Henrico Board of Supervisors vote for stricter approval process for data centers

HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — After much debate and delay, the Henrico County Board of Supervisors have agreed to implement stricter requirements for data center development in the county.

On Tuesday night, the board voted to require developers to obtain a provisional use permit. This would also require future data center plans to undergo a public hearing and be approved by the board of supervisors as opposed to just the planning commission.

Virginia has the largest concentration of data centers in the world and about 40 data center properties can be found in Henrico. The board held off on making a decision after a public hearing last month was met with concerns from both residents and developers.

Several changes were ultimately made to the proposal before a final vote was taken. The new regulations now apply to future data centers county-wide instead of solely at White Oak Technology Park, as previously suggested.

At last month's hearing, several developers requested a “grandfathering” clause that would have allowed them to proceed with their data centers as planned. Last night, the board denied this request and clarified that any data center projects still undergoing the approval process will have to abide by the new regulations and won’t be grandfathered in.

The board also made an amendment to the required distance between a data center and residential properties. Instead of 200-foot tree buffer requirement, the board decided on increasing that distance to 500-feet.

These changes take effect immediately.