Seems it was the past that tripped it up.
The time element usually associated with data centers is the future. Discussions center on the future of technology, and, in local government, on future tax revenue.
But the Stafford County Planning Commission on Wednesday night recommended denial of a data center project after almost two meetings’ worth of questions about the historical significance of the 99 acres on which it would sit.
The commission agreed to defer discussion of the project, called the Potomac Creek Campus, last month after talk about how a cemetery on the property may have to be relocated if data centers come to the parcel, south of Eskimo Hill Road in central Stafford.
That issue came up again Wednesday. The commission voted 5-0 to recommend the board of supervisors, which has the final say, deny two matters crucial to the project, which proposes up to 975,000 square feet of data center space. Commissioners also voted 5-0 to recommend the supervisors approve two matters secondary to the project but unrelated to the cemetery.
Vice Chairwoman Kelsey Caudill was absent from the meeting and Commissioner Gregory Goldstein of the Garrisonville District had to give up his seat recently because of a military deployment.
The commission, however, hasn’t soured completely on the Potomac Creek project, as more than one member said the location generally was good for a data center. It would be near the already-approved Stafford Technology Campus data center complex.
“If I had to put another data center someplace else in this county,” Commission Chairwoman Kristen Barnes said, “this is probably the place that I would say, ‘All right, fine, we’ve got to put another data center there, and that’s the place to put it.'”
One of the proposed Potomac Creek data center buildings would be on an existing cemetery that may include more plots than previously identified.
The site includes four known Caucasian burials, marked by elaborate headstones, belonging to the Seddon family, and indications of 12 or more unmarked burials believed to be the final resting place of individuals enslaved by the Seddon family.
“I have been approached by historians with questions about this cemetery, now that they know that it is a part of this development review, and there is a significant amount of concern in the community amongst both Seddon descendants and Johnson family descendants,” said Nancy Kotting, cultural resources specialist for the county.
Commissioner Willie Shelton Jr. said the application wasn’t “ready for prime time,” and he spoke early in the discussion about the cemetery situation.
“I am concerned, as a commissioner, about the desecration of any graveyard in Stafford County, and, in addition, this particular one,” said Shelton, who represents the Hartwood District. “Placing a data center on top of a graveyard is not apropos, in my opinion.”
Mark Looney, an attorney for the project, however, said the applicant would be amenable to relocating the cemetery, an action he underscored would have to be decreed by a judge.
A handful of speakers at the public hearing Wednesday also said they were concerned about the data center proposal. A 94-year-old lifetime Stafford resident recalled knowing former owners of the property, and another speaker had researched the exploits of the Seddon family.
Jeff Eastland of the data center watchdog group Protect Stafford, brought up another worry: the environmental effects of data centers in general.
He said he wasn’t against the Potomac Creek project “per se,” but that he’s concerned that even the tax revenue data centers promise won’t ever make up for the health and ecological problems they could bring. Data centers, he said, are “environmental shakedowns” in communities.
Reached Thursday night, Erin Sanzero, president of Protect Stafford, underscored some of the planning commissioners’ thoughts about the pragmatism of the Potomac Creek project.
“It is, all things being equal, about the best location for a data center we are going to get, provided that the concerns echoed by staff, the planning commission and the public are meaningfully addressed,” she wrote in a text message to the Free Press.
