Case Against Goochland Data Center Goes to Court on Tuesday

Data centers and land use issues will be on the docket in the Goochland County Circuit Court on Tuesday. Last year, the Board of Supervisors passed legislation that carved a Technology Overlay District out of a designated growth zone in an area called West Creek, near the county’s border with Henrico County.

The county said it hosted a thorough review process before it created the district, which would allow data centers in the district and limit them elsewhere in Goochland County.

To protect nearby residential neighborhoods, “the Technology Overlay District established significant setbacks, noise restrictions, and other regulations designed to minimize the impact of new high technology businesses that would be attracted to locate in the new Technology Zone,” the county wrote on its website.

In December, four county residents filed a suit asking the court to eliminate the Technology Overlay District.

“I got very angry at the Board of Supervisors and Goochland administration’s refusal to listen to residents and to make serious changes to the TOD,” Cynthia Haas, the first plaintiff named in the suit, told the Daily Signal.

She said she participated throughout the planning process but said that county leaders “completely disregarded what we asked for in the way of changes, so filing a lawsuit was the only option.” She insisted that Goochland County broke Virginia state law in several places during its process, which is the legal claim behind the upcoming hearing.

County leaders have been trying for years to bring data centers to Goochland. “The Economic Development Authority and Tract entered into an NDA concerning Tract’s interest in developing a data center campus on property in West Creek” in 2023, the county said on its website. But it insists that the “agreement did not involve the Tuckahoe Technology Park site in the TOD West.”

“Discussions with the county’s economic development staff ceased in April 2024. There was no further communication with Tract on this project,” it adds.

However, Haas said that those discussions raised her suspicions about the project.

“Once I learned the county had been talking to Tract for a long time, I realized the county leaders had already made their minds up to do this. They didn’t care what the tax paying residents wanted,” she said.

After the law changed last year, Tract almost immediately “contacted the County with inquiries regarding developing a portion of the TOD West property where the Tuckahoe Technology Park is now proposed,” the Goochland website says. “The County, the Economic Development Authority, and Tract subsequently entered into a separate NDA concerning that property.” That project is still under development.

The county said it is confident the citizens’ lawsuit will be dismissed, perhaps as soon as Tuesday. Goochland County Administrator Jeremy Raley said that leaders think that the proposed district will help protect citizens.

“For example, prior to the TOD in the West Creek, which abuts Readers Branch, there could have been a data center 50 feet from the property line of adjoining residents,” Raley told WTVR. “Nobody wants that. And so, as we work through the process, we work to increase the buffers, setbacks, reduce decibel levels, so that we could provide greater protections for our residents.”

Haas is still building support for her case.

“I have a group email I sent out to over 450 people. We have over 550 donors to our lawsuit. People are so angry it is unbelievable,” she told the Daily Signal. “Goochland does not want data centers; it does not want ValleyLink to come through. We want Goochland to remain the rural, peaceful place it is supposed to be, the reason so many of us purchased and retired here.”

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