The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors has voted to pause new data center and substation applications, giving the Virginia county time to rewrite the regulations that govern the industry's biggest US hub. The board voted 7-1-1 to direct staff to draft a formal resolution implementing the pause, according to Loudoun Times-Mirror.
The pause, intended to take effect immediately, would apply for up to 12 months and covers only "legislative" applications that require a board vote, such as rezonings and special exceptions. Administrative applications handled directly by county staff are not affected.
County Attorney Leo Rogers said Virginia law does not allow the county to impose an outright moratorium on data center approvals. Instead, he said, the county can delay action on a data center rezoning or special exception for up to a year from the Planning Commission's public hearing of that application. The proposal was brought forward to give the county time to finalize revised data center and substation regulations, according to the report, which was covered as breaking news by DatacenterDynamics.
Loudoun County is home to the largest concentration of data centers in the United States, a corridor often referred to as "Data Center Alley." The board's move to slow new legislative applications marks a notable shift for a jurisdiction that has for years been synonymous with rapid data center growth. A formal vote on the resolution is still to follow.