I’m Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville. I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.
The Planning Office’s recently released digital gateway “Principles of Decision Making” are really “Principles of Mitigation” because they seem to look past a decision on whether or not to approve this project and focus on how to minimize its negative impact. The public does not believe the major decision is to decide what type of shrubs should be placed around a development it doesn’t want.
Contrast the “Principles and Strategies” developed for the overlay district review with the digital gateway principles:
* The overlay district
criteria says: “Minimize negative impact to environmentally sensitive areas”
while the digital gateway principles say: “Identify environmentally sensitive
areas and areas that are incompatible with development”. You can interpret the latter as “place a silt
fence around Resource Protected Areas”.
* The digital gateway principles
say “Incorporate findings from relevant studies” but makes no mention of
conducting a water study recommended by multiple water quality experts. And what about a determination of power requirements and
effects for an obviously electrical power-intensive project?
* The overlay district
criteria says: “Minimize negative impact to historic and cultural resources”
while the digital gateway principles say “preserve
priority historic viewsheds from Manassas National Battlefield Park” and
“identify cultural resources and appropriate methods to protect/preserve
them”. The most obvious way to minimize
negative impact is to develop elsewhere, not just catalog what you expect to damage.
* The overlay district
criteria says: “Prioritize areas planned for or adjacent to compatible land
uses” while the digital gateway criteria says: “identify and minimize potential
impacts to existing adjacent residential and other incompatible land
uses”. If the County acknowledges that
building an industrial corridor adjacent to residential areas constitutes
incompatible land use, they should reject it outright and not just mitigate its
detrimental impact after approval.
* Why is there absolutely no consideration of the County’s
revised Comprehensive Plan and whether the PW Digital Gateway proposal even
fits into the County’s vision? That vision must precede the
decision on this proposal.
* Where is the requirement for a definitive determination of
land in the overlay district and more suitable industrial areas for data center
development? We are currently relying on anecdotal evidence and data
center developer preferences rather than the County’s needs.
* Where is an articulation of the County’s goal for data
center development to determine if this capacity is even required?
* Where is the requirement for an estimate of cash flow from
the project which would reveal whether the benefits of this proposal outweigh
the environmental risks?
* What about additional County staffing requirements to
manage such significant industrial growth?
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