Amazon wants to build a data center in suburban Virginia. The area's well-connected landowners and the conservation groups they fund are going toe-to-toe with the multibillion-dollar company.
WARRENTON, Va. - For some residents, this small town in the Virginia Piedmont seems like the last logical place to put a warehouse full of computer servers.
Yet Amazon's push into Fauquier County has helped animate an opponent that is locally influential enough to go toe-to-toe with the multibillion-dollar company: the area's well-connected landowners and the conservation groups they fund. "With the Town of Warrenton, we openly engaged the community through meetings, public filings, and hearings in our aim to build a data center that will bring significant investment, highly-skilled jobs, and a boost to the local economy," Neasham said in the statement.
The Piedmont Environmental Council, which formed only a few years later, took on a similar mission at a regional level: Working across nine counties, it looked to conserve natural resources and plan development where it makes the most sense. Among other efforts, it blocked transmission lines across the region, helped protect hundreds of thousands of acres under conservation easements, and sparred with the co-founder of BET as she tried to open a high-end resort.
The critics won, and their victory cemented the notion among some that Fauquier conservationists were opposed to most development. If God wanted to move heaven to Haymarket, according to a joke at the time, the PEC would say, "God - take a second look." Chris Miller, the PEC's president, acknowledged the organization has wealthy donors and board members who contribute to its $6 million budget. But he said the nonprofit advocates on behalf of people of all socioeconomic backgrounds to protect the environment across the Virginia Piedmont.
Nearly two years ago, John Foote and Jessica Pfeiffer, two land-use attorneys at a well-known Northern Virginia firm, contacted Town Manager Brandie Schaeffer with a request to connect about a potential data center. Miller, the PEC president, said the lack of transparency around these exchanges had made the process look especially secretive. "You're not playing fair. You're trying to do things in secret, just trying to cut deals behind closed doors," he said. "The public concern starts to go way up because it's not a collective decision. It's the decision of a few people operating in secret.
The town council voted in August to approve the zoning amendment, which would still require the body to approve a permit application for any data center. Amazon purchased a property on Blackwell Road just a few weeks later for $39.7 million, paying more than 11 times the lot's assessed value. 'We were still in the learning stages and we didn't have the benefit of information that the [town] staff had," Bolthouse said. "My calculations in my head were that there are some data centers that would be good revenue generators that might actually fit in the town."
Speakers at the event raised concerns about the proposed data center: They said it would go against the comprehensive plan. They said one data center could result in unsightly power lines and more facilities later on. They pointed to the NDAs, the one-on-one meetings and Schaeffer's hiring. They noted that her husband, Chris Granger, had resigned from his post on the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors over the potential for perceived conflict of interest with Amazon.
A separate political action committee formed by several CFFC board members, which called itself the Warrenton Honest Government League, sent out mailers attacking Nevill. They added red scrawl to the message on one of his yard signs - "Working together. Finding solutions." - that changed it into a very different message: "Working with Amazon. Finding solutions for data centers.
Down the street, though, Keith Peitler, 49, erupted into a knowing chuckle when a reporter asked for his thoughts on the facility.
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