For Immediate Release – March 18, 2026
For more information contact Lisa Goodnight at [email protected] or 301-450-1478, or Nature Forward Communications Director [email protected] 301-450-1458
Chevy Chase, MD – Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors undermined its own climate goals and One Fairfax equity policy by unanimously approving the sale of publicly owned, County land to a data center developer, after months of secrecy.
“This shocking proposal, first revealed to the public only a month ago, has been in the works for nearly a year. It could not have been clearer that this was a done deal, with a signed letter of intent, and money already spent by the developer on due diligence for the proposal,” said Renee Grebe, Northern Virginia Conservation Advocate.
There are no stipulations that a by-right data center on this site must use cleaner renewable energy and battery storage. This sale paves the way for publicly owned land being transformed into a data center, complete with dozens of polluting backup diesel generators and the very real possibility of further-polluting on-site gas-powered turbines to power the facility, given that the current grid doesn’t have the capacity for more data centers.
The Meadows of Chantilly, a 500-unit mobile home community less than a mile from this site, will already be impacted by another forthcoming data center at their doorstep, by this same developer. “Our most vulnerable residents will be subject to the cumulative impacts of data center development, and the County will be complicit in that equation, a violation of the Board’s own One Fairfax equity policy,” Grebe said.
“Swapping our human health for revenue is not a trade-off we want to make. The approval of this sale confirmed that the County is willing to sell off our public land for revenue over climate goals and health.”
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