all housing that's all i want that's not compromise on either side so what does an actual compromise look like essentially is my question and it can be a rhetorical question but i am also interested in that discussion madam chair so we're in we're you've already spoken twice well she she's got the same she's spoken twice in this discussion i mean we have a motion on the floor maybe we just vote

[09:09:13] i mean she well she's got time on the clock and she's looking at me asking a question thank you yeah thank you so when this was deferred in september it was deferred for more than noise it was height it was uh florida area ratio so the footprint and i was hopeful especially after the majority chose to replan it for industrial if you go back and watch the video i said to the chair okay we're gonna have to work on this work on it with applicant in the community it's a

[09:09:50] difficult one but i'm willing to work on it i was not afforded that opportunity i i found out about this schedule you know literally a couple weeks ago had to scramble for finding a school space for a town hall you know the applicant reduced the height from 105 down to the original 80 foot request which is still a waiver for sorry Vic I don't mean to be not looking at you but you know this this I wasn't

[09:10:24] part of the conversation I was left out from what the chair was scheduling and I i i'd like an opportunity there might be a a piece of this that is compromised to the community if they get some answers to all the questions that they raised tonight and the questions weren't just related to noise um i still have questions related to building elevation the the the substations

[09:10:55] but you know those those are things that still need to be flushed out and um i see your point supervisor franklin you know if if we're if we're going to defer it and find compromise i'm willing to help mean it but i'm going to represent what the resounding voice was tonight of my constituents supervisor angry i just turned it off i'm sorry about that can you can you pull up i think it's

[09:11:30] in the staff's presentation just the map of um it's like 96 and the other presentation um or it might be a better slide of this one that shows hunter property and and you know ambly station in the middle and then this um what you got one better than that with like do you actually see the streets and maybe that other one that you just passed maybe that okay okay so we well where

[09:12:05] are we okay this is us definitely okay here's what i want to say i don't think uh denying this is the right decision for this, and here's why I'm saying this. Literally, you're going to now put 500 homes there, and they'll probably be built before that data center tech part will be built, which is going to literally bring back the same discussion we're having now.

[09:12:28] Now, my point is this. This is not in the overlay district currently, but I'd rather take half of that property, bump it up against the rest of those data centers that are coming in there, and they can be back to each other, clear that other side where the school is, where you just decided houses that make sense to me and then figure out how we get rid of that entire overlay district out of that area for whatever's left for the future because we'll let unless all that's built out which i don't think it is uh we're going to be right back here again so my point in being careful of what you really want to do here is if you build all those houses in there right now i

[09:13:06] guarantee the folks that move into these homes literally are bumped up against not what we just figured out here and tried to do best with lowering and buffering and all the stuff because what's already approved for Hunter is already approved and if that's 80 feet or 85 feet or whatever that height is going to be on that and whatever that buffer is clearly is not what we were talking about now so I just think we need to be looking at the whole picture of this thing now I'm not even saying that we even go to improving it now but I think denying it now is not the right answer I would just say that because that's going to be a big problem and

[09:13:44] this is why I said right now mind you supervisor I'm the one that made the motion to turn this all into housing and now as I look at it I'm saying this is really a mess to everybody's point about data centers because we've made this overlay district seriously in residential and schools and so for me half of that bumping up against the other half of what's already approved that really is the best outcome and then making those houses because you then have the neighborhood that's not i'm sorry i'm not at the mic that's not adjoining that one that you want to make

[09:14:23] houses kind of makes sense to me so that's that's my two cents to really what we need to be having a full discussion about right now so seeing no further speakers there's a motion on the floor to deny yeah miss man can you call the vote not at this time motion fails two to five supervisors

[09:14:58] Lawson and Vega voting yay. Supervisors Ingrid, Bailey, Bodie, Franklin, and Chair Wheeler voting nay. Okay. Supervisor Bodie, you came up with a compromise. Yeah. Yeah. And so this one's tough for me because I, yes, it is. Thank you. I was the one that voted against initiating the CPA to begin with because I stood by the fact that back in 2020, we rezoned this as housing, was also the

[09:15:35] only person to vote against hunter being rezoned to data centers and it was partly because exactly what we're seeing now we see we're surrounding amberley station on three sides by data centers i disagreed with that i was the only person on this board that voted against that i don't know who it is who can't keep answering but who it is if you can just restrain yourself thank you and so now we're in a situation because of previous decisions that this board and previous

[09:16:09] boards have made, the landscape of that area is such that this landowner and the developer feel that data centers were really the only way they could go. And again, as was said before, my supervisors are angry, it's this hodgepodge now. And we're, unfortunately, we keep running into this if we don't get a handle on this now. At the same time, I feel like we're in a situation where we still don't know completely where we are with this noise issue. We don't have professional staff on staff that look at this stuff it's been admitted several times by our our planning staff

[09:16:49] that it's outside their area of expertise and so i hesitate to go full force into this knowing that we don't know what we don't know as decision makers here right and so i i know i know it's not going to be what the folks who want to deny it want i know it's not what the folks that want us just move on want us to do but i'm i want to move right now to defer this so we have a chance to work collaboratively to get a handle on this because if we don't i think we'll be doing a

[09:17:24] disservice to where we are i'll second that motion yeah madam chair oh i don't yeah sorry i got you motion made by supervisor bode seconded by supervisor lawson supervisor franklin sure and And I will say Supervisor Vega did push forward deferral earlier, so just give him credit where he's doing.

[09:17:52] Supervisor Bode. Yeah. So actually, thank you. I support that deferral. I do. Again, I think we really seriously need to take a real good look at this.

[09:18:10] And also, in this discussion, seriously, we've got to have a conversation about this overlay this year. And what's before us right now with that Devlin Tech part, I can see it. It's going to be an issue already when those houses are built.

[09:18:27] So I think half of that really does make sense because then it bumps up against something that's already out of our control. And I got to say, because we always talk about deference and deferral to the supervisor, and I support you with that. And I know we talk about, and that might not have been the best because they left that Amberley station in the middle.

[09:18:43] And I would take that back if I could from when we went through that because it clearly is not the right thing to do. I think we have an opportunity here to minimize the damage, if you will, to not, you know, to stop the bleeding and just, you know, and go from there.

[09:19:00] Because the future has to be, what are we going to do with the rest of that? Like, we've got to stop this. We can't keep going down this road. So I just want to say that. So thanks. I have Supervisor Franklin. Okay, Supervisor Lawson. Thank you. I appreciate that, Supervisor Angry.

[09:19:19] Minimize the damage. you know i've learned a lot since that rezoning and i believe um we all probably all have and um yeah you know at the time of the hunter rezoning we thought the hunt the 100 foot buffer was something that was adequate and um and if i could reverse the clock i absolutely would have advocated for wider buffers and i i'm hoping that the planning department that we can work

[09:19:53] and i'm getting a nod from from miss doss that we need to reform how we are rezoning these data center complexes and how we are mitigating the impacts and i know that our new planning director is soaking in all of this and he comes from fairfax county where somebody mentioned tonight you know fairfax county doesn't have these problems um we need to learn from from our neighbors and i will say that i'm thankful that the owner is willing to have conversations

[09:20:32] to improve the the buffer there and i'm working diligently on that um but but yeah i i mean i look at devlin tech park and may maybe as we defer this and or i hope to defer it and and make this something amenable for the the broader community we can we can get there with a lot of heads put together and in conversations with the community and the

[09:21:05] applicant and and Planning Department of course but minimize the damage if we're deferring we would defer to a date certain we could eat do next week we could do you know we could do next week after the CIP so I'm just saying that's I mean, you know, we're going to work out the proffers.

[09:21:33] We can work out the changes. Supervisor Bodie, does that give you time to work out some of the things you wanted? We can work out all the redo, the rewrite of the proffers. I don't think a date certain of next week is realistic, Madam Chair. Not with my calendar. I do think that ultimately, again, I know folks aren't exactly happy about this, but I think out of how we got here and where we are now, it would be a disservice to rush back into this all over again.

[09:22:06] I think Supervisor Lawson does need time to review what this looks like now with her constituents, because a lot of people have left. They have no idea what we're discussing right now. If they hear that we've approved it, they think it's all data centers, they hear that we denied it, you know, where do we sit? So this gives everyone an opportunity to reset this, which I know is not popular with some folks out there, but it gives Supervisor Lawson time and gives us time to get a better handle on all of this, whether it's the noise issues, whether it's these issues on the edges of the overlay, and it's this specific project.

[09:22:39] But I would like a date certain, yes, but I don't think just a week from now is appropriate. Pulling up the calendar. Okay, let me look and see when we're next. March 7th would probably be better.

[09:22:57] Well, actually, we should probably look at it. Well, the 14th, we've deferred climb to a date certain on March 14th, So I would go with the 7th. What about the clerk and the planning department? I think we have a schedule for March 7th.

[09:23:17] We have a case, I think, coming John Marshall's plan at this point. John Marshall Technology. I think that's the March 7th. But we haven't. And we have advertised that yet? We haven't. Okay, fine. Then we don't have to do that March 7th.

[09:23:33] We do have a plan that was continued. That was March 14th. To March 14th. That's the only thing on the 14th. So I would say make this the 7th. i don't think we went on the same night as klein no that'll i'm assuming what what to do with john marshall do we meet all three or four tuesdays in march we have march 7th as a 7 30 session we have march 14th that we added a 7 30 to um take our client client yep um and then the last meeting in march is for the public hearing first one for the budget so we won't be doing land use

[09:24:12] that evening so we have two options in march so the seventh okay we do it so just yeah accepting that friendly amendment to be march 7th for the deferral date certain and i accept that also as the second just to clarify we won't advertise because we've closed the public hearing on this it'll just be the okay thank you okay seeing no further discussion please vote vote unanimous

[09:24:47] that moves us on to that concludes this it moves us on to public comment time left tonight we have have people signed up for public comment time who are still here Ms. Mann do we have anyone online there's nobody online let me double-check we'll have to wait

[09:25:11] nobody online okay yes we have five people signed up for in person public comment time tonight if any of them are still here you're welcome to line them at the back Alicia gloss Alan gloss Sandra phasing Nicole holiday and Kevin

[09:25:44] Allen. Please proceed. My name is Kevin Allen. I'm president of Silverleaf Homeowners Association. I noticed several people commenting tonight, you know, we're right nestled in in Amberley Station.

[09:26:01] We have some homes on either side of Amberley Station, but we still get into our development from the middle of that. And so I'm very concerned about the Hunter Trust rezoning that was done and the impact it's going to have on our community. And one of the particular things is noise and so I really think that the board of supervisors needs to make that a priority to fixing the zoning or the noise ordinance and it needs to be something that's substantial the noise that you hear from data centers it's not a you know a spike in noise it's it's it's

[09:26:35] constant it's all the time and it's it's a you know just a constant nuisance sound and so you need to do something that has a lower you know decibel level for that constant sound particularly when you have industrial areas next to residential areas and then the other thing that I think you need to address in that is how do you deal with you know we have the mango farm project we have the hunter trust property projects we have the potential of the devlin technology park there's

[09:27:13] Microsoft on the other side. I can't remember if I mentioned Mango Farm. There's all these different data centers that are there that are going to be contributing noise into our neighborhood. And how does a noise ordinance be written that can be enforced against all those data centers when they're all collectively providing the noise that's going to be causing problems for our neighborhood? And so I really think it needs to be made a priority and that needs to be done soon. We don't know. They can start building, you know, relatively soon in the Hunter Trust property. And so the sooner we get a good quality sound ordinance done, that would be

[09:27:52] very helpful. And I know Supervisor Lawson is working on trying to get us bigger buffers, and I appreciate that and anything else we can do. And then the other issue is in the Hunter Trust property is shortly after the zoning amendment was approved it had a proffer in it that any utilities had to go in perpendicular into the property and about I know four to six months after that there was a hundred foot swath I mean 25 foot swath 1100 feet long that just tore down

[09:28:30] all the trees and they planted these ridiculous little trees very late in the season half of them are dead um and i uh i'll be emailing you pictures of those but it's something that needs to be resolved and we need to make sure that there's no other issues like that that are going to pop up and surprise us in our neighborhoods we've had enough problems as it is please deal with the noise ordinance as soon as possible please make it a priority thank you is anyone else who has signed up on our list here to speak still here thank you for the deferral but there's one thing

[09:29:07] that I think we're all... I'm sorry, could you tell us your name? I'm sorry, Jackie Summer. Thank you for the deferral, but I think one thing that we're all failing to remember is you do have the Chris Young School here, and then you have a Montessori School here. So if in the middle here is Wellington, Wellington Road, right? No, University. If this is university, you still have a school here and a school here. Who in their right mind wants to have residential homes right up to the data center there? You're not making, we're not creating anything any better.

[09:29:37] This divide is actually making it worse because now you're going to have a school here, you'll have data centers, you're going to have homes, and then a school and data centers. It still just doesn't make sense. So hopefully, giving you guys the appropriate time in the next few weeks to get this all together, you'll be able to see clearly that it just doesn't make sense.

[09:29:55] And as you have said, sir, multiple times, you've all said it's a mess, but now you can change it and you can make it right. So the other area that is a mess, we'll deal with it and we'll move on. But if we can fix this and put it together so that you don't have patches, patches, patches with school, schools, and residents and everybody furious, the last piece is if that one section does get divided and goes residential, who's going to buy those homes?

[09:30:19] No one. And what builder will build on them? Stanley Martin won't build on them because they won't be able to sell them. Nobody will buy them. Again, wasting taxpayers' dollars, right? That's not what we're here for. Thank you for the deferral, and let's hopefully we can work together to get this all worked out. I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

[09:30:37] Second. Motion made by Supervisor Lawson, seconded by Supervisor Bailey. Madam Chair. Did you click the button? Okay, Supervisor Franklin. I just want to say that I hope that we can actually work towards a compromise in understanding what that actually means.

[09:30:54] All data centers, all houses, we need a compromise that's in the middle. Supervisor Bodie. Thank you, Madam Chair. And what I will say is to Supervisor Angre's point that he's made several times, although we won't address it directly today, I think that we need to talk about some sort of directive to staff to review our standards around these data centers close in close proximity to residences, to community-facing retail and amenities, and also, of course, schools.

[09:31:22] Because right now we're in a situation where we've set up, well, the previous board set up the overlay to be a place where they want to focus. Those data centers make it easy to set them up. However, even though this wasn't in the overlay, that entire area around it was. And we're going to continue to run into this where there's things right next to the overlay where people are going to have these same concerns over and over again.

[09:31:44] And we do have the results of the overlay district review that came out a few months ago, but that still doesn't address the standards of these areas right outside the overlay and what have you. So just wanted to queue it up so that the county can start thinking through what that looks like.

[09:32:01] And I guess we'll have to all work together on what a directive like that looks like because we can't keep having Groundhog Day over and over again all around, especially in this area on the fringes of the overlay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Seeing no further discussion, please vote. We are adjourned.

[09:32:16] Vote unanimous. I got you as a yes.

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