After six months of controversy over a data center proposal in Pittsylvania County, the board of supervisors on Tuesday voted down the developer’s application for a needed rezoning — after first voting to deny the company’s request to withdraw the application.
Balico will now need to wait a full year before it can submit another proposal.
The meeting drew a crowd of hundreds, sporting T-shirts and buttons and carrying signs opposing the data center. The shirts read “No Power Plants, No Data Centers in Rural Neighborhoods.”
Balico had asked to withdraw its proposal April 7, announcing the request Monday, just one day before the vote was scheduled.
The board kept the item on the agenda because the meeting had already been advertised to the public and moved to Chatham High School to allow for a larger crowd.
“It cost us money to actually move the venue to this location, security and everything else, so this late in the game we could not take it off the agenda,” said Chairman Robert Tucker.
Steven Gould, a local attorney who represents Balico, said during the meeting that the company wanted to withdraw its application without penalty. This would have allowed it to come back at a later date with another proposal.
That could have been another data center proposal, Gould said. Balico is pursuing a joint-venture with Hillwood, a Dallas-based real estate developer that specializes in industrial sites.
But it also could have been another type of development, like a residential subdivision.
“Balico is also going to do what any prudent party would do, which is explore alternative uses for the land,” Gould said. “There are scores of by-right uses for the land, including residential development. I counted about 55 by-right uses for A-1 zoned land.”
Irfan Ali, founding member of Balico, was not at the meeting.
The vote tally was 5-2 to deny the withdrawal, with only board members Tim Dudley and Murray Whittle voting to approve it.
The rezoning application requested that about 750 acres of land near the town of Chatham be changed from an agricultural to an industrial designation to allow for a data center campus. The project involved 12 data center buildings, each 396,000 square feet, and onsite power generation.
Board members voted 6-1 against the project because of the proposed layout of the project, the height and profile of the buildings, the expected emissions, the limited benefit of jobs created in the county and the lack of clarity in the proffers and plans.
Dudley, who represents the Hurt district of the county, cast the only dissenting vote. The town of Hurt had entered into an agreement with Balico to supply water to the data center campus in exchange for a new water treatment plant.
The town, about 20 miles north of where the campus would have been, also hoped to lower water taxes for residents with Balico as a customer.
Tucker said that he is not opposed to data centers in the county, but he voted against this project because of the above reasons and because “we don’t have community buy-in.”
The data center proposal has been a hot-button issue in the county since it was first proposed in the fall.
Balico withdrew its initial application — a much larger project, spanning 2,200 acres and including 84 data center buildings and a 3,500 megawatt power plant — in early November. The company resubmitted a scaled-back version later that month.
The planning commission voted unanimously to recommend denial for the project at its meeting in January, saying not enough specifics had been provided.
Balico then requested a postponement two months in a row before filing the request to withdraw ahead of the April meeting.
The public hearing portion of Tuesday’s meeting spanned over two hours, with more than 40 residents speaking.
A few residents, including Hurt Mayor Gary Hodnett, spoke in favor of the project, saying it would generate transformational tax revenue for the county. According to Balico, the county could have received up to $120 million per year in tax revenue once the project was built out.
The overwhelming majority spoke in opposition to the project, expressing environmental, traffic and energy concerns, distrust in Balico, and a desire to preserve the rural and agricultural identity of the county.
Residents urged the board to value the people of Pittsylvania County over potential revenue.
Amy Davis, the first speaker of the night, said that the Balico proposal has caused division among residents in the county, “pitting neighbors against neighbors and families against families.”
“Balico will threaten our communities in a negative way, impacting the region’s air, water, noise, light quality and our health, eroding the quality of life for the people who call this place home,” Davis said. “Filling farmland with concrete and pollution is not being a good steward.”
Only Tucker and board member Kenneth Bowman made comments during the board discussion before the vote.
“I witnessed the division, which has been noted, in the community,” Bowman said. “It’s going to take a long time to heal that pain. It may take a generation.”
Tucker said that this will likely not be the last data center proposal that comes to the county. One of his goals as chair is to oversee the process of updating the county’s comprehensive plan.
“Hopefully, as we move forward in the future, when we come up against these types of decisions, if we have an up to date comprehensive plan, it does not put as much heartache and pressure on this board,” he said.
