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Southampton County planners review data center impacts; staff asked to monitor infrastructure needs
Summary
Commissioners reviewed a JLARC report and local zoning rules, discussed water, power and permitting constraints for potential data centers, and asked staff to continue tracking developments and neighbor jurisdictions’ experiences.
The Southampton County Planning Commission spent the bulk of its meeting discussing the potential local impacts of data center development and how the county’s zoning and infrastructure would accommodate such facilities.
Secretary Randolph, planning staff, told commissioners that “In 2023, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission began to study and determine the impact of data center development in Virginia,” and that the JLARC study and an accompanying presentation were included in the commission’s meeting packet. Randolph also summarized how Southampton County’s zoning addresses data centers: data processing centers are a permitted use in the county’s M-1 industrial district but only when the M-1 district is at least 30 acres in size.
The commission’s review focused on utilities and siting constraints. Commissioners and staff flagged electricity and water availability, transmission-line capacity, and wastewater/cooling-discharge requirements as the most significant local considerations. Several speakers noted that large data…
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