Image courtesy Chesterfield County Planning Department
A year after the Chesterfield County Economic Development Authority scrapped a plan for the “Matoaca mega site,” the 1,675 acres of undeveloped property are being eyed for a privately owned data center and solar facility in the county’s Bermuda District.
The proposal hinges on a successful rezoning request by Boulder, Colorado-based Torch Clean Energy, a developer of renewable energy projects. The company seeks to change the property’s zoning from residential, mixed-use commercial and agricultural to entirely agricultural, with conditional use permits allowing construction and operation of the Chester Solar Technology Park. “The project will be the first co-located data center and solar energy facility in Virginia (and possibly the United States) where the solar facility will produce enough energy to offset most, if not all, of the energy consumed by the data center,” the application states.
News about the project broke in late May, a few days after the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors was greeted by residents expressing frustration over how the county handled the mega site project.
“We’re here to remind the Board of Supervisors that the citizens are here and we don’t want to be walked over as far as the development process,” says Mike Uzel, a real estate agent who spearheaded the Bermuda Advocates for Responsible Development (BARD)’s efforts to stymie the plan for the industrial mega site last year. Before the board’s May 22 meeting, Uzel and other residents organized by the BARD and Chesterfield Citizens United groups held signs in the shape of plates reading “No more silver platters for developers!” Chief among their concerns was what the county’s new comprehensive plan may foreshadow for future land use and development.
“Since the mega site, they’ve been approving zoning cases at an alarming rate, exceptions galore,” says Phil Lohr, a member of Chesterfield Citizens United. “[Taxpayers are] going have to pay for more roads, more infrastructure, more schools.”
The solar facility is expected to reach commercial operation by the first quarter of 2023.
Uzel says the new plan sounds better on the surface than previous plans for the mega site, which included a large residential development and an unknown industrial user, but his group is still trying to gather information. BARD remains wary of the county’s willingness to provide information to the public, he adds. “We are hopeful that the citizens’ experience this time around will be different,” he says.
