Remarks to the Prince William Planning Commission: June 8, 2022

I’m Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.  I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway. 

Good evening.  Much has happened since I last stood before you on April 27^th.  On May 12^th, the Prince William Times published an article by investigative reporter Peter Cary, which Director of Economic Development Christina Winn declined to be interviewed for, that thoroughly debunked her bogus assertion of “no available land in the overlay district”.  This false claim has repeatedly been cited to drive data center development into areas where it clearly doesn’t belong.

Notice that the slide shown indicates that Prince William County is already in the process of developing almost 40 million square feet of data center capacity.  That is not counting anything that may be developed on available land in the overlay district and not counting undetermined square footage for properties already under development.  These areas may yield up to an additional 20 million square feet of capacity.  Most importantly, all of this is without the Prince William Digital Gateway.

The article was followed quickly on May 16^th by the release of a Targeted Industry Land Needs Analysis report by Camoin Associates that stated the highest projected demand for data center capacity over the next 20 years is 48 million square feet.  Per the Times article’s findings, this demand can be met even without the Prince William Digital Gateway.  So, the County doesn’t need to recklessly tear up the countryside to reach even its most ambitious goals for data center development.  Never mind that the County has never articulated what those goals are.

But there’s more to the story.  What do you think the land availability section of the Camoin report says?  No available land in the overlay district.  And how can that be?  Because the County provided that input to Camoin as an underlying premise to their study.  In fact, the first reference cited in the report was Christina Winn’s thoroughly discredited memo of May 27, 2021, which is full of subjective assertions which have been repeatedly disproven.  I wonder if whoever was soliciting the contract thought they were playing Jeopardy when they gave the contractor their desired answer before asking the question.   

Despite its obvious prejudicial basis, the Camoin report was quickly posted on the Prince William Digital Gateway website with the accompanying note: “This analysis is important as it will help inform the Land Use Chapter update of the Comprehensive Plan as well as the Data Center Overlay Comprehensive Review, and pending Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA) request, including the PW Digital Gateway CPA.”

In actuality, this analysis is important disinformation.  The land availability section contains tainted information presented to the public as independent analysis and designed to bolster bankrupt arguments for unnecessary development.  On May 27^th, I asked Chair Ann Wheeler to explain the clearly biased solicitation of this report.  I have not received a reply.

Opponents of the Prince William Digital Gateway have never said don’t build data centers.  We said don’t put them where they don’t belong.  There is ample proof that we don’t need to.