A July 16 paper from Synergy Group indicates that Northern Virginia is the world’s leading site for hyperscale data center capacity – twice as much as Beijing China, which came in second place.

You might think that this area would be the envy of the nation in terms of economic development. But a July 29 report from Bloomberg’s City Lab points to the idea that there is a balancing act here, which may be tipping in the wrong direction. The Bloomberg research done by Linda Poon, indicated that “Northern Virginia housing developments that will soon be walled in by data centers exemplify the tensions over unfettered growth, as calls increase for regulation.”

As she writes, “Data centers have long been a financial boon, but their explosive growth has exacerbated their literal and metaphorical shadow over Northern Virginia. On top of energy and environmental strains, data centers don’t always make the best neighbors.”

The situation in Northern Virginia is a powerful example of how the economic benefits of growth in high-tech real estate can take their toll on a populace much of which would rather leave their home towns alone, and leave the money for someplace else.

Poon points to Loudoun County, which indicates that it received $26 in taxes for every $1 invested in data centers, which helps keep residents’ taxes down, even while providing sufficient resources for parks, schools and other local amenities. But facilities are eating up 49 million square feet of land and that has its cost.

As a recent paper from the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club states, “The rapid growth of data centers in Virginia has come with consequences that are largely unaddressed by state policy.” Areas of concern include skyrocketing energy demand; rising consumer costs; severe water loss; environmental and health risks; land and community displacement; and, regulatory and policy failures.”

What’s more according to the Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), “The industrial scale of data centers makes them largely incompatible with residential uses. (Yet,) one-third of data centers are currently located near residential areas, and industry trends make future residential impacts more likely.”

How has this come to pass? Reports JLARC, “Inadequate local planning and zoning have allowed some data centers to be located near residential areas . . . In some cases, this occurred because local zoning ordinances did not consider data centers to be an industrial use. In addition, some localities have zoned industrial areas next to residential areas, even though land use principles state that industrial uses and residential uses should not be zoned next to each other. Local elected officials have also granted data centers exceptions that led to adverse residential impacts, such as approving rezonings that would allow data centers next to sensitive locations.”

#StateandLocalDataCenterExpansion #DataCenterInfrastructure #NorthernVirginiaDataCenterExpansion #StateandLocalDataCenterZoning #StateandLocalInfrastructureManagement #StateandLocalEconomicDevelopment #DownsideOfDataCenterExpansion #VirginiaDataCenterStudy #StateandLocalEconomicDevelopmentManagement #SynergyGroup #HyperscaleDataCenterPlacement #StateandLocalEconomicDevelopmentPolicy #NIMBY #DataCenterResidentialmpact #VirginiaJointLegislativeAuditReviewCommission #StateandLocalGovernmentAuditReport #StateLocalManagementDataCenterZoning #NorthernVirginiaDataCenterGrowth #BloombergCityLab #DataCenterEnergyDownside #DataCenterEnvironmentalDownside #DataCenterResidentialDownside #StateandLocalManagementNews #StateandLocalDataNews #BarrettandGreeneInc