Data centers present both opportunities and challenges, and at a recent regional meeting, local leaders were urged to become acquainted with both, regardless of whether their jurisdictions are directly impacted.
“Don’t ever have a conversation of ‘all-good’ or ‘all-bad’ — there are a lot of nuances,” Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall said at a March 11 meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG).
Loudoun has become ground zero for both the construction of data centers and the public pushback that often accompanies them.
“It’s a very double-edged sword,” Randall acknowledged. “Loudoun County has a lot to teach about the mistakes we made, especially around land use — we made a lot of mistakes.”
The D.C. region is the largest hub for data centers not just in the U.S., but in the world. Its capacity is nearly three times that of Beijing, which ranks second.
“We are the epicenter of this,” said Jeff King, a COG staff member focused on climate, energy and air quality.
More facilities are on the way, which will further strain the region’s electric grid.
“It’s just an immense amount,” King said. “Dominion is currently projecting over the next five years they’re going to need to double — literally double — their capacity.”
That increased need is putting stress on property owners, who see the cost of new infrastructure passed on to them even if they don’t live in localities where the complexes are sprouting.
“In the District of Columbia, I am not going to see a data center built on my horizon, but I am going to see a data center show up in my power bill,” D.C. City Council member Charles Allen said.
“Every month when I open my envelope, I am seeing costs,” he said.
COG has been holding a series of meetings focused on issues surrounding data centers. The final meeting in the series — focused in part on cost issues — will convene after the Virginia and Maryland legislatures conclude their 2026 sessions.
COG general manager Clark Mercer said the goal of the upcoming conversation is to “bring the right people to the table to have a level-headed conversation.”
Mercer said he hoped that discussion will include details on “what part of the [energy] bill is due to data centers vs. what part of that bill is due to everyone’s usage.”
Fairfax County has seen some data centers, though at a far lower rate than in more outer suburbs. More sites are in the works, including a possible land sale in Chantilly, CoreSite’s expansion in Reston and a facility in Lincolnia that has faced opposition from neighbors.
At the COG meeting, Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk said local governments need to do a better job working with residents to address concerns, particularly when facilities are planned to abut residential communities.
The Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found in 2024 that more than half of the 20 data centers in Fairfax County at the time were within 200 feet of a residential neighborhood — a higher rate than any other locality in the state. The Board of Supervisors approved tighter regulations earlier that year, including a minimum 200-foot setback from homes, but the changes didn’t apply to developments already in the planning process.
“The siting [of centers] is really important,” Lusk said, urging regional leaders to be “thinking about the aesthetics” of the facilities.
“They’re not really attractive. They don’t have a lot of appeal to them,” he said, urging leaders to “help people see the value” in the facilities.
For local governments, Lusk acknowledged, the “value is clearly in the revenue.”
According to Randall, Loudoun has not put any local funding into recruiting data centers, and for every $1 in local costs, her county has received $26 back in tax revenue.
As a result, “we have the lowest [property] taxes in the entire DMV, by far,” she said.
But Randall acknowledged that alone will not tamp down public concerns.
“When I came to office 10 years ago, the biggest complaint was about traffic,” she said. “Today the biggest concern — by far — is about data centers. It’s a very tough conversation.”
Simply saying “no” to future data center development is a nonstarter, Randall said. The state and federal government will then simply preempt local authority, shutting local leaders and residents out of discussions.
In Virginia, Senate leaders have proposed funding the state budget in part by ending the tax breaks currently offered to data center developers, but the idea has encountered skepticism from the House of Delegates and Gov. Abigail Spanberger. The General Assembly is expected to need a special session to finalize a spending plan, with the legislature scheduled to adjourn from its regular session this Saturday (March 14).
