Auto shop near Nahor denied
By Heather Michon
Correspondent
As counties across Virginia scramble to keep up with the fast-moving surge in data center proposals, Fluvanna County is taking a definite step back.
The Fluvanna County Planning Commission voted Tuesday night (Nov. 19) to strip data centers of their by-right status in the I-1 and I-2 industrial districts, meaning any future project would require a special use permit and a full public review.
The Board of Supervisors is expected to approve the change, and commissioners hinted that broader policy discussions, including the creation of a technology district and stricter siting standards, are still ahead – echoing the playbook the county used during its 2023 debate over utility-scale solar.
The zoning amendment also updates the county’s definition of a data center, which staff said had not been revised since 2018 and no longer reflected the industry’s scale, impacts, or infrastructure demands.
Residents overwhelmingly supported the change. During the public hearing, speakers cited concerns about noise, water consumption, electric-grid strain, truck traffic, and the minimal number of jobs data centers actually produce. Several urged the county to restrict data centers to a dedicated technology zone or avoid them entirely.
Commissioners said the shift to special use permits provides a needed pause while the county considers long-term land-use policy. Some suggested the Board consider extending its current moratorium on data center applications until the broader framework, including buffers, noise limits, and resource protections, can be completed.
The Commission voted 5–0 to recommend approval.
Goodson’s Auto
Residents of the Villages at Nahor turned out in force Tuesday night to oppose a request from Goodson’s Auto to rezone 5.8 acres at the corner of Garden Lane and Rt. 53 from residential to business, a change that would allow the company to build a second automotive repair facility on the site.
The proposal called for a 12-bay repair shop with each bay deep enough to service two cars at once. They would also have a parking area for 28 more vehicles.
The Goodsons, who already operate a busy shop at Crofton Plaza, said local demand has outgrown their current space and that a second location is needed to keep up.
Nahor residents argued that the shop would bring increased traffic, noise, and automotive chemicals into a quiet residential area, and would disrupt the views many of them bought into when the neighborhood was built.
During the public hearing, several said they hadn’t moved to a rural retirement community to spend their golden years dodging cars cutting through their small, quiet development. One speaker noted that the average age of Nahor residents is around 75. “We are aging and have age-related changes in our ability to see, hear, react, and move around,” he said.
Some residents urged the applicants to revise their plans and move the entrance to Rt. 53. The project engineer said the Goodsons were open to the change but cautioned that VDOT may require a left-turn lane on the highway, an improvement that would cost more than the small business could reasonably afford.
The applicants said they were willing to take steps to discourage customers from cutting through Nahor and to add additional vegetative buffers to better screen the facility from view.
Commissioner Lorretta Johnson-Morgan said she sympathized with residents’ concerns. “As you get older, there are certain things you just don’t want to have to deal with,” she said. “You want a nice, comfortable living place where you can move around without a lot of traffic, without a lot of concerns. And bringing that auto place there…I see a big safety issue.”
A majority of commissioners ultimately felt the project carried too many impacts for nearby neighborhoods to support the rezoning. After more than two hours of public comment and debate, the Commission voted 3–2 to deny the request.
Substantial Accord
Tenaska was initially slated for discussion Tuesday night, specifically a decision on whether the company’s proposal for a 1.5-gigawatt power plant is “substantially in accord” with Fluvanna County’s Comprehensive Plan, a required step before the project can proceed.
However, the Board of Supervisors granted a 60-day extension, pushing the debate to the Planning Commission’s January meeting, where commissioners are also expected to take up Tenaska’s related requests for a zoning text amendment and a special use permit.
Under Virginia law, if a proposed facility or development is not already reflected in a locality’s Comprehensive Plan, the Planning Commission must first determine whether the project is substantially in accord with that plan before it can be authorized.
In this case, commissioners will have to decide whether the power plant’s location, scale, and impacts align with Fluvanna County’s broader planning goals.
The debate over whether the project meets the criteria and philosophies laid out in the 2015 Comprehensive Plan is likely to be a vigorous one.
In a staff report included in the meeting packet, planners noted that Tenaska’s proposal only partially aligns with the plan’s goals, arguably advancing the objectives of broadening the county’s tax base and concentrating growth in limited industrial areas, but falling short of the plan’s emphasis on developing renewable energy sources, given that the plant would be powered by natural gas.
That internal debate is unfolding against a broader backdrop of distrust among residents, many of whom used the public comment period to argue that this and other major projects are being pushed forward before basic information is available.
