CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Chesapeake’s Planning Commission voted Wednesday not to recommend a proposed data center in the Great Bridge area of the city, calling it a tough decision to move forward when looking at it from all perspectives.

The proposal is still scheduled to go before City Council at its June 17 meeting, where it will have the final say on approving or denying the project. Formally, the council will be voting to rezone the property from agricultural to light industrial to allow for the data center to be built on it.

The Commission met for several hours, listening to many residents speak out in opposition to the proposed data center, in which lead developer Douglas Fuller, a Chesapeake native, was in attendance. The Commission initially sought to defer a recommendation on the matter, but that motion failed, and it voted not to recommend the data center.

The proposed 350,000-square-foot facility would be Hampton Roads’ first industrial scale data center, but many have argued that Virginia as a whole already has enough data centers — some even calling it the data center capital of the world. Plans for the proposed Great Bridge data center emerged a little over a year ago.

The proposed 350,000-square-foot data center would be built on 23 acres near Etheridge Manor Boulevard and Centerville Turnpike, according to a staff report.

“This is not a hyperscale data center, such as those that are metal buildings, 1 million-plus square feet or more that are out in rural areas that do make noise,” Fuller said, standing outside Chesapeake City Hall. “This is a corporate building. This building is constructed just like this building right here is.”

City planning staff recommended approval of the plans, but many residents hope the plans fall through. Those who live in the area say constructing something like this in a residential area puts their quality of life at risk and opens a door of unknowns.

Neighbors showing 10 On Your Side 13 pages of signatures of people petitioning against the data center.

“I used to work in data centers, so I know how noisy they can be,” neighbor Matthew Wolf said. “We looking into it, you know, got more details around the planning and everything. And we know this one is going to be absolutely massive. It’s going to have a huge impact on us.”

“We support data centers in this area, but we think they need to be more appropriately planned in industrial areas, not in the middle of a residential neighborhood,” Wolf said.

10 On Your Side asked several people who live around the proposed site for the data center about the plan. Neighbors said they are not anti-data center, but they are anti-data centers by neighborhoods.

“I thought a data center would be great,” neighbor Donald Fox said. “And as soon as I turned the page to look at what a data center consisted of, I said, ‘Oh my goodness, this can’t possibly go here and ruin all of this.'”

A 2024 report from Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission states one-third of data centers are in residential areas and data centers are “incompatible with residential uses” due to their size and the noise they emit.

Fox, who has lived in his home for more than 20 years, said he does not want the peaceful serenity he calls home to go away.

“This water is actually going to cause the sound to extenuate itself further away than what it would normally do,” Fox said.

But in the staff report, it states a sound analysis report was already provided to the city, saying a sound wall could help bring down the noise.

The staff report also states the proposed center could employ up to 50 people.

In April 2024, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a supporter of the data centers, stated $2.2 billion of wages are paid to Virginians with its data center ecosystem. He also stated the centers have brought over $1 billion in tax revenue. A data center, in simple terms, is a facility that stores information and data in one location for a variety of businesses.

“That funds an immense investment in schools, public services and social services,” Youngkin said.