Fairfax County currently allows data centers by-right in a variety of zoning districts under different conditions, including special exceptions in some cases.
County staff’s proposed regulations, which the Board of Supervisors will vote on July 30, would:
• Make equipment-screening requirements for data centers apply to all districts, in an effort to minimize visual and noise impacts. The facilities would need to enclose mechanical gear (HVAC, generators and accessory electrical substations) if possible or surrounding those items with a screening wall if the Land Development Services director determines an enclosure is not feasible. These rules would not pertain to solar panels.
• Retain the maximum 40,000-square-foot size for by-right data centers in the C-3 and C-4 commercial districts.
• Limit data centers in the I-2, I-3 and I-4 industrial districts to 80,000 square feet. To encourage the placement of such facilities in the more industrial I-5 and I-6 districts, the county would impose no size limits in those zones.
• Remove the option for larger data centers in the C-3, C-4 and I-4 zones if done by repurposing buildings, but permit size increases via special exception.
• Not allow data centers in Planned Residential Community (PRC) zones – where no such facilities currently exist or have been approved – and require special exceptions for them in the Planned Tysons Corner (PTC) Urban District and Planned Development Commercial (PDC) areas.
• Require data-center applicants seeking special exceptions or rezonings to submit noise studies and also require such reports before site-plan approval and issuance of occupancy certificates.
• Require data centers to have at least a 200-foot setback from residential uses or lot lines. The Fairfax County Planning Commission on June 6 recommended a minimum 500-foot setback for the facilities’ mechanical equipment and generators, unless these were separated from the residential lot line by the principal data-center building. Applicants could obtain reduced setbacks via special exception.
• Locate by-right data centers no closer than a half-mile from a Metrorail station. (The Planning Commission recommended setting the limit at 1 mile.)
• Adhere to the county’s new requirement for a 50-foot-wide transitional-screening area between industrial and residential uses.
By-right data centers would need to have a main-entrance feature and façade variations every 150 feet, plus windows covering at least 30 percent of the exterior.
Applicants seeking data centers under rezoning or special-exception requests would need to provide architectural sketches and sight-line studies, produce a high-quality design and vary the center’s massing if the facility were to be located within 200 feet of residential property.
“We’re providing direction to developers to indicate here’s what we would like to see, but not [so] specific that they can’t be creative to their own designs,” Carmen Bishop of the county’s Zoning Administration Division told supervisors July 16.
If supervisors approved the new rules, they would take effect the day following adoption.
