Decades-Old Loudoun County Rule Treating Data Centers Like Offices No Longer Holds: Report

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA – Loudoun County’s zoning administrator has issued an opinion that a 26-year-old zoning ordinance that determined that data centers could be treated as offices for zoning purposes is obsolete, according to reports.

What that means for existing data center plans in the county is not totally clear.

According to the Washington Business Journal, in the opinion issued on Thursday, zoning administrator Teresa Miller said the ordinance dated to a time when data centers were accessories to office use, not “large-freestanding buildings with industrial-scale impacts,” as they are today.

Now, data centers have their own separate land use classification, and the county Board of Supervisors has "enacted detailed regulatory standards, district permission, and other components of a fully articulated regulatory scheme for Data Centers," Miller said, according to a report in Loudoun Now.

She also said that the zoning ordinance overhaul of 2023, which strengthened standards for data centers near residential properties and changed the by-right allowance to a special exception approval for certain zoning districts, supersedes all prior ordinances, according to Loudoun Now.

The county further restricted all by-right development of data centers in 2025.

Loudoun Now points out that whether by-right use for data centers is still allowed in the Route 28 tax district is still unclear.

The opinion was requested by Loudoun County Director of Economic Development Buddy Rizer.

Read more here.