Spitting Into the Wind

  Remarks to the Prince William Planning Commission: July 27, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   The Planning Office’s “Principles of Decision Making” for this proposal were really “Principles of Mitigation” because they bypass an evaluation of the risks versus benefits and focus solely on how to minimize its expected negative impacts.   The Planning Office’s draft staff report does essentially the same thing, while giving short shrift to frequently expressed public concerns The “Principles of Decision Making” state: “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 attempt to mitigate its detrimental impacts after approval. The Data Center Fiscal Impact An...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: June 28, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   I applaud Peter Cary’s thorough analysis of the recently released Targeted Industry Land Needs Analysis from Camoin Associates in the June 23 rd edition of the Prince William Times.   Advocates and opponents of data center development will try to cherry-pick aspects they believe will support their case, so it’s helpful to have it all spelled out. The land availability section of the report does little more than parrot back false and subjective assertions from the County that have been repeatedly disproven.   The author concurred: “Two-thirds of its cited references are Prince William County land-use studies, and the first listed reference is the controversial May 2021 Data Center Market Viability Review prepared by the economic development office.” The Camoin report based its projec...

  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 cou...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: June 7, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   I was on vacation during your meeting on May 10 th , but neighbors recommended I watch the video.   At one point Supervisor Lawson suggested conducting a Town Hall to assess citizen sentiment on land use options for the western county.   Chair Wheeler resisted, stating: “I know what your community meetings will look like” and “I know the people you’ll turn out”.   I’d turn out.   I served 25 years in the United States Navy and 17 in the Department of Homeland Security.   I retired to Prince William County before I realized that members of my own party were contemplating destroying it.   It is the worrisome behavior of this Board that drives my civic engagement.   I never attended any meetings like these before last November 9 th .   After seeing you in acti...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: May 24, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   I was gratified when I returned from vacation to see Peter Cary’s excellent Prince William Times article, the one Christina Winn declined to be interviewed for, that thoroughly discredited the bogus argument of “no available land in the overlay district”.   This false assertion has repeatedly been cited to drive data center development into areas where it clearly doesn’t belong. 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...

  Remarks to the Prince William Planning Commission: April 27, 2022 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 ar...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: April 26, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   On April 7 th I sent the Supervisors an article ( PRP acquiring 35 acres in Manassas, plans three data centers - DCD (datacenterdynamics.com) ) reporting that real estate firm PRP purchased 22 acres in the data center overlay district for the purpose of building a million square feet of data center capacity within 18 months on land the Department of Economic Development told us was “Occupied or Not Available for Sale”.  Yet it was sold for data center development despite being occupied.  The right price suddenly made the property available.  And the opportunity made it worthwhile to clear and repurpose the land.     On April 21 st , Inside NOVA reported ( Data center mapped out for 34 acres in Manassas | Headlines | insidenova.com ) that Stack Infrastructure anno...