8/26 Hearing on CDI Overlay Zone Text

Critical Digital Infrastructure (CDI)

Where Will Data Centers Be Located?

County Council Public Hearing

on Tuesday, 8/26, 7pm

On Tuesday, August 26, the Frederick County Council will hold a public hearing to take comment on the amended CDI Overlay Zone text (Bill 25-09). Sugarloaf Alliance encourages you to attend and tell Council Members how you feel about their choices in this matter.

Sugarloaf Alliance believes that a CDI Overlay Zone could be an important tool to mitigate data center sprawl. The point of a CDI Overlay Zone is to eliminate the current right developers have to build data centers on any industrially zoned property in the county as long as they meet general LI or GI criteria. However, the Sugarloaf Alliance is disappointed in the Council majority's choice to vote against most of the proposed amendments to the currently proposed legislation.

The Council majority voted against protecting homes. The legislation would allow data centers to be built next to residential areas.
The Council majority voted against protecting designated Priority preservation Areas (PPA), Rural Legacy Areas (RLA), or Treasured Landscape Management Areas. Properties with these designations could be included in a CDI Overlay Zone, where data centers could be built. Our Sugarloaf area is a Treasured Landscape Management Area.
The Council majority voted against protecting farms. They rejected the amendment that would have prevented the CDI Overlay from being applied to land zoned agricultural.

Read the Frederick News-Post's coverage of the Council discussion and votes here.

Note: Tuesday's hearing is NOT about the proposed Overlay Map, which is currently under review by state agencies. What's under discussion now is the definition - not the location - of the Zone.

Again, we encourage you to attend; this issue is far from over and Council Members need to hear residents as clearly as they hear industry. We recommend making the following points about the proposed CDI Overlay Zone:

Just because the bill fails to protect residents, homes, schools, churches, farms, preservation and other sensitive areas, an Overlay Map still could avoid such offenses. We will continue vigorously to advocate against data center sprawl.
Failure to restrict data centers to industrial zones implies more is better.
- Data center industry proponents continue to tout revenue numbers that sound seductive to county and state government, but the proponents don't cite costs. Why not? The county will incur expenses, and we think the costs will be higher than the projected revenue. Where's their objective economic analysis? We've been asking that question the whole time and getting no answers.
- The current, locally focused data center studies are provided by industry consultants; the fox is designing the hen house. Where are the citations for their claims? Where is the objective analysis of energy use, water use, sewage disposal, greenhouse gases, noise and light impacts, climate and health impacts?
Why would we consider approval of more data centers before we can objectively answer these questions?

County Council meetings begin at 5:30pm and are held in Winchester Hall, 12 East Church Street, Frederick. See the 8/26 meeting agenda here. The public hearing will begin at 7pm; it's ok to show up just for that.

If you haven't yet, please write to the County Council, the Planning Commission and the County Executive.

Write to

Councilmembers@frederickcountymd.gov

Brad Young, Council President - byoung@frederickcountymd.gov

Kavonte Duckett, Council Vice-president - kduckett@frederickcountymd.gov

MC Keegan-Ayer, Council Member - MCKeegan-Ayer@frederickcountymd.gov

Mason Carter, Council Member- mcarter@frederickcountymd.gov

Jerry Donald, Council Member - JDonald@frederickcountymd.gov

Steve McKay, Council Member - smckay@frederickcountymd.gov

Renee Knapp, Council Member - rknapp@frederickcountymd.gov

You should also cc your emails to these two addresses:

County Executive, Jessica Fitzwater - countyexecutive@frederickcountymd.gov

County Planning Commission - PlanningCommission@frederickcountymd.gov