5/12 CDI Bill Amended & Overlay Proposed

Amended Data Center Bill Gets 2nd Hearing

on Tuesday, 5/13

Tell Council Members that VOTERS are their partners!

On Tuesday, 5/6, the Frederick County Council discussed and voted on 25 amendments to the Knapp/Young bill for regulating data centers in Frederick County. Most of the amendments to the bill were introduced by Council Member McKay and were aimed at addressing Data Center Workgroup recommendations and Planning Commission suggestions. Most were voted down 2-5, with only McKay and Donald in support.

Mr. McKay's summary of the votes, posted on the Stop MPRP, Inc. Facebook page, aligns with Sugarloaf Alliance discussions and discloses backroom industry pressures we've suspected. Mr. McKay said, in part: "They [Knapp, Young, Keegan-Ayre, Duckett, Carter] passed one amendment that allows data centers to be built right up against residential neighborhoods, and another amendment that expands the grand-fathering clause so that developers only have to have a site plan application in place to be exempt from the requirements of the bill. These amendments were brought forward at the specific request of a developer that wants to build a data center on a site far away from Eastalco - exactly what we had just agreed would not happen [see "Progress*" below]. Between now and when we actually pass that overlay legislation - and then it becomes effective - this developer has a window of opportunity to get his site plan application submitted to build a new data center right across the street from a residential neighborhood. [Where might that be? See the aspirational data center map.] Those five Council members put this single developer's interests above everyone else's...."

In our view, the weak Knapp/Young bill not only ignored recommendations from the Data Centers Workgroup, the majority's four amendments made it worse.

Because there were substantive amendments, the bill requires a second hearing, which will take place on Tuesday, 5/13, beginning at 7:00pm. Members of the public will have 3 minutes each to speak, in person or by phone (see the agenda for details). We encourage you to attend and to write to the Council and County Executive Fitzwater - yet again. Tell them that you support the Data Centers Workgroup recommendations and that the Council's amended (and so even weaker) legislation - developed in "partnership" with industry - threatens our quality of life.

The Council is scheduled to vote on the final language at their legislative session on 5/20.

County Executive Proposes CDI Overlay Zone:

Progress* toward limiting Data Center Sprawl?

Council Member McKay's quote above ("exactly what we had just agreed would not happen") refers to a press conference held by the County Executive just prior to the start of that 5/6 County Council meeting. County Executive Fitzwater announced a compromise, backed by all seven Council Members. (Read more here and here.)

In order to address the community's concern about potential data center sprawl, Ms. Fitzwater announced that the county will create a zoning "overlay" that would include and expand on the already-approved Quantum/EastAlcoa site in Adamstown. (That site is roughly 2,200 acres; the anticipated overlay might double that.) The promise is that the overlay would be the only area where data center development would be permitted in the county.

Progress*? The suggestion is that everyone who doesn't live in Adamstown (ie., those of us in the Sugarloaf and Brunswick areas) can relax. No data centers allowed.

Have we succeeded in convincing the county to prohibit data centers in the Sugarloaf Plan area? Maybe we're too cynical, but our sense that "we won" lasted about half a second. Sugarloaf Alliance notes that "the devil is in the details."

*First, the good folks in neighboring Adamstown can't breathe a sigh of relief. They are now in the crosshairs with a weak data center bill about to get passed, but the whole county will experience the effects of this intense industry. (For example, the MPRP powerline fight illustrates how our central Maryland region is affected by the data center industry in another state.)

*Overlay zoning legislation is complex and takes a long time (remember the attempt to get a protective Sugarloaf Overlay?). What will the data center overlay map look like? How will it be defined? Industry pressure clearly affected the outcome of the Knapp/Young legislation; how will industry affect this?

*Developers still own land inside and along the Sugarloaf Plan boundary. Do we think they've given up on their development aspirations? We do not, and as Mr. McKay reported, the grandfather clause in the data center legislation (composed in partnership with a data center developer) appears to contradict the overlay's promise.

*The IW2 plan ("Investing in Workers and Workplaces" - read here and here), which is in process, aims to significantly increase acreage in the county zoned industrial and commercial. If data centers truly aren't allowed outside of Adamstown, what will Sugarloaf area developers propose instead as part of the IW2 plan?

*In the county's schedule, the so-called I-270 Corridor Plan follows the IW2 plan. Throughout the years of Sugarloaf Plan consideration, developers cited "I-270 Corridor" as justification for a narrower Sugarloaf preservation boundary. We soon will be faced with a county planning process dubbed "I-270 Corridor." What will developers' interests achieve in THAT process? Will Tuesday's promise to contain the data center spread endure or will a hyperscale data center - grandfathered in because of the law now under consideration - change the character of the neighborhood and start the dominoes tumbling?

Just for the record: We'd be happy for a contained data center zone in an area appropriate for industrial development and for legislation strong enough to assure the community that data centers will be good neighbors. If the data center overlay truly is strong and geographically contained, we'll lead the celebratory parade, but we're not throwing our hats in the air quite yet.