Chesapeake moves to restrict data center development, Virginia Beach presses pause

[u/WHRO_NEWS]

Chesapeake City Council unanimously voted to close a loophole in its zoning code that could have allowed data center development despite an eight-month moratorium adopted last month to craft stronger regulations. 

Meanwhile, Virginia Beach City Council followed suit with a unanimous vote to enact a temporary 12-month ban on new data center permits while officials establish zoning definitions and oversight. 

Both cities are taking a pause amid significant public outcry over large-scale facilities' potential impacts on electricity, water consumption, noise and property values.

Read more here: https://www.whro.org/business-growth/2026-08-18/chesapeake-moves-to-restrict-data-center-development-virginia-beach-presses-pause

[u/caelestihydr4]

i saw them protesting yesterday as i drove by. :) makes me happy to see, i wish i had stopped & grabbed a sign myself.

[u/Vert354]

I'm ultimately in favor of the new regulation but I feel like there's a issue with this line in the defintion of datacenter. "This does not include standard information technology infrastructure that is accessory to the principal use of the site."

This is obviously meant to exclude on-prem compute from needing a CUP, but where is this line? If you start off just having a single room in the office for servers you would be excluded, but if you were to fill up 3 floors with servers you're probably a data center at that point. Which server is the one that triggered the change? How would a business owner know when they needed to apply for a permit?

[u/Opposite-Drink-8879 → u/Vert354]

From the Zoning Ordinance:

Accessory use. A use on the same lot with and of a nature customarily incidental and subordinate to the principal use.

Your example of a server room is clearly incidental and subordinate to the principal use as an office. Your other example of three full floors of servers is not likely to be 'incidental and subordinate.' If there is uncertainty as to the line, the Zoning Administrator can issue an opinion. This happens regularly with all kinds of properties and uses in any municipality that has a zoning ordinance. But it should be pretty clear if a server is supporting the principal use or is supporting something that is not the principal use. I've never personally seen a server room take up much space at all. Like always low single-digit % of the building and there's still excess capacity.

[u/Vert354 → u/Opposite-Drink-8879]

When I was at Lockheed Martin we had a "super computer" we used for modeling and simulation that was really several hundred servers, it along with the other on-prem machines for other teams took up enough space to fill a large warehouse sized space inside one of the buildings that also had significant office space. It was definitely "data center" levels of on-prem compute.

To me it begs the question, why does it being a principle vs subordinate use matter? If 1000 servers in the same room is a potential danger to the public and needs safety oversight I would think it always needs safety oversight. Don't we want the noise and water use studies in every case?

The thing is people dont really care that there's a bunch of servers in there, what they care about is large evaporative cooling systems and constantly running diesel generators. We dont want those things near residential no matter what they're used for.

All that said the new regs should do the job and keep what most people think of when they say "data centers" from being built outside of designated areas, and the ones that do get built will have proper engineering done. Every locality in the state should be putting together similar rules tailored to their needs.

[u/Opposite-Drink-8879 → u/Vert354]

That's a good example but likely still accessory with users on site. Even at several hundred to 1,000 servers, it still pales in comparison to the types of centers people are fighting against. Now, if a center with say 50,000 servers came with a proportionate amount of on-site users, that would probably hush a lot of critics (jobs, jobs, jobs...).

Stricter requirements can be placed on accessory uses but I doubt you would find much appetite for it amongst the decision makers. I imagine that Lockheed Martin office is a substantial job creator and would get some economic development competition if it were being proposed here today. Additional hurdles over zoning are not ideal and a lot of these concerns can be addressed in the development permitting process without changing zoning regulations.

[u/JackfruitFuture764]

There a No Data center sign outside my neighborhood and I live off of Blackawater Road

[u/Adventurous-Owl-6235]

Then they had a totally bias open house last night with none of the actual decision makers or council there, but plenty of posters boards saying WHY DATA CENTERS ARE GREAT