Loudoun County Supervisors Try To Close Lingering Data Center Approval Loophole

ASHBURN, VA – Two Loudoun County supervisors are planning to introduce legislation to end the county’s 2025 Data Center Grandfathering Resolution and require the more than 20 administrative data center applications exempted from the county’s updated requirements to go through public hearings and a full Board of Supervisors vote.

Supervisor Juli Briskman (D-Algonkian) and Laura TeKrony (D-Little River) are planning to introduce legislation to immediately end the Data Center Grandfathering Resolution at the board’s next meeting on Sept. 1, they said in a release.

In March 2025, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors updated the county’s comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance to end by-right data center approval in the county. In areas where approval had been by-right – meaning applications could be approved with just a staff-level review – data centers were reclassified as a "special exception" use, requiring public hearings and a board vote.

However, in a 5-4 vote, the board allowed applications received before February 2025 to continue under the old administrative process.

Now, Briskman and TeKrony want to try again to require those roughly two dozen applications to adhere to the county’s updated rules. Both voted against the original grandfathering resolution, along with Sylvia Glass (D-Broad Run) and Vice Chair Mike Turner.

“Loudoun residents have been clear about the negative impact that unconstrained data center growth is having on our communities,” Briskman said in the release. “We should no longer permit administrative data center projects to move forward by-right when the County has already determined that they deserve greater scrutiny. It is time to bring these applications into the public process and give residents a meaningful opportunity to be heard.”

According to the release, Loudoun County has doubled its data center footprint in the past five years and currently hosts over 250 data centers and approximately 53 million square feet of data center development. “Data centers generate more than $1 billion in annual local tax revenue, but their continued growth has also created significant new demand for electrical infrastructure, raised concerns about utility costs, contributed to noise, air quality, and natural resource impacts, and crowded out attainable housing and other forms of economic development,” Briskman and TeKrony said in the release.

According to a report by Loudoun Now, about 22 applications covering about 10 million square feet of data center space identified when the grandfathering resolution took effect still seem to qualify for by-right development, and county staff have identified an additional five applications for at least nine data center buildings that would also qualify to be grandfathered in.

TeKrony says she has not voted for a single data center application since her term began in 2024 and says the county needs to more seriously consider residents’ quality of life in the face of the data center boom.

Elsewhere in the county, residents are fighting the proposed overland route of a new 6.5-mile high-voltage transmission line, which will bring electricity to the county's "data center alley."