The Prince William County Board of Supervisors’ long-awaited Oct. 14 data center work session seemingly yielded more questions than answers.
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The Board of County Supervisors’ long-awaited Oct. 14 data center work session seemingly yielded more questions than answers, as the board voted to advance a public hearing on the county noise ordinance update to their last meeting in October.
Residents in the data center-heavy Gainesville District, meanwhile, await representation on the board following a Nov. 4 special election in the wake of the late Bob Weir’s death.
Following a directive on the topic from Occoquan District Supervisor Kenny Boddye near the end of Tuesday’s meeting, the board voted 4-2 to waive the rules of procedure and move up the noise ordinance public hearing to Oct. 28 – with board Chair Deshundra Jefferson and Brentsville District Supervisor Tom Gordy casting the two dissenting votes. Coles Supervisor Yesli Vega was absent for the vote.
The accelerated public hearing replaces the customary two-step authorization process in which the board was initially set to greenlight the public hearing on Oct. 28, putting it on the agenda for a future meeting.
Instead, the public hearing will immediately be added to the board’s Oct. 28 agenda, and the supervisors will now outright consider a new version of the noise ordinance with Boddye’s edits – sent to board members in a Monday email – superseding prior recommendations from county staff and the now-defunct Data Center Ordinance Advisory Group.
The board voted to disband the resident-led advisory group – which consisted of several Gainesville-area residents – during its Oct. 7 meeting, with Jefferson and Vega dissenting and Gordy absent.
According to Thalia Simpson, a spokesperson for the Prince William County Office of Elections, the office is set to certify the special election for Gainesville District supervisor on Nov. 14 – barring a close recount or other rare certification issues. The board will swear in one of the two candidates – Democrat George Stewart or Republican Patrick Harders – either during its Nov. 18 meeting or the day before.
Rebecca Bare, former chief of staff for Weir, expressed her discontent in an interview with InsideNoVa.
“I know that the Gainesville District residents, from conversations they’ve had to me out and about,” Bare said, “are extraordinarily unhappy that this is coming forward without representation on the board. Where the noise ordinance is important, pushing this off until November when there will be someone in the Gainesville seat – the Gainesville residents don’t understand the urgency to do this in the last meeting in October … as Bob’s chief of staff – and someone that has known him for almost three decades – this was insulting to all of Bob’s efforts.”
According to an Oct. 13 email Boddye sent to the entire board, the Occoquan supervisor’s adjustments revolve around several key elements, including:
- Staff and consultant feedback – including the noise consultants’ technical review, which identified several enforcement and measurement challenges with the initial draft.
- Virginia Black Chamber of Commerce (May 20, 2025) – which raised concerns that the proposed decibel limits and new Class 1 misdemeanor penalties for commercial or industrial sources were out of step with neighboring jurisdictions.
- NAIOP Northern Virginia (June 9, 2025) – which noted that the original draft relied on overly complex measurement standards (dBA and octave bands) and lacked clear provisions for background noise, construction activity, and grandfathering for existing facilities.
- Virginia American Water (May 28, 2025) – which cautioned that the ordinance as written could inadvertently restrict routine utility operations essential to public health and safety.
- Local small business feedback – such as the letter from the Dale Boulevard ice rink owner (June 24, 2025), highlighting how a blanket decibel standard could unintentionally penalize long-established local businesses with no history of complaints.
In a statement to InsideNoVa, Boddye said the previous iteration of the noise ordinance would have been too cumbersome.
“I appreciate all of the work and research put in by county staff and the advisory group,” Boddye said. “However, as I spoke to local businesses, utilities, and even schools from all over the county, it became clear that the ordinance that came out of that process would have chilled economic growth and been nearly impossible to enforce. We would have spent more time defending citations in court than delivering meaningful relief for Prince William residents.”
Boddye added, “My alternative strikes a balance that limits the low-frequency noise produced by heavy industrial entities such as data centers, protecting the wellbeing of county residents, while also ensuring that neighborhood amenities we rely on, such as hospitals, restaurants, and grocery stores, don’t get caught in the crosshairs of a poorly designed ordinance.”
Harders expressed dismay over the board’s recent moves.
“Our board just disbanded the Data Center Ordinance Advisory Group, intentionally silencing the very citizens who voluntarily poured over 2,000 hours of their time to protect the public’s health and uphold community standards,” the statement read. “If we disregard simple public health concerns, what is the purpose of having a Board of Supervisors elected by the people?
To make matters worse, the Board scheduled a public hearing on the noise ordinance for October 28, before Gainesville District has representation on the Board. That’s callous, primarily since our district has borne and will continue to bear the brunt of data center noise, yet will have no voice in the discussion.”
Stewart expressed similar concern over the advisory group in a phone interview.
“It’s another brick on the wall of democracy being taken away from us, to not listen to your own committee that you stood up,” Stewart said. “It’s just, it’s a mistake – mistake is too nice. You just don’t do that … That is a symptom of a much larger, way more pernicious problem: to put together an advisory committee, have them spend thousands of hours of research and knuckling down and getting to the nitty gritty in an issue, and then to disband the committee and not do what they say because you just seem like you’re fundamentally opposed to the findings.”
Stewart maintained “the data is the data,” regardless of whether supervisors like it.
“You might like ‘rocky road’ ice cream,” Stewart said, “but if everybody else wants pralines and cream, you have to give the people pralines and cream. That’s how democracy works.”
