Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Great. We're going to uh start with a roll call. All right. Yes, sir. Mr. Dorta, present. Mr. Fox, Mr. Williams, present. Mr. Kendrick, Mr. Mat, he's absent. Miss Flattley, present. Mr. Myers, see him. Mr. Mr. Nicely present and Mr. Palotto present. You have a quorum, sir. All right. It has been established that we have a quorum. Uh at this time, we can stand for the our pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag to the indivisible with liberty and justice. We bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the countless blessings you've bestowed upon us. We humbly ask that you guide our hearts and minds as we undertake the work of the of the county. grant patience, understanding, and a spirit of peaceful communication to all and especially our our constituents. Amen. Okay. All right. Next, we're going to take a look at the agenda. Um, there is an amendment that I I have, well, actually two. So, um, we had a special presentation that was scheduled for tonight for, uh, Mr. Christopher Parker. However, uh, we're going to, uh, reschedule that for, uh, next month or until further notice. In addition to that amendment, we're also going to move

uh, presentation application Z-202-00260, the Northern Neck uh, leasing resoning application. We're going to move that uh just before uh the public hearing. So, we just we're going to move that up. Um is there are there any other amendments that uh we need to make at this point? Seeing that there are none. Um if I can have a make a movement we adopt the uh agenda as amended. Second. All right. Motion's been mo made and seconded. uh with a show of hands um in support of right amendments have been made unanimously. Okay. Next uh is our approval our minutes from our May 13th um 2025 meeting. Um so instead of going through all of those individually, I'll ask that you take a minute uh to review All right. Make a motion we approve the minutes from May 13th, 2025. Second. All right. Motion's been made and seconded with a show of hands. Uh in favor? I looks like um it passes unanimously with no abstensions. Okay. Okay. So, next is our citizen public comment period. Uh comments will be well, let me let me clarify this. So, this is uh a period for open um um comments on anything that you you want to. Now, we do have some public hearing um um

hearings that will come later on. Uh and there is there are signup sheets in the lobby area. Um so for those with the uh who wants to make public uh um comments on the solar project or uh any of the re or the PC09-25 10-25 11-25 or 12-25 um you will do so at its appropriate time. Right. So with that being said, comments will be this is now we're opening the floor for citizen public comment period. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person uh to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. If comments uh relate to a specific, as I just said, specific public hearing items, please offer them at the time of the public hearing. All right, the floor is now open for public hearing. All right. So there there are none on the signup sheet. Uh is there anyone who wish to come forward? Hello ma'am. Hi Terry Morgan District. I have a question. Did you all receive an email from me that was sent out to you all within the last day and a half? Were you able to read that? Because I know all the internet emails were down for you all. Show hands. Who read it? Yeah. Who who read it or who got it? Okay. So, two people got it. Name again. Terry Morgan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. You You don't um get Excuse me. Yeah. Your I know your emails have been down comment. You don't have to answer any

questions, right? Please just want to know if you're getting your emails. Mr. Chairman, I would I would ask that you maintain order in the courtroom. I mean, in the uh boardroom, please. Thanks, sir. Okay. I would just like to make sure that you're getting the information that was sent out to you from the public because I know three people that tried to send emails, but your email's been down over a week. So, I'm just trying to verify if you got it because we were unable to get you the information. Simple as that. So, so did you by a raise of hand, did you all get the email that I personally sent? This one sent out a number. Okay. Okay. Speaking to the mic, sir. No, that's fine. I just was concerned when it got pinged back nine times to me. So, you know. All right. I just wanted to This is what I wanted to say. Um, the definition of a rural area is a geographical location outside of cities and town characterized by low population also encompassing countryides and settlements. So, I just want to keep that in mind for later on that we keep in mind what a rural settlement area and rural environment is for King George since that is one of our overarching philosophies and our comprehensive plan is to keep our rural area. All right. Thank you, ma'am. Are there any others? Good evening, ma'am. If you could state your name and your address. Yes. My name is Anna Maria Lobo. I live in Presidential Lakes. I want to thank you

for your service to the community. In October 17, 2023. Thank you. In October 17, 2020, 2023, I asked the supervisors to please wait a little longer for approval of the data centers. We are worried about the amount of water and electric power that we'll use. The people in Caroline County are worried about the water levels of the Rapahhenic River. These data centers will use millions the gallons of water to cool their servers. I want to thank Mrs. Katy Vender for getting the supervisors to re renegotiate it for the data centers. The last supervisor seems to be signing everything good or bad. Also, I want to talk about the solar panels. Who will benefit the people who sell the land, the company putting up the solar panels and Domino energy? What will the people of King George be getting more expensive electricity? That's why we going to get it. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Are there any others? Hi, good evening. My name is Barbara Robertson and I live at 340 Mccardi Road and that's in Stafford. I own the largest parcel of land that encompasses the proposed solar project consisting of approximately 382.78 acres. First of all, since there was some um negativity or concern during the last two meetings about um residents or um land owners not living in King George, I just wanted to make it clear for people here that I did used to live in King George. Um and then um my

husband and I moved about 10 miles up the road into Stafford County because of my um mother-in-law was um ill and we ended up staying there and taking care of the farm. And um so when my husband and I um Hubert, we bought this property in the Shiloh district, we weren't looking to buy property, but a friend of his was surveying the Rogers property and told us about it being up for sale. So Hubert had always been a big hunter all of his life living up in the country. So um we found a way to buy it. Although the property had already been sold, the buyer had the timber cut down, then defaulted on the loan. We found out about it, and then we contacted the Rogers and ended up buying it. Um, next, we searched the land records to contact adjoining property owners to talk with them about getting access and obtaining a a legal rightway into our land. And all three land owners were that we contacted asked us to buy their land, and we eventually did. We didn't buy all this property as a land grab or anything like that. It just happened and we felt like we were helping people out because they were elderly and sick and really just wanted to sell it and we paid them fair market price for it. So anyway, b we bought this property beginning in 2002 because we both enjoyed the outdoors and the wildlife. We spent a lot of time on our property improving access, digging trenches along the roadways. be made or upgraded, laying um pipes for water to flow under the roads, cleaning it up, and putting in gates to prevent people from entering the to um dump trash around there. And the adjoining property owners all agreed that this was a great idea. And so we um just put a lock and everybody had a combination to the gate. So Hubert hunted our land with family and close friends until he was diagnosed with multimo myoma cancer in 2012. Um

although the cancer treatments wore him down, we he still loved to ride around the property in his truck or just sit in the quiet and and watch all the deer and the turkey and eagles soaring overhead. So after a valiant fight, he passed away in 2016. So I'd been thinking about trying to sell my property to a developer for an outdoor like a weapons training facility since it's out in the middle of nowhere. Um, but this solar project, I think, is a much better option for all because it will benefit the county and keep the land developed. That my time up. Okay. All right. It is. I I'll I'll let you finish since there were a number of distractions. Go ahead. Thank you. All right. So, anyway, I love that the solar project will permanently preserve our land for wildlife habitation and preclude residential development. And I have no doubt that's what my husband wanted would have wanted it as well. Um, so I think that the the project will create job opportunities for local residents and help meet the area's growing electrical demands, which is very important right now with the growing number of data centers throughout the region. My property is located down a rough gravel road about a quarter of mile off of Stony Null Road and it's only accessible to adjoining property owners. Property rights are important to me and placing solar panels on my land won't affect any neighbors because the solar panels will be completely hidden by trees and it's because it's so far off the main road. And I say this last part only because in previous meetings people had um been critical to some of the speakers about well why why are you worried about people seeing it you know or or being um critical about it being seen. So that's my point. I thank you for your time and consideration and I hope that you'll approve this project again. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any others who have comments outside of the

solar panels and any of the other uh public hearing resolutions uh 09 uh 10, 11, and 12. If it has something to do related to any of these issues, um you have to wait until the public hearing for that time. With that being said, are there any others outside of that? Yes, sir. Hello. I'm Tim Childers, Dalgrren District, and I really didn't intend to speak today. Well, my wife and I are just here to, you know, see what's going on with the stuff that's going on, the Cladel stuff across from 301. However, I'm not really desiring to talk about that tonight. And uh what I am wanting to talk about is um the possibility that in the future that um there may be changes to rules associated with zoning categories uh so that you know the number of acres that must be essentially uh you know qualified to be parcled off or whatever is increased. Okay. Now, I kind of come at it from a two different ways. All right. I'm one of a a pretty large landowner in the county in Dowren, and I have my family's been there pretty much all my life. And uh I have no desire to really see this place become another Waldworf or um you know, the latest of Fairfax, whatever. All right. And yet on the other hand, all right, people like me, all right, um even though there are provisions that exist for us to, you know, transfer

property to our children and so such and so forth, uh I'd ask you to consider that people like me sometimes they need to survive. All right? uh a neighbor of mine, case in point, essentially, you know, he had a large parcel of property and uh he contacted me one day, one year and said, "Hey, look, I want to sell my thing." And it's like, you know, I've got to sell the whole thing. And I said, "Well, uh, you know, put it put it in the land use, do whatever." He said, "No, you don't understand. I can't do that." Well, it turned out that his wife was dying of cancer and he was just frantic to find some way to make Well, you can imagine. I mean, if you have your loved one and everything, what about people who they have to, you know, survive? What if somebody were to lose their job, something of that nature, and all of a sudden, now here's the thing, you know, it is desirable to limit development. I totally get that. At the same by the same token though, what can happen is if you make draconian restrictions, you can essentially make it so that the only way that a person can survive is to sell lock, stock, and barrel. And then the person who is equipped to do that is not likely in these this day and era to be a farmer or something. It's likely to be a developer. And then they typically come back and they have more money and they they can just like it's like there's a Chinese proverb that Well, thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, sir. My name is Mark Morgan and I live in the Shiloh district. Um, specifically zoning. I mean, me as a land owner in the Shallow District, to me, zoning is important because zoning protects the homeowners. When you look to purchase inside of King George, you have a couple places. You you can look into a subdivision where you're going to have HOA and you're going to have so you're going to be protected by the regulations. But if you're not in an HOA, then you look at zoning. You're looking at all the properties around you. You're looking in the general vicinity. So when you purchase a property and you invest your life into that property, your zoning is your protection. It protects your investment. So, and that really seems to be kind of what we're talking about. And I know there's a big scare from other people who spoke that it could be sold to developers. It could, but a developer is not going to tie up $2.5 million on property they cannot subdivide nor make money. So that's not going to happen. And they're not going to sell to a gun range because that's already been turned down specifically in the Shiloh district. So, it's just not going to happen. But right in our area, people are scared. People are putting homes up for sale and property up for sale because I mean, they just purchased three years ago. And who does that? You don't purchase a home with the intent of living there for your life and all of a sudden going to sell it in two and a half years just to lose 10% on your property. Why are they doing

that? Because of the zoning issues that are coming up in specifically in the Shiloh district because that is what protects. When you look at agricultural, it's in your agricultural district. you are protected. The only thing that can come in there, it has to be a special exemption. That means there's no more zoning rules. If we give out special exemptions for things that shouldn't happen in agricultural area. So when we allow those things to happen, you are taking away the protections of individual rights where they have invested their life. Because who would stop me from coming beside your house, buying a property, and then putting whatever I want to on it? It's called zoning. So that way, I don't put a cigarette shop right there or I don't put a junkyard right there beside your home. What would happen to your property value? It would go down. So what's going to happen to property values? That's why these people are trying to sell. Two of our people right outside of our back gate on our on property that is a gravel road that's already been mentioned. those properties have gone up for sale in the last six months because of everything that has happened and transpired. So, as we make decisions, zoning comes down to the number one rule and that should guide our decision making. Uh, does it meet the zoning plan and the comprehensive plan? So, as you consider decisions, please take that into mind. Thank you, sir. All right. Are there any others? speaking for. No, sir. There is a time uh in public hearings for that. You'll have a chance. Yes, sir. I'm Mr. Hickman and I bought my property in Mr. Hickman. What's your your address, sir? 12403 Hoppy Lane and I have a little piece there that I call

heaven called Biota, which means flora and fauna. It's all in woods except for where my little house is. And it's if you want to see a wildlife preserve, come visit. A forest is a place that promotes wildlife. All kinds. I learned it in a few college classes I had that if a you have a good land use, it's either agriculture or forest and each one produces top soil. That's the truth. And I have an abundance of wildlife including beavers um and muskrat and every once in a while otter comes and eats all the fish but an abundance of fish. Wood ducks come and look at biota. It's beautiful. Forest produces the most of everything. Thank you. Thank you sir. Are there any others? Excuse me. Is this the appropriate time to speak about the solar project? No sir. There is a public hearing for that specific issue and yes sir you have your opportunity. Are there any others? Right. If not this uh uh citizens public comment period is now closed. Um panel we're now open for our discussion should we would choose. So discussing the public comment public the public comment. Um first of all I I appreciate uh the comments about the emails. Um typically we don't answer questions or interact during the public comment time but this form right here is when we can address anything that you've said. So, um I for one uh have not gotten any emails and since I don't use my personal email because it opens it up to foyer, uh I have not received anything regarding uh any of these projects in the last several weeks. So,

um I will comment on that. The yes, the email was down. However, it is now up for each and every member to read uh those comments. They all have been sent out. Um, so, um, if I would encourage each of you to take take a moment or two, uh, to read them, uh, and and, uh, take all all, uh, comments into consideration in our decision. All right. There any others? Want follow up on the question about zoning? And we have um a commission that is just wrapping up their work on that which is bringing some recommendations to the board of supervisors and there'll be more information out there now that will try to accommodate both situations. And um you know we do seek to preserve at all times the right for transfer to a family member or immediate family member. And if there's anyone wants to review that and bring suggestions on how to make that better, we're more than w willing to listen to that. But someone should be able to divide their land and family. It just should be possible. Thank you, sir. Any other comments or discussion? All right. That uh discussion period for um the committee is now closed. Next we will have um our community planning leaison officer naval support facility south PTOIC dog. Uh Mr. Adam Lynch. Mr. Lynch. Good evening Mr. Chair. Good evening planning commission. Uh several items to discuss. Uh first and foremost, we have a change in command that's going to be occurring this summer. Captain Jonathan Townsend, our CEO for the last year is being relieved. We don't know exactly what the timing looks like, but

it's safe to say it will be this summer sometime. We're going to be distributing information through our public affairs office to representatives from the county and look forward to um sharing the good news about our new incoming co in the near future. I have joined a uh George Washington Regional Commission Rural Transportation Advisory Council. um looking forward to participating with the GWRC staff, transportation staff on ways that uh the King George County uh transportation system can can be improved to improve uh safety and uh consistency with the base's mission. Some of the examples that we uh expect to talk about during the TAC meetings are uh bike and pedestrian connectivity in the vicinity of the base, including improving sidewalk connections on Dogren Road. see a lot of people out there walking along the side along the shoulder of Dogrron Road, especially near the base, hoping to see a plan to improve some of those bike and pedestrian connections. Also, uh potentially a pedestrian connection to the Dogrin Heritage Trail, which would allow recreational opportunities for sailors and their families. Um, another issue that we are are going to be hoping to speak during that TAC uh, advisory committee is the safety of some of the two-lane rural roads that deliver a lot of commuter traffic to and from the base. Think 218 and 206. Uh, some of those don't have very good sight lines. They have narrow shoulders. They present, you know, a safety issue to the people who work on base. A lot of them live in places like Stafford, Spennsylvania, and city of Fredericksburg. So, um, that's something we we look forward to discussing with the rest of the TAC members. Um, I'm in the process right now of finalizing some funding requests for open space conservation through the repy program readiness and environmental protection integration that provides cost share money for private conservation in areas that are affected by dog's mission. So,

um, most of those are are open spaces in places that we would prefer to steer, uh, development and other more intense uses away from. And one of the two projects that we are submitting funding for is in King George County. Land conservation, property rights can be a sensitive topic, so I'm not at liberty to really discuss any specifics about that project, but we're really excited and hopefully as that moves ahead, we can share more information. Another topic that I know is of interest to the King George County, the uh emergency services department fire and rescue is uh submitting a um request for a defense critical infrastructure program or a DIP grant to help fund the fire station that is planned at the corner of Route uh 301 and I want to say 205. Um, so we are in support of that because that allows for uh service sharing uh relationships between our own fire department and the King George Fire Department to make sure that uh we optimize response times and and and safety response in that area. And finally, u on my side, this will be my last meeting till August uh for a good reason. I have a a baby boy on the way in about two weeks. So I'm looking forward to paternity leave now. So, I'll miss your July meeting, but look forward to seeing you guys uh back. I will be returning on August 11th for the record. So, happy to take any questions. I just wanted to um commend you on the the uh progress you're making with the pedestrian um access. I would say I've thought about connecting to that dog trail uh as well. I would take it even further and consider a bike path all the way to Barnesfield Park. Um because eventually that's going to have good river access and I think more amenities that would be uh really great

opportunity for people that live in Dogrren and take that route. Sure. Yeah. Mr. lunch. I I've got a a question for you about you mentioned the the roads and the rural roads and the transportation issues that are going on. Is the is the base looking at all to reestablishing what you know decades ago there used to be buses that came from the from Fredericksburg and I believe even from Tapahanic and and uh Warsaw and Montros buses I mean big public transportation buses that were coming in and out of the base. Is there any activities looking at reestablishing some of those? I mean those were decades ago. There was enough support for that. Yes. So there's uh that is a topic that we we frequently talk about sort of aspirationally. Uh there's been some discussion over the year of a Fred bus the Fredericksburg area rapid transit u basically civic local bus um actually qualified for VOTE funding to have a a FRED FXBG go route dedicated commuter route from Fredericksburg to the base. And the barrier that was identified during that discussion was that there is not a good circulator within the base. Uh so once you arrive at the front gate, um there really is not a good way to move people around within the base. Uh there's also not a infrastructure there sort of a bus station, bus stop to accommodate those uh commuters that are getting dropped off outside the gate. But we think those are surmountable issues that uh we would like to continue those conversations. Yeah, I think I think we we really need to take a look at that to to reduce the commuter traffic. I mean, like I said, it was there decades ago when I first started on the base. There were giant buses that stopped in front of 1,200,500, 218. Some of these building numbers that

you that you know there's certainly a massive cluster of people working out at the Bate complex. The closest thing we have currently are uh ban share um that do allow uh individual uh commuters to sort of band together and rent a a 15 passenger van then use that to save themselves uh having to put more extra uh miles on their own personal vehicles to and from work. Um so that's that's something I think that's helpful but not does not may get to the level of what you're discussing. Yeah, I just encourage you to continue to look at those opportunities. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? Yeah. Um Adam, could you tell us a little bit more about the EMS station um request, grant request on the DIP? Certainly. So, DIP is a program that uh provides money for local governments and other community partners that are doing infrastructure or other service uh projects that benefit the base. Right? So think about, for example, if there were to be a transportation improvement that were underway outside the fence line that helped the base um accomplish our mission in some way, that could potentially be eligible for the DIP funding program. Likewise, same concept, King George Countyy's um uh fire department is applying for that money because u they would like to tap into some of those same dollars and and we believe that that is something that would uh further our mission as well. I know fire stations have been funded under the program. It's a it's a very competitive program. Um we're talking singledigit success rate on even strong applications in in in some cases in the past. So we're we're we're trying to do our best to to do our part to make sure it wins. All right. Are there any other questions or comments from the commission?

All right. Seeing that Mr. Lynch, thank you so much. Congratulations on your baby boy. We'll see you in July or sorry, August. Yes, August. All right. Um, next on our meeting agenda is old business. I see none written. Do we have any um that you know of? Okay. All right. Okay. So next is our amended um portion of the uh agenda which is a presentation of application Z-20-0000260 Northern Neck leasing reszoning application. Okay. Good evening. How y'all doing? Good evening. My name is Daniel Edwards. I'm here on behalf of my client, Northern Nick Leasing Company, which owns 12284 State Road. That is uh tax map 25134 that's currently zoned C2 commercial. And the property has served as a non-conforming industrial use since 1989. It was uh originally purchased in 1973 and used as an industrial uh

transportation freight service center. And under article 9 921, illegal non-conforming use may continue as it existed when it became non-conforming. And that's exactly what the property has been. It's been 52 years operating in uh transportation, logistics, and freight services. In February of 2024, my client received a zoning opinion letter from Richard Stewart, and that's attached to our application as exhibit one confirming its legal non-conforming use status. Um, the current tenant is Equipment Corporation of America, and they have a zoning permit, uh, which was issued in February 2024, number 20247961. And most recently, we received a letter from Matthew Smolnik in October of 24 confirming legal non-conforming use. Now, the King George comprehensive plan supports additional industrial development in areas with established industrial use, and that's what we have for over 50 years. It's been an industrial use. It's been a transportation and freight services location. However, the current tenant, Equipment Corporation of America, um, which is using the property for transportation and freight services, has a lease that ends in 2029. And we would like to reszone the property to industrial to ensure we don't need a new permit. Or if ECA leaves and we need to find a new tenant, we don't need to get another uh zoning permit. and reszoning to industrial will reflect not only the property's historic use and current use, but also the future use as we intend it. What I've brought with me today is the existing conditions plan from 2023, and nothing will be physically altered from that. That conditions plan is how the property was built in 1973. It reflects the property status in 1989 when the zoning ordinance was created.

It reflects the property status in 2024 when ECA started their lease and it reflects in perpetuity our intended use of the property. One question that came up for us during our initial uh application review was spot zoning and looking at the 301 corridor. All industrial zone property is isolated. There's no real industrial zone. Uh much of that land is vacant. The only other comparable transportation or freight service was Fowler Hauling which was granted a uh industrial status in 2016 and they unlike my client had not been operating since 1973. So we very much meet a historic and established use. As part of our application we've profered that there will be no electricity generating facility, junkyard, recycling plant, resource extraction or heavy manufacturing. We just want the property to continue as a transportation and freight service location, but under the proper zoning, and that would be industrial zoning. We're not sure why the property was zoned C2 commercial in 1989 when the zoning ordinance was adopted, but now we're looking to rectify that. And in conclusion, reszoning to industrial, it's in line with the goals of the zoning ordinance. Article 1137 states the purpose is to encourage economic development activities that provide desirable employment and enlarge the county tax base. ECA had a gross income of $10 million in 2023. They intend to be a long-term tenant. We'd like to keep them as both an employer and as a taxpayer in our county. Additionally, under article four of the ordinance, the intent of an industrial district is to recognize industrial uses which presently exist within the county. Again, we have that here for 50 years. This has been operating as an industrial facility. It is now a grandfathered in

legal non-conforming use and we ask that it's reszoned from C2 commercial to II industrial to reflect that. At this point, uh I'll take any questions. All right. Does anyone have any questions? Has that list of profers you mentioned been circulated to the planning commission yet? It was circulated to the development committee and it was part of our application narrative. I believe we sent 15 copies. Okay. I have an extra copy if you'd like one right now. It'll be all of us would need to, you know, get into that in detail. Sure. Okay. Yeah, I was just going to say it will be this will come before you for public hearing. Yeah, with all the application information. Personally, I have uh sympathy for you, but I would like to see the the profers. Of course, that'll be all right. Um any any any questions? What um what uses could you do under the proper zoning that you're not doing now? I mean, what what is the reason that you want to um go from your vested rights to generic industrial? It's if we don't use it for two years, we lose it. And if we have trouble, if there's an economic downturn, if we can't find a tenant two years, we don't want to lose our grandfathered status. And granting the industrial zoning will not change the status quo. There's no anticipated change in what this property is being used for. It's really just peace of mind that we're after here. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, sir, for your uh presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much.

All right. Okay. Next uh is a public hearing uh for resolution PC-09-25 application Z-2024-00184 the Gibson solar special exception. Um, if I can get the Yeah. Okay. Thank you, sir. I'm just going to give a brief overview and then turn it over to the applicants for their updated presentation. So, as you all know, the planning commission considered this application at a public hearing back in March where you voted 5 to four to recommend approval of the special exception permit to the board of supervisors. An error in public notice led to the applicants and the county needing to readvertise this public this public hearing for tonight. That's why we're here. I'll give a brief recap of the application. Representatives from Open Road Renewables and Gibson Solar have applied for a special exception permit to construct a utility scale solar energy facility combined with a sheep grazing operation on approximately 890 acres of private land made up of 48 parcels in the Shiloh district. The subject property lies within the PTOAC and Rapahan Rapahhanic River rural development areas as designated in the comp plan. The applicants have been working with county staff to address any comments they had through the review process as well as emergency planning and training needs for fire and rescue. All the reviewing agencies will be contacted again for comments should this project move forward to the site planning stage. Staff has re has received several emails and letters of both support and opposition for this project. We've provided these letters to you all and have forwarded some today via email. I'm sorry about that issue with the domains, but we have it back now. The draft

permit conditions document is included in resolution PC9-25 for your consideration, and draft motions are included at the end of the staff report. The packet also includes a redline version of the conditions document with the applicants will go over during their presentation. Thank you. This a 10% civil design. It's also included in the application. Grandma.

Mr. Chairman, good evening. Members of the commission, thank you for having us tonight. Um, as Kelly explained, we are in front of you again for a public hearing to to fix the defect in the public notice. Um, so I wanted to first of all just really appreciate your time and holding another public hearing for this. I know it's a a busy night. So, um, I'll go ahead and get started. The one silver lining I guess you could say is it gave us three extra months for community meetings and continued feedback and all the changes to the conditions that you have in front of you there. Next slide, please. Oh, all right. So, instead of a full summary which you've seen before of the project, I'll be focusing on three aspects of it. So the conservation easement to permanently preserve the land and an update on the counterparty that we found to hold that easement and the uh continued agricultural use and some of the input we've gotten from the local a community to improve it and then also the storm water engineering that's taken place over the last few months. I I will give a quick highle overview as a reminder. It's 134 megawatt solar facility. It'll produce enough power on an annual basis that would equal the same consumption of 16,000 homes. There would be 890 acres of project inside the fence line and there's almost no grading that will take place because of the terrain following racking that has been chosen. Here's the context map. You can see the project in relation to route three big timber road and prim road. Um the the key here is that from all these vantage points the project is well screened by either existing forest or existing BMS in the case along most of Route 3 except for the section along Big Timber Road which is where that's where the screening and setbacks will be extra robust. This is the main section of the project right underneath underneath the transmission line. The key here is that half of the land sits inside that

buffer. those pink areas which are either newly planted vegetation or open space. So the project itself is set back far into into the properties and there are several separate uh fenced areas which allow the project to conform to avoid the wetlands and also maintain those wildlife corridors where the creatures follow the wetlands. So if the project moves forward, you would see 1300 acres of land permanently preserved. And this would be done through a conservation easement that would be recorded prior to construction. The only use at that point would be solar, agriculture, open space, and timber. And this when this came in front of you before we had proposed it as a restrictive covenant. The critique there was that the county would have to actually hold the enforcement. So, they'd shoulder the burden if the covenant was violated. Now that we've pivoted to a more uh more classic conservation easement and found a good partner for it, um it puts the uh enforcement burden on that third party. The partner we've chosen is the North American Land Trust. They'll be the counterparty to enforce the easement. They've completed 600 projects over the course of the last 30 years, including one here on the Northern Neck called Bluff Point. It's a it's a coastal preservation project. They have the scale that we're looking for in a a partner of a project of this size. And you can see on the map here, we're right in their sort of sweet spot for for geography. And here's the map you've seen before. These are all the purchased or the the parcels that the project will be purchasing, thus can go into the conservation easement. So those are the 1300 acres highlighted there. So the livestock operation that'll take place underneath and surrounding the the solar arrays,

it'll be hundreds of sheep that are rotationally grazing the entire site. Um it's a good opportunity for the farmer because uh land access is a problem right now. the farming population is getting older and the younger generation is having a hard time breaking into it because the cost of land has gone up so much. So that's one of the reasons I'm excited about this is the uh project will pay them a salary to actually maintain the grasses. So that that lowers the the bar to get in because they're not just getting revenue from the sale of lamb. And the project also maintains the fence lines surrounding the operation. So that's, you know, one less thing that the the uh young farmer needs to invest in. And so here are the legally binding commitments that really make the a operation real and keep it local. So the the first one is that the farmer that is chosen must either be a resident of King George or has been doing business in King George already. I think a number of you have gotten to hear from Kelsey Trainer of KB Grazing. She's the the company that we're we're working with on this at this point. Um, and then there are the requirements to have the the whole operation up and running within two years of commercial operation. So, uh, the, you know, you can't just mow and hope that the operation gets up and running. This is an operation that needs to expand and get in place right away. The soil health is hugely important to the agricultural operation. So we've worked with a couple of soil scientists and also a couple of people in the local agricultural community to really understand what soil characteristics are really important to make that uh agricultural operation work. And we've turned that into a series of conditions. So, uh, before construction, there'll be

really rigorous testing for all of the characteristics listed here. And, uh, several times throughout operations, the testing will have to occur again, and amendments will be added to the land as needed to bring that pH and all the other characteristics into an appropriate level, mainly to support the the target uh, forage tonnage rate that is set with the local farmer. So on to the storm water design. This uh this has been a point of discussion that has really uh come to the forefront in the last few months I would say and what we've done is hold community meetings and conversations to really understand what parts of the project are um are a concern and where you know where the constituents are are uh you know concerned about runoff from the project. storm water runoff during construction um is is extremely important to build into the design. So in this case we we saw all of these commitments on the left side here. The conditions um they included erosion and sediment control measures installed before doing any other any other work. Um robust inspection during construction and then phasing of construction to to limit any movement of dirt at one time. Everything on the right side, these are the conditions that are redlined in front of you. These are are new from the recent community meetings that we've had. Essentially, everything has been designed to a much more serious storm event. So, for example, the outlets for the basins are now designed to a 50-year storm event instead of a 25-year event. The spillways are designed for a 10-year storm event versus two-year storm event, which was the best practice. uh storm water conveyance systems are now 25-year instead of two-year uh etc. So I've included uh and this is the drawing in front of you as well. It's a section of the civil engineering plan

which just shows the indicative locations of 10 of the storm water basins throughout the site. This is one section throughout the entire site. There's a total of 90 storm water basins. So, these will be installed uh prior to construction at the low point of any potential discharge from the site so that they'll catch any sediment before it runs off the site. These are examples of what some of the other storm water BMPs look like. So, you have diversion ditches, sediment basins, sediment traps. These photos show when these BMPPS are functioning well and the special exception conditions are all written so that they're maintained and continue to function well. Um, and happy to answer questions about the storm water engineering and design following the the presentation. But for now, I'll I'll just um end by saying you won't see this project. It's well screened from the roads. It'll introduce a large amount of tax revenue about half million dollars a year without any drain on county services. The grid needs these electrons. The land needs to be preserved from housing developers. You'll hear from the public after this. And I hope what you find is that all of the conditions in front of you do already address the concerns that come up. So, thank you. All right. Um, commissioner, if you have any questions, now is the time. Come forward. I think Mr. Fox, you got I do have a question uh just about if you can go back maybe to the permanent land preservation slide there. Uh maybe just clarify the mechanics of this a little bit for us. Uh

is the the use as a solar farm facility one of the permissible uses uh in perpetuity under the preservation? That's correct. And it's actually split the the site will be split between a predefined conservation area and developed area. So all of the land outside of the fence line, which is several hundred acres, will be permanently preserved as a non-solar use from day one. Everything within in the fence line, solar will be one of the uh permissible uses alongside, you know, farming. Okay. I I I kind of this is probably my fault. I I sort of had the impression that once the project was decommissioned, it wasn't going to come back in another form 20, 50 years later kind of thing. But this preservation would technically allow for regardless of what may be agreed with the county separately. This preservation structure would allow for that. Is that right? Well, you you had it correct. Once the project is decommissioned, then you cannot reinstall solar panels if under the preservation. That's that's how that mechanics works once it's decommissioned. Yeah. Okay. because I on a straight reading of it, it it looked as though that's the following uses are permissible and solar was one of them without any qualification around it. Right? They should have been qualified to say initially, yes, that's the permissible use because that's what the project is. But following decommissioning that is taken away as permissible use. You're quite certain of that? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And that, you know, that's why uh I mentioned the two different sides of it. You have the buffer area which is preserved from day one and then the inside the fence area which is preserved but it allows solar after decommissioning that all combines and it's all the restrictions apply to the entire property at that point. Okay, good. And then my other question and at

some point in the past I believe you have answered this so my apologies but could you just remind us roughly what percentage of the total area will have to be graded cut and fill and that that type of thing to make ready for the project? Yeah, only a couple of percentage points and it's almost entirely to make way for these uh sediment basins because the the racking systems and the panels that are inside the fence lines there will be chosen so that they're the terrain following type where you have um you can follow pretty steep grades without actually having to do any cut and fail grading. So only a couple percentage uh points out of the entire project. That's right. Very good. Okay. And then lastly, I just a little abstract question here, but uh are you by any chance performing background checks on any people who've raised opposition to this project in any way? Uh not not background checks. We've we were directed by the supervisors to to reach out to all the speakers from the last hearing and we went ahead and you know extended the olive branch. Um so you know called them from from numbers that uh in terms of sort of you know research or or third party paid research into No people that kind of thing. No. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. That's all I have. Thanks. All right. Are there any other questions from the panel at this time and then we'll go miss Yeah. I was looking at the um you miss permanent land preservation. And I see that it's changed to include a low density residential at the completion of the product project because that was not there before. Is that correct? That's correct. So the counterparty we've chosen the North American Land Trust and their standard agreement they do allow for up to one home per parcel on these large tracks of land. So the most that it could be

developed would be to have 16 homes total across the entire 1900 acres. But yes uh so the stupid we have so how many parcels total is it right now? Uh 16 plus plus easement parcels but those will not be part of the conservation easements. All right. Thank you. There's no opportunity to expand. Sorry sir. She's she has them. She has the floor. Thank you. Yeah. I had similar question that uh parcel as it stands today not future parcels divided up. Correct. as it stands today when we sign the agreement before construction. Okay. And then I had some questions. Um do you have anybody uh currently um in litigation against you? I don't believe so. No. Our co-founder says no. Okay. Um I had some questions about your tenant and owner agreement. Um where it there's a paragraph and it's all very legalistic so I'm going to paraphrase it. Um I want to make sure I understand this. Basically it says that the tenant which is Gibson um is not responsible for any uh sorry is indemnified against any present or future uh hazardous materials being leeched disposed of. Um, basically it it says that the responsibility would be on the owner to deal with any uh hazardous materials on the property that they and that they cannot uh hold the tenant responsible for any health issues or loss of livestock or uh you know accidents that occur. So, can you kind of explain um what the safety precautions are against um the risks of

electromagnetic and stray voltage and uh what your responsibilities are to the to the owners and anybody who might be uh on their property and could get hurt. Sure. So, uh the EMF concern um everything around us emits EMF. your cell phone does. And um I can I can share a study that shows that the the level of EMF it decreases on an exponential basis so that by the time you hit the fence line it's fully dissipated. The only uh material that produces any meaningful EMF is the inverters. So that's why we've set them inside the project by 500 feet whereas there's nothing in the ordinance that requires an additional setback for them. So that's why we've voluntarily done that for EMF and noise to have uh no impact at the fence line. The wording just want to clarify says that the owner is aware of potential risks associated with electromatic and stray voltage um and waves any claims resulting from these causes. So if that's in your contract with them, why would it be there if there weren't some inherent risks? Commissioner Flattley, thank you for the question. This came up uh I believe at the March planning commission discussion and after that I provided a planning commissioner nicely the national institute of health report on EMF radiation and EMF as a concern with power generating facilities with end uses etc. Uh all of the studies that are out there show that this does not present a concern. And with regards to the contract language between the owner and the tenant, that's put in there by attorneys for financing purposes, right? Um I don't know specifically what

contract you have that you're referring to because that I don't believe applies to the um special exception permit application. But if there's a concern with hazardous material or EMF emissions, we do address hazardous materials with regards to the panel selection and the EPA T-clip test. So part of our job in approving a special exception is to deal with the public health safety and welfare. So that's why it's relevant. Okay. Any you're Okay, Mr. Hey, I think you you had the floor. Just to confirm, this is what 30 or 40-year project. It's a 40-year project and it could be re-uped at that point, right? There's no guarantee it'll be decommissioned at 40 years. We would have to come back to the board of supervisors at that point. And also, the lease agreements run out at 40 years. So, there would be a lot of work to be done. That's that's why we call it a 40-year project. Real estate and the county approvals last for 40 years. Thanks, sir. Mr. Fox, you have the floor. No, you're good. Okay, Mr. Nicely. Yeah, I I I wanted to share the concerns from from Mr. Falo and Mr. Flat and M. Flatly about the the addition of this low density residential. I don't know if the county attorneys have looked at these agreements. I'm I'm a little concerned that that's been added here at the last minute. You know, is is it really locked down to the current parcel descriptions or as people start subdividing this, do we suddenly run into an issue where someone is going to take one of these parcels and come back for a subdivision on it and divide it into 50 parcels and suddenly we're right back to well, we didn't preserve the rural because now we've got a subdivision that someone has applied for. And I just like I'd like

for the county to county attorneys to take a look at that the way that language is written to make sure that it truly does apply to the current parcels as defined and not future definitions. I'll pass that along to Mr. Stewart. Thank you very much. My that's a great point and that's that's important to us as Yeah, it's really important for us to make sure that this language is ironclad or we're going to come back with people going, "Well, I've got I've got the rights to do what I want to do on my property and suddenly we're going to be back here arguing about what's rural and what's not rural in the future." Our intent is not to grant uh low density residential uses. That's the form language from the easement counterparty. between now and the board of supervisors decision on it. We're happy to work with the counterparty to see if that can be removed from their form easement agreement. We're currently working through the redline process on the easement agreement with them and we have no interest in expanding the uses from when we were in front of you before. There's no interest that we have there. I understand that that presents a concern for the body here. And what I'd like to uh share with you guys is we will take that to n to see whether in the easement red lines that we're going back and forth with whether the future uses remove the lowdensity residential use. Thank you very much. I mean we can leave that to the county attorney and the board of supervisors to have the final final say. My my other quick question for you is I was looking at your soil testing and and the additions that you've been that have been made to there. There have been a number of feedback that we've had from some county residents concerned about hazardous mech chemicals coming off of solar farms and stuff and people worried about pollution in the waters and things of that sort. And what I notice in your soil testing is you're only really predominantly looking at pH levels and PNK levels for your soil testing. And you really don't specifically talk about testing for, you know, down the road hazardous chemicals

that have come off of these solar panels. I don't anticipate there being an issue, but I'd like to I'd like to see something that includes that as part of your soil testing to ensure the county residents that we don't have hazardous pollution coming off of these plants. Many people have voiced concerns about that. I want to make sure that that's properly addressed. That's a great point. and this that section of the soil testing and the conditions you're looking at uh section 5B those conditions are meant to support the grazing operation. So this is all of the soil uh conditions that are important to get forage to grow really well. The hazardous materials concern is addressed under the uh where it talks about solar panel uh specifications where they have to be chosen from a certain list of approved panels and also pass an EPA test. Um, but we we can absolutely add that to sort of belt and suspenders underneath that soil testing. Yeah, I'd like to see something about that about hazardous chemicals in in the runoff and the storm water management that that's properly tested and accounted for so that we can, you know, make sure that the county residents are are are properly protected against that sort of long-term concern. All right, Mr. Kendrick, the floor, Mr. Can I see you you done? Okay, Mr. Kendrick, the floor. Thank you. Um, I would second Mr. Nicely's concerns about the possibility of chemicals coming off of the, you know, the treatment of the of the solar panels, but again, I just want to say this one more time. You're still planning on cutting down almost 600 acres of trees, correct? Yeah. there there's about 600 acres of a pine plantation that we'll be cutting down um which will be harvested in the next 10 years or so anyway. These are all areas that were once open fields

and were planted with pines 60some years ago. They've been harvested once 30ome years ago they're ready to be harvested again. Um whether or not the solar project exists. Uh so yes, simple answer is yes though. Okay. I appreciate that you've taken a look at the storm water runoff and those things, but still have concerns about this, but we'll talk about it in a moment. All right. Um I think um all the questions have been raised at this point. We may some have some others uh after the public comment period. Um so at this time I am going to open uh the floor for public comment. Uh I have and actually I have a signup sheet. So we'll go by that first and then I'll open it up for those who who come after that. Um as with all public comment periods we ask that well we will be limited to a three minute per person um to afford everyone the opportunity to speak. Um so first on the list is Miss Anna Marie Levelvel. Hi. Pull your mic down. There you go. Hi, my name is Anna Maria Lobo. I live in Presidential Lakes. I want to ask you tonight, who will benefit the people who sell the land, the company putting up the solar panels and Domin. What will the people of King George be getting? More expensive electricity. And

you have to remember what happened to Bridgewood. We would have uh until 2056 have a contract but in no time they demolish everything and we you don't have no more taxes. I want you to remember these things very clear. Where you going to do the King George? Thank you. Thank you ma'am. Uh next is Travis Kalison. Callison. Good evening, Mr. Collison. Just state your name and your address, please. Sure. I'm Travis Collison. I live in the Dogren District on Popular Neck Road. Um, rural is about population density for sure. And we don't normally think of solar panels as rur rural. However, although counterintuitive if you put these 1300 acres are devoted to a dualpurpose enterprise that does limit it does limit the population of the area. It ensures open spaces for grazing and dark skies. Although the opposition to this project insist on labeling the sheep part of the project as a distraction, those folks clearly have no direct experience raising sheep at scale. 200 to 400 goes is considerably more than a distraction. I run a hundred before and it was more than I wanted. Swift establishment of good sod on any disturbed dirt is the best defense any of us have to erosion. The applicant clearly understands that and is committed to do so in this spe special exception. From the recent changes to the special exception wording, it is clear that the applicant is just as concerned about making the grazing part of the project

work as they are of making the solar portion work. By providing soil health targets, they are clearly committed to providing a positive environment for grass to grow and sheep to graze. We don't have many farmers in the county. We have fewer steel that graze livestock at scale. Not all ground is suitable for row crops. For this ground, grazing is often the most productive use. Every year, more fields are leftow. More acres are allowed to grow up in gum trees, pine, and locusts. But this project promises to return some of this ground to productive grazing or continue grazing on already open ground. So although counterintuitive, this project is actually pro agriculture. Please approve this project as a commitment to the rural and a focus of the county. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you, sir. So, next on the list is ne sir. Uh there's a list after this list. After this list, you it will be called it will remain open. Uh, next on the list is Scott Sinire. All right, moving on. Next is Dan uh Tit Titworth. If I can get the Is that the pronounce pronunciation of your name? Okay. All right. Sir, if you could just state

your name and your address for us. Dan Titworth, 16087 Kings Highway. I have recently uh driven over 6,800 miles across the United States. And during that time, I saw scores of what it's called solar farms. Well, I think George Orwell would be proud of that to call something like what you're suggesting a farm. That is not a farm. It's not producing any animals. It's not producing crops. And I think that if you think you're going to raise sheep underneath them, somebody's really pulling the wool over your eyes. I do. I really think that if you think that they're going to get sheep on that land to keep it grazed, well, then you better study up about sheep a little bit. Okay. Um, the other thing is I'd like to know where are these solar panels being made? Can anyone give an answer? China. China. Has anyone read about the federal government's concern about what the Chinese are putting in our electronical products that we're buying here? So, we're just going to trust China is going to send us good stuff, right? I think you better take a real close second look at this. This isn't going to do anything for King George. It's my understanding the electricity won't even be used in this county. I don't know if that's correct, but if it isn't, then what are we gaining? You're cutting down 600 acres of trees that take in and and give off oxygen. They take in the carbon dioxide.

That's a huge chunk. I I am totally against this. I don't believe that the solar panels are that efficient. I don't believe they are reliable. I think West Texas proved that last year. And I think that if you guys approve this that uh you'll be sorry about it much later. Right now they're called Gibson, right? What are they going to be called 10 years from now when they're sold? Are they going to live up to all the promises that we just heard? Those were beautiful pictures of the solar panels with the flowers and the sheep underneath them. It's funny. Out of all the solar farms that I saw traveling across this country, I didn't see one of them with uh any green grass. It's all dead. It kills it. It bakes the soil. You've got to have living soil. I don't see where these solar panels are going to provide that. And not only that, but I don't think solar panels are going to be around that much longer anyway because they can't be trusted to provide steady electricity that we need. All right, Mr. Tis, thank you so much for your comments. Next on the list, uh, we have Terry Morgan.

Terry Morgan, Shiloh District. I must express my strong opposition to this project for our county. Before you are documents highlighted the many reasons why I firmly believe this project does not align with our comprehensive plan or the core values of our community. To begin with, our comprehensive plan emphatically emphasizes our commitment to preserving the rural character of King George. I firmly believe that this utilitariansized project fundamentally undermines that pivotal objective. Page 27 of the comprehensive plan, it states clearly that we must encourage and continue rural character of our Rapahhanic area. However, the proposed installation of approximately between 2 and a half and three miles solar panels along the road starkly contradicts this aim. Moreover, on page 34, we are instructed to promote industrial developments within King George in the industrial park. This project stretches from the West Morland County line to the Jersey Road. It fails to align with that directive. Again on page 35, it we reiterate the importance of preserving the royal characteristic of King George. The installation of 890 acres of glass solar panels does not align with preservation of our rural identity. Page 41 addresses a critical point. All agricultural land must be implemented approved farm planning in accordance with the Tri County soil and water conservation guidelines criteria that this project neglects. Importantly, on page 24, the Virginia Association of Water and Cot, the Tri County cautions, conversions of prime farmland to utilitarian solar is not a strategic direction the Commonwealth should encourage. By approving this project, we are not only we will not only be promoting such conversions, but also violating our comprehensive plan because it's not following Tri County. Additionally, the Farm Bureau in their 2025 policy handbook explicitly states

its opposition to referring to solar panels, solar facilities as solar farm, which this project does. They also urge further studies on the impact and disposal costs associated with utilitarian solar projects. The Farm Bureau advocates that these projects should primarily be located on brown fields, landfills, parking lots. This proposed project, however, infringes on over,900 acres of land, encroaching on our primary and secondary roads and traverse wetlands. Furthermore, the Farm Bureau promotes avoiding the use of farmlands and forest lands for solar installations. This project intends to clear 580 acres of forestry and compromise top soil integrity, therefore destabili destabilizing our soil and increasing the risk of erosion and water runoff. The plan site is situated on the highly permeable soil and contains areas that severely constrain the high erosion potentials. In light of these cr critical issues, I assert that this project does not does not meet with our comprehensive t plan only fails to meet the standards. Thank you, ma'am. Next on the uh sand list is Jeffrey P. All right. Good evening. My name is Jeffrey Pool. I reside at 1310 Little Page Street in Fredericksburg. My name is Jeffrey P and I am here tonight representing the 300 acres that Pool Janney families own in the proposed solar farm area. I believe our family

has been good stewards of the King George acreage over the 65 years since my grandfather purchased it. As our family was in the lumber business locally for over 40 years, we successfully timbered the property and reforested numerous times. We of course paid our taxes and two of our family members pay additional local taxes as they reside in PTOAC Landing and Fairview Beach. In speaking for our family, we would like to emphasize our belief and concern for honoring our property rights, which we of course are exercising in our participation with other King George land owners to gain approvals of the 890 acre proposed Gibson solar farm. We also believe that a solar farm will benefit the need for power over the next 20 years in King George and the surrounding counties. Also, solar energy certainly is one way of bringing renewable clean energy into our local communities. We believe that with Open Road Renewables history in corresponding parts of the state, it should show the local county officials and King George citizens that they are dealing with a very reputable company. As many of you know, Ryan Gilchrist has now for years met with local officials, local citizens, lo land owners for and land owners against the solar farm, always with grace trying to solve the concerns of all. As myself and other family members have now attended at least four meetings, including the last planning commission vote in March and the recent board of supervisor meeting in April, I have two other observations. First, the first one is Supervisor Ken Strad's thoughts on the potential educational value of having a solar farm in which its boundaries and upkeep are contained and kept up by a sheep farm. Mr. Straoud's idea was that the local school kids could have a field trip to the solar sheep farm all the while learning about renewable energy resources and the benefits that a flock of sheep could bring from the animal world. A great idea I thought at that time and I still do tonight. My second observation is from the March planning commission meeting and the vote obviously I was happy with on five to

four for approval. Uh, I did have one concern from the ongoing discussions that night around the potential tax benefits for the solar farm could bring. Open Road has stated that King George would receive up to $500,000 per year for possibly 20 years. I felt that the planning commission did not see these tre tax revenues as a big benefit to the county's coffers during that meeting. I will admit that I am ignorant to the overall taxes having been collected in the proposed solar farm of 890 acres, but I'm assuming that most of the acreage is taxed as agricultural land and therefore is at least today not generating $500,000 a year in taxes. Well, if I am wrong and out out in left field on this obser observation, please forgive. Finally, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and of course, I hope you will vote again for approval. Thank you, sir. Next on the list is uh Mark Morgan. Good evening. My name is Mark Morgan. Uh address is 14523 Kings Highway in the Shiloh District. Um I'd like to just uh voice my opinion against this uh project. And there's other reasons uh that I'm going to get into in just a second, but first off, what you were told a few minutes ago that they did not use a third party to do background sec uh searches is incorrect. They used a process called Benverified, which is a third party organization. So what he told you, this company told you is that they did not use a third party when actually they did use a third party. How do you feel about that? just being lied to right there. What I want you to ask is, does this

project benefit the county? First off, I think the answer is no. None of this electricity that's generated is going to King George. It strictly goes to the grid, not to King George. Um, we will get promised, I guess, up to a certain amount of money, but have we checked with other counties to find out where they have met their projections according to what they were told? And I know someone in the tax uh division there and they have not received what they have been told. Right now, we're supposed to get 500,000. That is less than 1% of our budget. As a matter of fact, it's 0.003% of our budget. Basically, it's $50 per household is what it is. And that is one penny on the tax. So, the riskreward, you got to really ask, is the reward of one penny on the tax worth the risk that could happen? Um, another thing would be environmental. There's going to be environmental issues and they're not just timbering. I can appreciate timbering for a business. I I like that. But you don't clearcut the land and then you don't scrape the top soil. So there is they're not just timbering. Timbering, you know, they leave all the undergrowth. All the wildlife stays there. Uh-uh. It's not going to happen here. 600 acres is clear-cut. Gone. They are grading. As a matter of fact, they have detention basins. What are those detention basins for? They're to hold and retain water for 25 year flood plane. Okay. So, now we say, "Oh, great. No more flooding." What's the opposite of that, though?

What's going to happen to all the wetlands? For all the water that used to go to them wetlands, where's it going to go now? It going to go in those detention ponds. So, what happens to all the wetlands? What happens to the creeks that no longer get the water? There's going to be an environmental impact. We just have to question, is it worth the risk? Everything downstream from that, everything east drying up because that's what's going to happen. Thank you, sir. Next on this is Mr. Gary um Sarsman. I apologize, sir. If we could if we could have your I have trouble with it myself. If we could have the your name and your address, sir. Uh my name is Gary Sitsman. Um I live at 4 Fitu Trail in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Um I'm here because we own 87 acres. that is uh adjacent to the project. It's not part of the project, but it's adjacent to it on Route 631. And um uh we are in favor of the project. I've tracked the project from the time when they had the library meetings and gave us extensive amount of information and answered questions. Overall, um I can't predict the future, but if if it's tied to the past, I say we have a good running group here. Um I've looked at adjacent projects in Spennsylvania. I'm sorry. I've read about the Spennsylvania that was notorious as well many years ago when that project was underway. Haven't heard anything bad about it in the paper. I've

I've seen the site in West Morland County across from the old school um on Route Three. Uh I've seen projects on in near in Essex County near Tapahanic. None of them look any different than if I was mowing lawn under the well fenced and well lit. Now these those projects are small by comparison to this. I agree. But um that's another good sign. Um, there was an extensive article in the Wall Street Journal by coincidence on June 2nd, unbiased about solar farms in the southern states. And I have the article with me. If if anyone wants it, I can leave it with you. It gave the pluses and minuses and overall you can get any answer you want depending upon your biases and your objectives. We bought the land um in about 20 years ago as an investment as we've buy stock. We we saw I worked at the base. We saw King George as one of the growing areas and I believe that's what's happening with the new bridge with the traffic on Route Three. I'm sorry the county is growing. I mean, is that supposed to be a negative? I thought that was a positive. You have new schools and um you're prospering. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. James Shaw, James Monuro District, uh, speaking uh, in my capacity as a member only of the Economic Development

Authority and also as a King George taxpayer. As a member of the EDA, I and the rest of the appointed members are on the lookout for businesses and developers such as these uh that are uh providing and bringing in uh those kind of projects that have minimal impact on our lean infrastructure for our rural county. uh all of the um uh land owners that I've heard over the past couple months uh who were involved in this and this gentleman, you know, adjacent property uh looks at the positive side of this as a way to preserve the rural character. We're looking here at a unique kind of thing. Uh the sheep folks know this. They have the experience, years of experience on taking uh land that's marginal and converting it and using smart scientifically proven techniques to improve the land. After 40 years, this land is going to be better than when they found it. I challenge I've read the science, sir. I challenge those people to read the science, to do the study, to see you, you know, if you want the sheep to thrive, you make sure that you got forage down on the ground that they can eat. And their formula is they start with a couple hundred and they end up with four to 600 because the soil heals, the soil improves, the soil uh sequesters carbon, the top soil gets deeper, all kinds of fun things that a whole lot of farmers in this day and age are not aware of. And this is an education thing that has to happen in this county. and I'm in the

process of talking to a bunch of people so that uh that kind of process can happen. We've got a wonderful 91.4% egg land resource that I think is grossly underutilized and can uh really produce a whole lot more if treated a little bit differently. These guys are bringing in a formula. They know what they're doing. Uh we need to do more of that in this county. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shaw. Right. Last on the signup sheet here is Mr. Steve Hickman. Okay. All right. So, that concludes the uh people on the on the signup list. Floor is now open to any others who wish to speak. Oops. Well, not much has Oh, sorry. Rose Payne 15123 Hazelnut Lane. Not much has changed with my story except now I can claim 87 years as a resident because I'm a year older. Congratulations. I grew up in Sealston on a farm. I'm married. Thank you. I'm married into a family that had cows and I had never known about them, but I like it. And it's not because I dislike it that I'm here tonight. But if you grew up where I did in Sealston, I've heard a lot of talk about rural county. We lost that a long time ago. People, if you drive down Route Three, when I was young, it was nothing but farms. When I went to school, I drove through Hopyard on the bus. That was farm.

I too love the idea of a rural county. But just as he just stated, I'm sorry, we're changing. I am not here to tell you that we are a rural county. I wish we were totally, but we're not. But I am also here to tell you that we are going out of the cattle business and if this project is not accepted then my by right I can put houses I'd love to keep it in agriculture and that's why open roads appealed to us because we'd love to keep Cameron just as it is agriculture and I'm sorry but yes sheep are animals and they're not cows, but they do the same thing to the property that my cows do. And we have grass because those cows fertilize it nicely with rain from the Lord and the cows. But these folks I've been dealing with for almost 5 years, I guess it is now, with Ryan. They're good people. And you know that everything you have asked them to do, they've tried to do. They have tried to accommodate whatever you felt they needed to do. They're honest people and they are bringing in a new kind of energy. Something that we're going to have to face in the future. But I do want you to understand that we can't continue farming. I don't have a young little male coming behind us. We have we're getting older. I mean 87 and I've been over to that farm three days in a row. I love it, but I don't know how much longer I can do that. But I would like for you to really consider this project because we can keep rule and you know talk about cutting trees.

Have you been up to 18? Have you been up there to see the trees that were cut? 500 houses were going to go there. But that changed there next to me. Now that was a farm, ladies and gentlemen. but now it's going to have 99 buildings. I live on a farm and that farm is now no longer there. So, we are changing and I hope that you will keep my farm in agricultural and and approve this project. I don't know what else I can tell you about myself except that I'm old and I'm wordy and um but I I I am passionate about my land and I hope you'll preserve it. Thank you for listening to me. one more time. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Are there any others? I'm just a placeholder for this gentleman. Sure. Come on. Okay. Yes, sir. All right. I'm up here from Florida. I have a house up here and solar energy is a big thing down there and so is the fight to keep it under the control of Duke Energy. All right. And I applaud these young men here cuz they did a good presentation. All right. But um you've got to ask yourself, are they in any way associated with Dominion energy? Is there any way that they can be used for Dominion Energy to get in and get this land right? The other thing is I abut I think that's the right word. I abut this uh solar farm and the spring that feeds East View Drive is

on their land. All right. It comes up and then it goes into my land and it winds through East View almost two miles till it gets to the end and it disappears. All right. And I want to make sure that spring never stops cuz I got a whole bunch of trees and animals, vegetation that depend on that. All right. And the last thing is I work for Ro concrete and I've been all over this area and there are so many open areas in King George that cannot support farming and they cannot support um houses there like the gravel pits up there. All right. I don't see why you haven't considered places like that to put this uh solar farm on. And I've seen the solar farm down 17 uh between Horns and um Yorktown and it's a nice looking project. It sits on the left and it goes on forever. So, um, these boys, they'll do a good job, uh, if you let them, but at the same time, I really think there's other areas that you should be putting them. Uh, you know, you're in charge and you're older than they are. All right. But this is progress. And down in in Florida, we go, I'm doing good. Down there in Florida. All right. Um, when I went down there in 2008, uh, we got us a nice little house from 1951 and we were happy in a nice neighborhood. Well, now the, uh, downtown has nine high-rise buildings going up, over 42 stories. All right. We don't have the

water. We don't have the sewage resources. And they're just moving down there. And they don't care. And that's what you got up here at Hopyard. It's normal for those people. There's nothing wrong with them. They It's just that they're used to being side by side. Right. Thank you, sir. If I can get your name. Huh? Your name? We didn't get your name. We Oh. Oh. Oh. Yeah. uh Jim Taylor and uh Linda Prunkard and it's um 14395 East View Drive, King George. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. Hi, I'm Amy Ter. I live in the Shiloh district. Um, I was originally not going to come because I'm not feeling the greatest, but here I am and I am glad I did because what recently was just said and what was heard about being a third party for looking people up. Would you like to see my cell phone? Let me read it to you. Amy, this is Ryan Gilchrist following up on the discussion of solar supervisors hearing two weeks ago. I am the developer of the project and I wanted to offer and get together about your questions and concerns. We could look at the site plan, review the binding commitment being made by the project and or walked the site. Let me know if you are interested. How did he get my cell phone number? My house number I could have understood if he looked that up online, but cell phone numbers are very hard to find online. Can I come up and show you where he got it from? No, ma'am. Just Okay. Only your comments. Been verified what Mark said. Search. I'm pretty sure. And that's a third party search engine that you said you did not use.

You've never seen that? They ask background checks. We didn't do background checks. Again, it's a third party engine. Search. Google's a third that you used for my cell phone number. You also sent me, Mr. Chair, point of order. Public comment needed to be addressed to the chairman and not to other members of the public. That's correct, ma'am. Okay. So, he used another search engine engine to get my personal cell phone number, which I did not appreciate. Um, the other thing that I have concerns about is the hazmat of the area. We do live around that area. Um, if there are any toxins that go into the runoff, I'm on a well. I'm not on county water. It also goes on to East View Drive, which I have family and friends on East View Drive. Um there are pictures that I have taken of driveways where it you just get a normal rain and his driveway is completely flooded. It is you can't even see his driveway. So if we want to put runoff on that, what are they going to do for East View Drive? Is there anything in there for East View Drive? Not nothing. So, East View Drive is just going to float away if we just get a normal Virginia rain with this runoff. There's wetlands down there. There's people who can barely The roads falls apart. I can tell you I know people who have to fix that driveway because there is so much erosion on it. I ask for you guys not to vote against this. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Are there any others? Good evening. My name is Howard Thomas. I live over on Round Hill Road in the Shiloh District. Sir, I've been following the progress of this application for a while and I appreciate

the transparency and the responsiveness that I've seen from Open Road Renewables through Mr. Gilchrist. I recently raised some concerns with him about the project. uh and he gave me a prompt and thorough reply that addressed all of my concerns and provided some additional information that every time I encountered this company and their presentations and what they are doing to accommodate the issues that are brought up, I'm I'm convinced that they're doing the right thing. I support this project and I ask the planning commission to forward the application to the board of supervisors recommending approval. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Are there any others? Yes, ma'am. Good evening. My name is Carolyn McGee and I live in the Shiloh district. I'm here to speak in support of the Open Roads Solar Project. I appreciate all the time and efforts that have been expended by Open Roads to request a special exemption twice now, despite the thorough presentation documentation that was submitted the first time. I also appreciate Open Roads for remaining positive and upholding their forthcoming, open, and honest to anyone who wants to know more. This county was unable to fund 19 requested positions for the upcoming fiscal year. The 28,000 plus citizens, including the handful who are against this project, cannot afford for this project to be denied. This project will bring millions of dollars to this county and even one penny on the tax is better than nothing which if utilized in a fiscally responsible manner will allow us to take care of those who are already here. Turning the current vacant land into agriculture and timbering land is something the property owners could do very well right now themselves. This project will not bring more homes and more people which would not be able to be supported by any department in this county. I was blessed in 2020 to

have obtained a special exemption from this county for my personal property to help my mother during a hardship. Citizens should be respected enough by the local government to make decisions for our own property, which we work day in and day out to maintain and pay taxes on. Open Roads has provided answers to every opposing argument. They have addressed every aspect of this project for which there were concerns. This project should be unanimously approved if for nothing but the future of this county. Thank you all up there for being respectful to all speakers. It speaks volumes and thank you for your time. Thank you, ma'am. Are there any others at this time? Good evening. Good evening, sir. Uh I'm Al Hails. I live at 7115 Kitchenpoint Road. Uh I'm I'm the president of Hails Hamilton Enterprises Incorporated, which is a a small development company in King George. Over the past 15 or 20 years, we've developed several small minor subdivisions on A1 and A2 property on on on Bald Eagle Drive, Musco Place, and Jersey Road. We currently own 160 acres uh in Jersey which is slated to be part of this project. Uh we had originally bought this property with the intent to subdivide it into large large lots 10acre lots. Um we were delayed in doing that because of issues with access. Uh we finally got the access issues revol resolved. I have checked with the county staff and we by right can develop uh 10 or more large lots on the property uh on the A1 property uh without any

requirement for public hearings or or planning commission or board of supervisors approval. All we have to do is be in compliance with the the the specifics of the subdivision ordinance. Um, I would prefer to see this go uh as a solar project rather than more residential. Uh, the the county has, you know, as a resident of the county for the last 20 years and as a uh an employee in the county in the last over the last 50 years, I like the county the way it is and I'd like to see it preserved as much of that in the future as possible. Uh the the question really becomes, you know, how how do you slow how do you do that? There's a there's a demand there's a demand for residential property that's not going to go away and people want to move to King George for all the reasons that we love it. And and so it really becomes a choice not it's not a choice of of of of agriculture versus solar. I think it's really a choice of of residential or not. you know, if we can if we can uh preserve, you know, hundreds or thousand acres uh through a through a a land conservancy uh as as nonresidential property, then that's I think that's a great outcome. And and that's if we don't do that, if if if we don't go down that route, then I think more residential development is is inevitable. you know, that that would be the logical uh use for for our property if if uh if it wasn't converted to solar. So, I I think uh I think it's in the best interest of the long-term

rural nature of the county to go with as an as an alternative to more residential. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. Are there any others? Hello. Hello. My name's Ruth Titzworth, 16087 Kings Highway. Um, I too was checked. I spoke at a couple meetings ago. So, my cell phone number is out, my email, and my home address has all been contacted. So, I moved here. I bought property in 1993. Um, we moved into the Shiloh district right by McInness Antique Barn. Um, we bought some property from Lee Bulier. She had chopped her farm up. Had about 127 acres. She did nine 10acre lots. I was the beneficiary of one. I grew up in Arlington, Virginia. When my husband and I were overseas, we came back. We couldn't afford to live there. We lived in Clinton, Maryland. When the things got dark, it was really a bad place to live. We came over the bridge and I was like, "What a beautiful place. This is heaven. This is beautiful." We went down Route Three. Lee had a plywood sign said lots for sale. Pulled in there. She said, "Yep, we got a lot right here." Beautiful. It was a farm. Oh, he did. I bought 10 acres on that farm. My husband and I, we built a house. We have our two children. We raised our children. We raised our granddaughter. Our two boys now live in King George. They're raising their children. What is wrong with people like me wanting to live in a royal area and have a home that has 10 acres? We actually loved it so much we bought the 10 acres on this side and the 10 acres on that side and another seven. So, not necessarily do you divide a farm up that every 10 acres is going to have a house, but why? What is the problem

with homes? What is the problem with families like me who would like to get out of Stafford and Fairfax and different places and live on 10 acres and be able to have a garden and be able to raise your children. The only thing you have to worry about is them going into the woods woods with snakes. Um, somebody else said, I worked at West Mullen Berry Farm for 11 years as a tour guide. They said the sheep farm would be wonderful to have school tours. Are they going to be able to go inside of the fence where the sheep are and where the solar panels are to have school tours? I don't think so. I don't think that they're going to be allowed in there. Um I don't know. We also have the contract that one of these pe that probably all of these people signed that say about the hazardous material that the landowners know what these hazardous things are. they know when they're signing and waving that, you know, they're responsible for it. Hazardous material, um, any kind of health issues that happen, any accidents that may occur, what kind of accidents? It hasn't been said what kind of accidents might happen, what kind of accidents can happen on the solar farm. Do do any of you does anybody know the risk of the uh electromagic um exposure? and he's saying about EMFs with a uh with a phone. Is this solar farm solar project going to be a little bit bigger than my phone? What this is going to emit the MF maps? So, I would say vote no for this. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. Are there any others?

Nelson Mills on Monroe District, 12026 Great Eastern Way. And what you're seeing there is some of the concerns written down here. um the clearing. One of the biggest concerns obviously erosion and runoff. A gentleman stated before me that's for this that he's driven past Essex and Campbell County and some of the other solar farms and it doesn't take very long online for you to go out online and search the issues. We have photos all the erosion issues in those counties. So, um, and it's a known fact that 70% of all solar farms in the state of Virginia don't meet the soil and erosion. They got issues right now. Um, so I'm concerned with that. You can also look at down at White Marsh down at Newport News, big solar farm down there right now hitting the news. It's all over Virginia Beach News. the homeowners down there complaining about all the noise from the transmissions coming off those solar farms. So, another issue. And a gentleman here stated, "We didn't have any suits or issues against them." No, they don't, but their contractor does as part of Virginia Dominion. Um, out in Louisa County, that solar farm out there is a $15 million lawsuit. same company. It's going to clear the land for these guys. You know, I'm hearing no, but and then I agree with what Mr. Morgan said. Is it really worth the issue to the county financially what little bit you're getting off of this? What are the benefits to the county for this? Those are my concerns. So, I'm definitely opposed to it and I

appreciate the board tonight. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. Are there any others on mute? Yes, sir. Hello board. I appreciate y'all's courtesy and respect everybody. Uh yes, thank you. My name is Billy Clif. Um a generation and generation citizen here in King George County. I'm at 13188 Salem Church Road, King George, Virginia. Um, I like to start off with I am catching up with Mrs. Payne at 56 years old and uh and I'll get there one day, but um so concerns about this project. I'm probably I don't want to sit up here and reiterate a lot of what you you heard. A lot of the concerns are legitimate, nothing personal to anybody. I know most people in this room, but there's integrity issues here over the years. And a company has had five years to get it right and they keep getting a another chance, another chance, another chance. They keep coming back with modifications to their plan. Um the the erosion issues are a big risk there. There's and and there's certain phases of the project where those erosion issues are bigger risk than it to end. There's issues with the project from start start to finish. Um you know there's statistics out there about the waste. You know is this really a green project? I'm all for green, but this is not technology that looks like it's sustainable. And the facts that most of these projects would not exist without grants,

tax credits, uh, and and money being provided from our taxpayer dollars. And in the end, we may have to end up spending more of our taxpayers money to clean up the mess that the potential of this humongous project. This is large. For whatever anybody in King George County thinks, is big. Go down 81 and look at a a 30 or 40 acre solar farm, utility solar farm. I mean, it's this is a huge project. and the risk and the sacrifice of land that's here in King George County is not worth it. It's not worth, you know, there there the tax revenue is minimal. And if we're willing to risk our county for for no reward, it's it's it's just not a good decision. And um it's not a big business uh good business deal financially and the risk are not worth it. And I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you sir. Are there any others at this time? Okay, seeing that there are none. Oh, okay. So, my name is Carol James. I live at the corner of Prim Road and Big Timber Road. I haven't been to any of these meetings and thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak. Uh so I don't know what kind of things you've talked about regarding the uh ecosystem in our area. We are a county that has been trying to remain rural. We're a county that just simply to get a septic, you have to get a special use permit because we're not

just King George County. We're part of the whole Chesapeake watershed. This runoff that they're talking about, it's not just going to impact us, but the entire ecosystem in the area. If there's a disaster, it's going to go into the aquifer that most of us in rural King George County drink from. This is our wells. Now, they say they're making these basins to catch the water. Well, how many times have we had huge water runoff happen after simple rain uh hurricanes? Where does that water go? Well, guess what? It's going to get flushed into our watershed. It's going to go into what we use to drink and live by. You have to think about that. I have a bachelor's degree in biology. I've studied ecosystems. When I first graduated from college, I went and did a research study on Quantico base. We were studying the impact of simple bivwack procedures that happened on the base. That was small. We're talking about one or two acres. They're talking of thousand of of thousands. So the impact is huge not just to us but to our entire area. Please consider the damage that could happen. I have heard nothing about the big picture from these people today. I don't know if you've discussed it in the

past, but please look into the long-term effects that could happen to our fauna, to our uh plants, to our wildlife, to our water, to our very existence here in King George County when you make your decision. Thank you for having us. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. All right. Are there any others uh who wish to speak at this time? All right. Seeing that there are none, the public comment period for application Z-2024-00184 is now closed. uh to the applicant. Um do you wish to address any of those? Yeah. Yes, sir. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. We do have some people online. Very well. I'll say in advance that we are having problems with this device, so hopefully they will be able to present their full public comment. Okay. All right. So the individual who's online, if you can state your name and address. Mr. Mr. Chairman, put on order if you could reopen officially reopen public comment. Yes. Yes. I apologize. So uh the public comment uh period for application Z-2024-00184 has now been reopened for those who are online. Um the first uh individual if if you can recognize yourselves with by stating your name and address. Um

and you have three minutes u to speak. The first name I see is Delara Pedovven. Can you unmute yourself? Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Okay, great. Thank you. Yes. Hello. My name is Dora Padavan. I've am a resident of King George at Hoppy Lane in the Shiloh district and this is the second um meeting I have attended about the Gibson Solar Project. Um I the first one was the April 1st meeting of the board of supervisors at which time I became aware of the amount of opposition to the solar project. Um the people there at that meeting some of them are in the room tonight also um opposing the project are friends and neighbors that my husband and I have known and associated with for decades. Um, just to back up that I did ask for your favorable support of the project when I wrote to you on February the 11th. Uh, thank you. Um, but the people who are opposing are people that my husband and I have known for decades and people I know, I care for and respect very much. So I listened very earnestly to their concerns and um the information about stray voltage uh became a big concern and there is a video circulating now um through their efforts by a man named Dave Stzer who's an electrical engineer. Um, if it is true that this electricity that's sometimes grounded into the earth can travel up to three miles or more through the land and the waterways, then there's legitimate concern about the impact to wildlife and fish throughout the Shiloh district and beyond. But Mr. Settzer in the video also maintains that

regulations and methods exist to protect against these high frequencies caused by potentially by solar generated electricity. Um some of those include like a fivewire system or an oversized neutral wire. Um so on and most importantly about having filters on the electrical panels. Um also it's important that Mr. Settzer mentions that there is regulation and rules in place to address all of this. So um by the national electricity electrical safety code and the uh Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Now I am a nurse. I amum and before that a farmer and a music teacher. So I'm not an electrical engineer and I don't pretend to understand everything that Mr. Stetszer is explaining. But I do understand it's imperative to ensure that the Gibson Solar Project and any subsequent owners would follow and adhere to these industry regulations for the health and safety of everyone involved. Um, and I also understand that what one person may do can impact many and the importance of family and community for each of us in this room. The impact of Gibson Solar on our family has been deep. It took us a long time to make a decision as a family to agree to become part of the project and for a number of reasons. My husband has now lost his confidence in Open Road Renewables and wholeheartedly regrets our decision sign onto this project. I personally am distressed over the level of strife that this proposal has created in a know as it has been famously said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And what seemed to me such a beneficial proposal to King George now appears to have caused more harm than good. And construction has not even

begun yet. Although my heart still wishes this project could go through and bring positive outcomes. Thank you, ma'am, for your comments. Your three minutes have expired. Chris, is there anyone else? Yes, Mr. Chairman. All right. Kelsey Trainer, would you like to have your public comment? Kelsey trainer. Hi. Can you hear? Yes, ma'am. Can you hear me? Hello. Hello. Yes, ma'am. We can hear you. I can't. Can you guys hear me? Yes, ma'am. We can hear you. Okay. Sorry. Um, so my name is Kelsey Trainer um 878 Path Batanzi and I'm the graaser who will be farming the proposed solar facility. Um I've been working on the go the Gibson solar project um for nearly two years now and I've had a direct role um on on different aspects um of this facility with pasture management and um all the aggravate side of things. And this project truly is designed um with my part of the project in mind. Um this isn't a gimmick. It's real long-term agricultural use. Some people say that my part of the project is a distraction, but I will be raising livestock, specifically sheep, which are just as much of an agricultural commodity as

cattle or hogs. They're simply less common on this side of the state. That doesn't make them less valuable, though. I'll be running 400 to 600 head flock here, rotationally managed year round. That's real food, fiber, and land stewardship happening. I would also like to add that in the 2025 Farm Bureau policy um by that I helped write um states this on page 26 in the 2025 Farm Bureau policy handbook. We support the Commonwealth um of Virginia converting a stakeholder work group to develop a definition of agriculture solar projects um categorized as aggravates are true dual use that are producing and selling an agricultural product which I will be doing. Um we support more Virginia based research on the economic viability of agri voltakes on utility solar um solar sites. We support more information or demonstration sites being made available to land owners. We believe that bonafide aggrava installations will be more sustainable for the coexistence of solar energy production and agricultural and forestry production. Um so people often say that they want to keep this county rural, but the reality is most of those are the same people that aren't willing to lease land to first generation farmers like me. The solar project is giving me access to land that I'd otherwise not have access to. Um, so yes, I may be categorized as the solar grazer, but during lamming season when I'm working 20our days in all weather, I will gladly invite anyone who thinks that this isn't farming to come out and help. There's a real lack of understanding in this county about what agriculture looks like today. Farming isn't just corn and cows anymore. It's diverse, adaptive, evolving, regenerative, and sustainable. If we truly want to keep King George rural, we need to start supporting young producers, not shutting down every opportunity that doesn't fit someone's

outdated image of farming and agriculture. This project keeps land and agriculture. It puts food and fiber into the market and it helps keep local farmers like me working. That's rule and that's exactly what we say we want to preserve. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Chris, do we have any others? Yes, Mr. Chairman. Ryan McIll. Good evening. Ryan McIll, Shiloh District, speaking in favor of the project. Um, I'd like to commend Open Roads on their outreach, the amount of effort they've put to follow up on directions that they were given by the board of supervisors to host more public events to try and reach out and inform the public and to answer questions and comments of those opposed. Uh previously when I spoke before you guys, it was uh about the the work that Open Roads did to eliminate the need to go through the RPA by working with land owners such as myself and surrounding neighbors so that that area wouldn't be impacted. They took the information that to them and they adapted. And I any any good policy or plan should take in information and adapt to so that it's the best possible product. and I think that they continue to do that and I commend them for that. Um, with my time left, I want to address a couple things that I've heard this evening. U, one specific was about clearcutting the land, uh, about stripping the land. Uh, it's important to understand that laid out in the conditions, only 200 acres can be opened at a time and that they will remediate that soil immediately. Uh, speaking of the conditions, for those that are

looking for more information, I suggest reading uh a Virginia Tech white paper that's going through peer review right now. When you look at the recommendations in that paper and compare them to the conditions, Open Roads is doing a phenomenal job. Um, another comment that I heard this evening was a concern about where this equipment was coming from, such as China. Uh, the board of supervisors had that same exact concern. So, a condition is, if you look at the conditions, it's stated that they will not purchase any equipment from an adversarial nation. Uh, the last thing that I'm going to touch on real quick is something that I was concerned about personally, and I heard a gentleman bring it up this evening about property values being impacted and people wanting to sell their property. So, I looked into that as someone who owns real estate and I looked into the to the the surrounding area of the Spennsylvania project, West Catharin Road area, and if you look at the values of those properties and what they've sold from in 2020, they're around 300,000 and they're over 500,000 now. And there's many you could just go up and down West Kathar Road, Deer Park Road, all in that surrounding project and look at that. So that that's just a a a false fear that's being put out there unfortunately. Thank you for your time. I ask that you please support the project. Thank you, sir. Chris, do we have any others? There's someone named Dave, but I don't have a last name. If Dave, would you like to have a public comment? He says no. Okay. All right.

And Chris, could you advise us on any others? Uh, someone named Joey. Joey, would you like to have a public comment? He hasn't responded. I have a feeling that that may be the last of the people online, Mr. Chairman. Very well, Chris. Thank you so much. At this time, public comment for those online as well as within the room is now closed on application Z-2024-0000184. Um to the applicant if you would like to respond to any of this. Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, my name is Mike Fulpy. I'm a co-founder of Open Road Renewables. I'd like to start by saying thank you to the Morgan family for taking us up on our offer to come out to their property to walk the land and understand their concerns further. I'd like to talk about uh the integrity concern and sort of unpack that so that everybody has all of the full information. There was a question I believe asked by planning commissioner Fox, did we use any third parties for background checks? And Ryan and I said no, we did not. I believe it was the April 1st Board of Supervisors hearing where there was a petition that was read aloud where there were approximately 300 signitories who communicated their opposition to the project. They did not come and speak against it, but they signed a petition that Miss Morgan and some of her friends read aloud. I directed Mr. Gilchrist to research and reach out to every single one of those signitories. He used a third-party resource called Benverified to get their

home address and any other information he had so he could do outreach. There was a concern from the board that despite our 14 months of community engagement formally since the application was submitted in January of 2024 that there was insufficient outreach. The concern of us reaching out to people by sending them letters and sending them text messages is directly in line with how we do business, which is transparent, honest community engagement. Mr. Cliff said, "Nothing personal, but there are integrity issues. I don't see it as nothing personal. I'm a co-founder in the company. I care a lot about the integrity of the company. I want to clear up that point. Uh, I really appreciate you guys putting all the time and thought into this project. I believe what is in front of you is an improved project directly responsive to the concerns that have pres been presented. I want to connect one final dot for you and then leave it to your discussion. There's a really novel element to the improvements to the project with regards to soil health and storm water runoff prevention. The best way to keep the soil on site following disturbance is to have root growth. The sediment basins are there as a lastditch measure to prevent sediment from running into the wershed. But all of the work that we put into the soil health through participation from a lot of members of the community will benefit the forage production, but it will also benefit the storm water runoff risk. We are extremely happy to present the improvements of the project to the community and we believe that the permanent a preservations of this elements of this project is a novel approach and one that could be replicated across the Commonwealth to keep rural lands rural and provide land access to young farmers who were not the fortunate sons that didn't inherit land.

land is very expensive and the solar project is funding the land access for the young members of the farming community. Thank you very much. Thank you sir. So at this time um I am going to open the floor for comments from the commission uh planning commission at large. Miss Flattery has the floor. I just have um a question for staff. Can you respond to the um comment regarding the comprehensive plan um on page 41, continue to implement the Chesapeake Bay Overlay zoning district, King George County zoning ordinance requirement that all agricultural land implement farm plans that have been approved by the Tri County City Soil and Water Conservation District. Can you give an explanation for that and uh give us some confidence that that that has been adhered to? Sure. So the whole King George as a whole is within the Chesapeake Bay overlay zoning district. So my understanding is that when farmers implement farm plans, they do need to work with the conservation district. I don't know the extent of the farms that are in the project and what kind of project they are doing with the soil and water conservation district but that's the point of why it's in there to get them to work with them on farm plans and have they done that that I don't know if they've each individually have farm plans with the is there a requirement for them to do that in the future as this is still going to be a grazing operation, you know. Yeah.

For farm plans that go into land use, right? Yeah. The USDA and soil and water conservation, if a farmer wants to get into the land use program, they need to work with them on that. So, you're saying this doesn't apply? The what we're talking about tonight's a special exception. So, I didn't really get into if each of the properties have been complying with this comp plan suggestion. I'm only bringing it up because someone else did that. I want to make sure that we're following our comprehensive plan in regards Yes. In regards to the land use taxation and the requirement to have a farm plan. Yes, we are. JC, you have the floor back. Thank you, Mr. Fox, you have the floor. Yeah, I also have a question uh for staff. U just to kind of refresh memories on this. Uh was a third party environmental impact assessment performed for the project? Could you tell us a bit about what went into that, who did it, what it what it looked at, and particularly coming back to the issue of uh erosion and runoff and soil soil quality and so on. A lot of the review was done before Kenny and I were employed here. So, I'd kind of have to refer back to Ryan and Mike, but I do know that our third party engineering contractors did review the application as a whole, and they will be reviewing it again if it goes to site plan stage. You might want to ask the applicant more details. I don't I don't know. I wasn't here with presumably the board of supervisors will have that when they are asked to revote on this uh is that right that's part of the application package. Yes. Right. Okay. Just

you uh are there any other questions or comments from commission? Okay. All right. So, um something I rarely do, I will yield my comments. um is that we you know we we have a very intelligent uh commission here. My thoughts are it boils down to two things. Does it bring revenue to the county and does it harm the environment? Um to me I think those questions have been answered. Um whether it be for or against um the fact that they are before us again is b is basically going to take tech taking tech taking technicality. Uh we've we've voted on this before it was 5 to four. Um, and I I don't see a need for us to drag this on for another another session. Uh, so with that being said, I am going to ask for a motion uh on the floor either for or against either way um to make a recommendation to the board of supervisors. Mr. Chairman, point order. I think before I think before per the bylaws before you have discussion by the members and before you move the motion you just technically need to close the public hearing as a whole. I I did you close public comment but not the public hearing. Okay. Sorry to be a stickler. So uh you said public hearing. So the public hearing for application Z-2024-0000184

is now closed. Um now I am um appealing to my members board members. Yes sir. Yes sir. So you're you're absolutely this is this has all been before us before and it's just a quirk that it's coming back for a second goaround. I I just want to make for the record that there's a lot of positives. There's still some negatives about this project. My biggest concern is the size. It is. I mean, given that this is going to be our first real solar project in the county, it is very large. A number of parcels broken out into individual plots with with, you know, solar panels on it. It's almost like, you know, approving like 20 individual solar projects is the way it feels to me. So, I just think there's some risk that we don't have a track record understanding, you know, what the impact of this is with that. You know, I'll let it go. But that that's the concern I want to put on the record for the uh supervisor's consideration. Thank you. Um, it was my understanding, Ryan, that the Farm Bureau endorsed this project. Um, I think I heard that from Kelsey. They as part of I think they're Yeah. Okay. And um the since we last voted, I think the tightening up the consery thing with the North America Land Trust addresses one of my major concerns about enforcement. Um so I think it's an

improved application from our prior review. All right. Um I think um actually the discussion period has been was closed. Um so um I'm appealing again to the commission to make a motion either for or against um not sure who was Okay. So, I need I'm looking for that motion. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion. Yes, sir. I don't usually do the motions, but I will jump in on this one. Uh, I move that we adopt resolution PC09-25 to forward the application Z20400184 to the King George Board of Supervisors with a favorable favorable recommendation. I'd like to add two stipulations to that that the county uh attorney addressed with the board of supervisors a concern about the addition to the consery of the residential parcel, one per parcel that that get clarified and and locked down uh to satisfaction of the board of supervisors and the county attorney and also with the with the addition of uh hazardous chemical testing uh being added to the soil and water testing. as part of the profer statement. The motion has been made. Second. Motion has been seconded. Miss Leuk, if we can have a roll call. Yes, sir. Mr. Dorta. Hi. Mr. Fox. Hi. Mr. Palota.

Hi. Mr. Kendrick. Nay. Mr. Matet. Nay. Miss Flattley. Nay. Mr. Meyers absent. Mr. Nicely I. And Mr. Williams I. Motion carries 53. Motion carries with a recommendation to the board of supervisors for approval. Uh to the applicants, we thank you for your time and efforts. Uh to the constituents, we thank you for your comments. All right. At this time, I am going to Sorry, sir. I just had to We also need a motion. This the second sentence in the draft motion of the staff report to move that the planning commission finds this project to be in substantial accord with the comprehensive plan. We could do that as a separate motion. Okay. So, we need we need to make a motion. Yeah. So, I need I need a motion and to be seconded. Um I make a motion that we find the application um in compliance substantial accord with the comprehensive plan with the comprehensive plan. Thank you based on the preservation element and the soil improvement. [Music] A second. Okay. Motion's been made and seconded. Okay. Okay, I'll take a roll again. Mr. Kendrick, I Mr. Meyers absent. Mr. Palota, hi. Mr. Dorta, Mr. Mat, Miss Flattley, hi. Mr. Fox,

Mr. Nicely. Hi. And Mr. Williams. Hi. Thank you. That's it. All right. Thank you so much. Uh again, uh to the constituents of King George County, we thank you uh for your comments uh and your uh participation in this process. Uh at this time, I'm going to request that we do a 10-minute recess um before we go. We are My birthday is tomorrow. I'll be 55 years young. Bladder is not in control like it used to be. So, think I've had a few years. Yes, ma'am. Just a few. Just a few. So, take 10.

session is about to begin. Been having some health issues. So, Oh, I do. All right. Do we have all our members back? Majority of us anyway. Okay. Next on the agenda for public public hearing is resolution PC uh 10-25 application Z-2024-0000224 dog inv uh in innovation hub resoning application. Um so Miss Leuke, you have the floor. Okay. Thank you, sir. I'm going to just give a brief overview of the next four applications. Um, and then I think the applicant's planning on addressing everything in one chunk, but we do have to have separate public hearings for each item. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So representatives from Dogrren Innovation Hub have submitted several applications that are being presented before you this evening. The first is an application to reszone with profers approximately 479 acres of land located on the west side of route 301 generally at the intersection of route 301 and Washington Mill Road to industrial. The second is a comprehensive plan amendment to add tax parcel 17-24 to the Claydale primary settlement area

if the properties do get reszoned to industrial. The third application is for a special exception permit to construct a data center campus to authorize an increase in building height greater than 50 ft and to allow an increase in the 10- foot height limitation for walls and fences to allow the screening of outdoor equipment. The last request is for an exception from the planning commission to the highway corridor overlay district regulations to allow for more than one entrance onto Route 301. In support of these requests, the applicant has provided a zoning and generalized development plan with a written narrative, a phasing plan, a traffic impact analysis which has been reviewed and approved by VOTE, voluntary profer statement, and a noise analysis. The full application package has been reviewed by our thirdparty engineers along with all county and state reviewing agencies. The applicants have also been working closely with the fire chief to address his concerns. The property is currently undeveloped but lies in an area that has been designated as an economic development incentive technology zone by the board of supervisors. The property is also mostly in the Claydale settlement area which is designated for commercial and industrial development. The applicants have presented to the planning commission and have hosted several community outreach meetings and they're also on the agenda to present to the board of supervisors at their meeting next Tuesday. Staff has received uh several emails and letters of support for this project which have been shared with you with uh via email. There are several actions that the commission will need to vote on this evening should you choose to and we can tackle those one at a time with the help of legal counsel once we get there. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Over for the applicant's presentation. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Kelly. Good evening, Chair Williams, members of

the planning commission, and members of the King George community. My name is Nick Over. I'm here with the Dogron West team. I'm excited to give this presentation tonight. Thank you for the opportunity. The proposed data center campus is situated along the west side of Route 301, just a couple miles south and west of the Dog Naval Facility. And this is here's a quick illustration of the team here that has been working on this project. You know, we have prioritized community outreach throughout the planning process, which we'll illustrate here tonight, ensuring that your concerns and the aspirations of this county are central to our approach. A few key points about Dogron West. We have designed this project with enhanced setbacks and significant open space, preserving the natural character of the site and maintaining sensitivity to existing environmental features. These measures are intended to minimize both visual impacts and protect the landscape that divine defines King George County. As part of that, we have engaged in a a very comprehensive public engagement uh leading up to tonight. In April of 2024, we had our first initial uh community town hall event where we had a a multi-hour window for people to come in as as time permitted for them where we uh talked in general about what what the project could be, heard feedback from them so that we could then incorporate that feedback into our application. I think it's important to note that we we believe in meeting with the community prior to filing our our application. We wanted to hear from them and quite frankly they had some great ideas that we we put into our application. We then filed the application and received uh great comments from staff. Thank you. We then took those comments, addressed them, and had a second town hall because we wanted

to let the community know, hey, this is these are the changes we've made based on your comments and staff's comments. what else could we do to make this project better? And then in February, I I virtually gave the presentation after the snowstorm if you remember. Uh sorry I couldn't be here in person. And that brings us to tonight um where we are are here before you. Thank you. So this slide shows a couple of the presentations we had. One at the Dog and Mary Washington University. Well over 100 people attended. That was the first one. And then over at the Smooth Library, we followed up. A couple of key points that were brought up or ideas that were brought up by the community were the addition of this community trail system, which we have agreed to profer to and to maintain for in perpetuity through an owners association that will layer on and record against the property. So, the county will not be at any expense. We will pay for the construction of it and we will pay for the long-term maintenance of it. Fewer buildings, more open space, increased setbacks off Route Route 301 were all things that were that were kind of brought up that we we we addressed in the application. Oh, and we have our our website there, dogornwest.com, where we we continually post updates and receive feedback from the community and and and give them responses. We also post our applications up there so everyone can have full access to what we're doing, trying to be transparent. So, I'm going to go through some of the application details, uh, the development plan, open space, setbacks, building height, the comprehensive plan, existing zoning, and special exceptions. I know it's a lot, but we actually have simplified the applications from before. U, today, the the site uh is a mix of zonings. Um, our plan is to take this this conglomerate of parcels and put it into more cohesive project in one plan that can be developed as uh as a data center campus.

We're going to request that all of these now be reszoned to industrial. So, here we have our development plan. You can see here um this is route 301 along the bottom of the plan and the existing uh high transmission power lines run uh strategically along the frontage of the site. We have placed the substations adjacent to those also because they're lower and then they will feed the the buildings that are adjacent to it. All of which we we fund as a as the project developer. We have also we've implemented 250 foot setbacks that you can see right here. I think uh zoning code requires 50 feet and we've we've profered 250 feet and we're adding an additional 100 foot landscape buffer all the way around the project and for any and so that and we move the buildings internal to the site which is also something we receive from the community to help both with sound attenuation and the visual try to minimize visual impacts to the community of the project. And then we strategically place the storm water management um along the backside of the project to help protect any undue runoff uh due to the project's development. And we have our my whole team here that's willing to dive into details around those matters. This slide here is meant is illustrates a couple of things. Uh I think the most important being our commitment to 40% open space on this project. well over 200 acres um with with at le sorry skipping here with approximately at least a 100 acres along the backside between our project and the Machic um trying to be sensitive to that as well as our neighbors behind us. Additionally, our 200 again our our our 250 foot setback and then natural

vegetation really helps to screen this project from the from the viewshed. Here we have our transportation infrastructure updates. I have uh Carl uh with Grove Slate here to answer any detailed questions you may have around this. We have received approval, full approval from VOTE for our traffic study to allow for two access points at the site in the in our left turn lane uh del lane to come. They also asked us to look at doing some improvements a little further south on 301 at Ridge Road, route 205, which we are illustrating here. um adding in a dedicated left so that people can more easily get onto 301 um which we have profered to do that work. We think will be very beneficial. This is something new and um and and and pretty exciting for us to share tonight. We we heard the feedback from the community and and from you all and other other hearings as well as as other meetings about what is this project going to look like from the road? how can we envision what it's going to be? So, we went and found a a a unique consultant that specializes in in dropping buildings into existing conditions so that you can see exactly what it will look like, the scale, the massing, and the re the related uh vegetation. So, as you can see here, this is 301 looking north. This is the viewshed that we're looking at. This is the existing conditions today in the winter. We took pictures in winter and summer, so you could see both. We didn't want to just show you summer. Um, so this ghost in the buildings that are on the development plan in the background. It's kind of hard to obviously it's not in the road. It's just there to show you where they are in on the plan. And if you look here in the right in the winter, you can sort of make out this building here in the in the foreground. That is the building

that is closest to the road that we that we saw on the plan there. That's winter. This is summer. We have virtually 100% coverage in the summer. We're showing and let me also on the bottom here you can see we're showing the but all buildings at 70 ft above finish floor with a 15 ft mechanical screen wall. Um just so we can be fully transparent as to as to exactly what you're going to see from the road. Moving up moving up 301 again looking uh northbound at the at the project. This is the existing condition here. You know, we have this nice landscape burm that fronts most of the project here. It kind of falls down a little bit. So, we wanted to take a picture from that point just so you could see what that would look like. So, here is the building. It's obviously it's not it's not this close. It's just to show you the scale of the building. It's 250 ft setback. This again is showing a 70 foot building, although we have put in our development plan that we will only do 65 ft within 250 ft of the of the property. So this is actually uh 5 ft higher than what it'll be in reality. So this is winter. You get us a little glimpse of the building there. Summer we have again full coverage. Moving southbound uh looking back the other way again. You know we have nice benefit of this existing uh foliage buffer that we have at the site. Existing conditions. Again this is looking back at that same building that we showed you earlier. It's the only building that's visible from Route 301 in the wintertime and this is in the summertime. So now I'm going to move on a little bit to the profers and benefits of this project. You know, top line, you know, we're carving out other uses. It'll be specifically uh for data centers and and ancillary benefits of substations. Um for the project, we're going to commit

to 40% open space. the community trail that'll run along the back of the project with views of the Machic increase setbacks and sound mitigation measure measures that will be done in accordance with your code. We've also already commissioned a full sound study and have the results of that. And again, as we build the project, we will be required to do a sound study for each building uh before we start. And then when we finish, we'll have to then do a test and prove that we meet those standards and we will commit to all those things. Profer contributions. We are committing uh we've changed a couple things. Uh timing being one. We're going to commit to give our cash profers at the building permit, not at occupancy, so that you get the that you get the money sooner. I think that also is is um in response to some feedback we heard about the timeline that there is for fire trucks in this market. And so we wanted to make sure there was plenty of time in which to obtain a firetruck with the $3 million uh public safety uh profer that we're going to commit to. Additionally, if required, we would uh fund a rental of a firet truck if for some reason we couldn't get one on time and they you are able to rent those. Uh parks and wreck, we're committing to a million dollars. Our public trail, uh you know, conservatively we think it's 500,000 we'll spend on that and then we will of course commit to the ongoing maintenance. Um something my partner and I are really committed to is workforce development. um $500,000 commitment to that to be used as the board sees. But we've seen some great um programs initiated around uh at community colleges and high schools that would train uh train this local community so they can work in at this project whether that be construction or ongoing. You know, these facilities um employ a lot of MEP mechanical, electrical, plumbing um to keep them running 24 hours a day. And then and

then we had this unique feature at the site. Um the VZ family um our land owner uh from a previous project built a a sign a sub substantial water tower. I'm sure everyone's seen it out there on 301. We estimate the value of that to be about5 to $6 million. There's also a water line that's already in the ground that connects back to the s the water line system. Was actually turned on once on accident, so we know it works, but it hasn't been used. We did have a study done to um uh in our conversations with the service authority to confirm that it's in good working order and in good shape and we will commit to uh to to doing another study right before we we give it over to the service authority in good working order. We don't want to give them something that is not in good shape. We feel like this is a great improvement for the community. It's going to help uh help with water pressure and um and it's going to be an immediate impact. We're going to turn it on. it's already there. So, that's we're kind of lucky with that in that aspect. All right. Off-site improvements. We spoke a little bit about what what happened there. We did our full we have our full V. TIA approval done for this project and we are we are committed to preparing an emergency action action plan uh with the county fire and EMS as for construction and ongoing operations at the project. Okay. Adherence to the comprehensive plan. This project is part of the Clayell primary settlement area. It was part of a larger piece of property that was developed as a residential community in the back and was meant to have a commercial and industrial uses along the frontage of 301 that uh with that language. We believe that this project is in conformance with that and are requesting um that this project be considered substantially in accord with the comprehensive plan. special exceptions. You know, with the, as you all well know, with the new

zoning ordinance, you know, we um we are now required with any any zoning application, even if your land is already industrial, to obtain a special exception. This is a standard now, I believe, a smart and standard practice that's been adopted throughout Virginia so that you all have in the community has a chance to weigh in on a project such as this. um we welcomed it and uh as you can see with our community outreach, the project's going to be in in harmony with the district. Um these are some of the items that are are that you look at as you're evaluating or this special exception is is viable. Um we believe that it is. Secondly, here we have a special exception for height. Uh, as you all know, you you passed on to the board and the board recently approved the ability for them to increase height above 50 ft via special exception. We're requesting to go to a maximum height of 70 ft. Um, as you saw on those uh visuals, that will that's the that will meet that standard. And then, you know, the the increase the maximum height of walls and fences. Um, that's just to screen any of our outdoor equipment. This is our request for a second access point is something that we uh must request from from you all. Um because the property is located in the highway corridor overlay district. Um we require planning commission approval for this. As you know the project is 500 acres. It's very very long distance along 301. So, we believe it's in the best interest of this project to have two access points and VOTE has agreed with us and has approved that second access point. Fiscal impacts and highlights.

Dogrren West is expected to bring substantial economic benefits to the county. The project will generate new jobs and future reoccurring annualized tax revenues, providing long-term support for public services and local infrastructure. These are just a few of the key fiscal impacts that this project will provide for the county, which our team can expand upon uh if desired in the Q&A. We look forward to working collaboratively collaboratively with this commission the broad and the broader community and staff on this project to ensure that Dogron West becomes a responsible and value added valued addition to the King George County community. We thank you for your consideration and and welcome uh questions. Thank you. So, um commissioners, I'm going to ask you to uh keep your burning questions. U I'm going to allow um public hearing session first. We get all that out the way and then we can we'll go into our discussion. Um but before I open the floor um to for public hearing, I'm going ask our um attorney to to address the constituents. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, in looking at the agenda, um, I noticed in terms of procedure, we have three separate public hearings scheduled for this one one particular project. And as the applicant just did, covered the aspects not only of reszoning, uh, the comp plan amendment, but also the special exceptions. Those need to be three separate public comments and the public should be encouraged to comment on all of those. Per the bylaws, public comment should be addressed to each one of those topics. So when we have the

public hearing for resoning, uh the chair should accept public comment as to resoning issues. when we get to comp plan comp plan issues for that specific parcel and then when we get to the special exceptions obviously public comment should be encouraged by the chair for each of those things but those things will be three separate hearings and I would just encourage the chair to make sure that the public stays on topic for each of those in order to make their comments most impactful to to the commission. Okay. Very well. Very well. So um so we all have received our instructions and recommendations. Um so I will ask each of you uh to adhere so you can make my job easier and we can flow through this and get out of here before 12:00 midnight. Sir, thank you. All right. So um let's see. So public comment period will now be open for resolution uh PC 10-25 application Z-2024-00224 DR innovation hub reszoning application. All right. And I do have signin sheets. Make sure I have the right one. Okay, it's 225. There we go. Okay, it looks like I only have two names on the signin sheet and then I'll open it up uh for general at that after that. So, the first name is Jeffrey Robin.

That did I say that correctly, sir? Raven. Okay. I'm sorry. No worries. Um, okay. So, name's Jeff Rabin. I live in Hopyard Farms off Parsons Lane. Um, I'm here to speak in support of this uh motion. So, u the center will only be utilizing 60% of the property. Uh it's giving very generous setbacks away from the road uh to keep visuals of our rural community in uh in mind. Uh part of the property will be opened up to the public in the form of public trail system giving access to a piece of land that otherwise no no members of this community other than the specific land owners would be able to access legally. Um so I'm sure some people here are worried about sound. My mother is an aiologist. I've been had sound and you know loudness uh kind of taught to me and it's been something I've been concerned about my whole life. Um the numbers that they are quoting in the profers uh max daytime being 60 dB and nighttime of 55 dB with me away from here my volume is approximately 65 dB. So very reasonable. Um let's see what else. Um the once fully realized the uh annual tax income from the from the project is almost doubling our current tax revenue for the county for the entire year um and every year going forward. Um so I don't know exactly what we will be spending that money on. In theory, it could be used to reduce the burden on the uh homeowners and residents in the county, reducing our tax uh our taxes every year. Also funding things like schools and uh the fire department. I uh am a former volunteer fire department or

fire fighter, sorry. Um grew up doing that in Charlottesville and now currently uh still do it part-time in Ebony, Virginia. I've seen differences in a wellunded and a massively underfunded uh department. We seem to be more on that well wellunded side, but uh that additional tax revenue could go towards these good things like the new ladder truck. Um and that equipment can and will make the difference in saving lives potentially. Um, uh, also would love to see, uh, the potential for some of that money to go to paying down our water debt, uh, and sewer debt because, uh, I am I live in Hopyard Farms. I'm connected to the grid. Uh, my every two-month water bill is in excess of $300. I don't even hit the minimum cap, so it's uh, it's pretty substantial. Uh I I only wish I could be on well and septic but uh not not an option unfortunately. Um uh yeah again uh as stage of life I'm going into looking into having children here soon. Um I would also love to see some of that tax money being go into the uh school system. Thank you. Thank you sir. All right Mr. So which of the three aspects is this one? This the reasoning sir reszoning. Uh that's all the little parcels stuff not not the add-on. Oh okay. Yes. Um James Shaw James Monuro district. um speaking uh in my capacity as EDA member, King George taxpayer, and

I live in Claydale, so I have skin in the game here. And so, as a um member of the EDA and uh we're looking for these kind of projects and you know, like I said before earlier in the evening, th this this fits it. I've been talking to these guys. I saw them at Mary Washington at their uh meet and greet and such and uh posed some interesting questions to them and they took some of those things into uh consideration and I've seen this project grow and um good things. Um, I recommend it and um, you know, the the mention earlier here uh, regarding the sound, that's always going to be probably the biggest thing. But the nice thing is that they have this, you know, they've been pushing it further and further away from the edges. And um, that water tower thing, that was a new one. I got to talk to you guys about that. I got some other ideas, but um, not going to make it public though. see that that I know that foyer stuff. So, um and yeah, this sets us up good for the future. We got uh we will in the end in this county have three data center sites, this being one of them. and um um didn't know the money was that big, but we aren't going to spend to uh count our chickens before we hatch. That's an important thing for everybody to keep in mind. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shaw. Is there anyone in the room who wish to speak on the resoning application?

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Good evening. My name is Renee Parker. I live at 7144 Peppermill Road in Claydale. Um I've been in King George 31 years. Never addressed your board, which is crazy when I think about how many times um I've I've spoken to the board of supervisors. Tonight, uh, I came because every time I hear about a project that comes our way, Amazon, solar farm, whatever it is, I get real excited because I've been here long enough to see the need to see the need for revenue. We don't have it. We don't have it. We're out of it. I I'm with everybody else. I don't want to see my taxes go up. No one wants to see their taxes go up. But until money falls out of the sky dedicated to King George only, because King George citizens don't want their taxes to go up, we have to have revenue. this particular project you I mean I'm not going to quote all the things that he said the revenue alone given the profiters that they put in place given the spacing that they've included given some of the things that everybody in their game has probably learned from the things that happened with Amazon needing to control the decibel level needing to control the height needing to control the visuals all those things are covered as a person who lives in Claydale since 2012 we knew when we purchased there because the late Ed Vzy told us so that that entire area was meant for this very thing and talked about how it was imminent, you know, and and it's taken a minute, but it's here. So, I urge you um to obviously I'm in favor of it. I urge you to consider it um favorably for the board of supervisors and help us reach some of our revenue needs because I think this is a good one. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Is there anyone in the room? Yes, sir. Hi, my name is Kevin Beyond. Uh 9906

Mohawk Drive. I'm in the James Monroe uh district and uh Renee sort of stole my thunder. Um I've been in the county for about 30 years. I've raised three children. Uh they went through the King George school systems. Uh they all turned out successful, self-sufficient, uh good jobs. Um and yes, we need tax revenue in King George. We need industry. We need something. Um there's always going to people people that say no, we don't want this. We don't want that. It's all just like for the solar farm, for uh Dogger West, what have you. Uh we need tax revenue. I'm pro education. I'm pro schools. I'm pro fire and rescue. I want our sheriff's department. I want everything to be well funded. I want to have the best teachers. I see teachers leaving left and right from the county. Um I want uh this county to be the best they can be uh for our future generation of uh children that come out of it. Um people complain that they don't want their property taxes to be raised. People complain they don't want any industry. They just want everything rural. Well, it's not 1955 anymore. 2025 and uh we definitely need some industry in King George to bring in more tax revenue uh to keep our county uh great. So um that's where I stand and I hope uh this project gets approved. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Are there any others in the room? Hello board. My name's Billy Clif, King George resident, 13188 Salem Church Road, King George, Virginia. Um, I'm not a big proponent of growth. Um, and there's a double-edged sword here when it comes to uh people coming to the county having the lowest tax revenue.

That's why they're targeting this county. But when a company comes and presents something like they did today, uh this is a much more of a a win win for the county. When you're talking$1 and $120 million a year potentially coming into our revenue stream to be used for whatever, that's a big deal. Um so that was my statement for this project. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Are there any others in the room? Okay, Mr. Chris, are there any online? No, Mr. Chairman. Very well, sir. Seeing that there are none online and there are no others in the room, public comment on application Z-2024-0000224 is now closed. I will now open the floor for the the planning commission for their questions and comments. Yes, sir. Mr. Fox or Mr. Ms. whichever one doesn't matter. So, I am hardwired to to dislike projects like these. Um, and in fact, I when I first heard about it, wanted to I mean, I I'm in the Dogren County. I live on the Machoto Creek, which they would abut. Um, I drive down Washington Mill constantly, which they would be across from. In my mind, I wanted to oppose this project. Uh then you start to dive into

it and try as I might, there's no holes in my opinion to to poke in this, right? There there's an insane amount to to embrace for the future of the county, right? Number one, you're never going to see this in winter. Sure, whatever. But it's 30 to1, right? 40% of the land they're committing at least to keep undisturbed. Um, truthfully, one of the things I like the most about it, they don't even they don't even need a traffic light across from Washington Mill, right? That tells you all you need to know about the disruption that this is going to cause to the county. And that's incredibly uh favorable compared to some other projects we've reviewed here. Um, something that we haven't talked about is they're actually part of the Northern Net Cooperative, which if you dive into it and research it, um, which Nick reminded me of the other day, um, means they pay for the infrastructure upgrades to the grid, right? If you're on the Dominion side, you don't. That bill is footed by us to the tune of roughly 55% goes to residential customers. That's not the case here, right? So, it's a net positive in that regard as well. Um, almost half of this is already industrial, right? Part we're talking about now. Is it really suitable for anything else? No. Right? You can't really put a farm in there. No, you don't want to see that be residential. It wouldn't be appropriate for the area. And truthfully, I don't think any of us want to see that area become commercial because of the congestion it would cause in 301. Um, I'll tell you the thing that really speaks to me also the most about these guys is I think they're the type of individuals we want to do business with here, right? They've gone as far as to rent office space and be open to meet with citizens of this county at any point during their I'm presuming very busy days. And that's not something we can say for many applicants in my it's only been a year, but my tenure on this commission. Um, so I applaud them. I

applaud the project. I'm not even going to talk about the money. I think that speaks for itself. Frankly, I don't have an adjective that is expressive enough to to say what that could do for the resources here. Um, and their their profers are absolutely amazing. So, I I I would love to see this be a unanimous positive recommendation to the board. Thank you, sir. With with his comments, um, I'd like to hear if there are any opposing comments. Um, Mr. Kendrick. So, I'm a little I'm a little con confused. Uh, Kelly, you in your presentation, you made a comment that this area has been designated for industrial development by the board of supervisors. Is that the way you put it? When did they do that? I'm going to ask Matt if he's got the details on that, but I know that the board Okay. Okay. Okay. They they overlaid several locations within the county as a technology zones. Technology at Birchwood was one of them. Um it enables you to go and request in additional incentives for your project if you're going to be developing there. We are not requesting additional incentives. Um so that's what that was way I understand it. I'm just looking at the comprehensive plan and I'm trying to trying to put all this together in my mind, but the comprehensive plan talks about it as commercial and residential development. Now, that site that they're on, I haven't looked at it that closely, but I know it's not a great site for thinking about housing or anything. And and I'm not certainly not in favor of doing a bunch of, you know, strip malls down 301, but a lot of traffic on that

road. It's only going to get more. It and it's right near it's right on the approach to the base. Has Has anybody reached out to the base to get their opinion of this? I'm also one thing that's been going through my mind lately is the base was a big driver in getting the upgrades to the electrical system in that area back several years ago to the point where they actually put a substation on government property because they were the largest user on that line and you know and and they were at the very tail end So, Dominion heard all those complaints and and and dead stuff. Now, I'm I'm looking at just all kinds of draw on that. So, I'd be curious to know if the base has any concern about adequate power being drained away from them on this. And and I haven't heard any conversation about Dominion's plans to do development. I would hate to be Dominion right now looking at getting enough power to support the three data centers that have come before us so far. So is it really feasible from that point of view? And I guess I just don't like the site. It's got nothing to do with the physical aspects of the site, but it's it's on the approach to the base. I don't think they're going to care for that a whole lot. There's enough congestion there now. Anyway, um it just to me doesn't seem like a good aerial area to be reszoning as industrial even though it's sort of a clean industrial. And I I appreciate that they're talking

about moving the buildings away from the the edge of the road. You know, the 250 ft setback. I'd like more. I'd like to see something that guaranteed that they weren't that visible, but it just seems like a bad area to be designating as industrial. So, half of it already is, I believe. Yes. Um, yeah, half of it is by right industrial already, not even commercial. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sean, you had a floor. I'd just like to say that um in the past before Mr. Bezy uh he's certainly very visionary. He's a he's a dynamo. Um God bless him. Um uh that property was uh ready to go for a subdivision. Mrs. Gray uh sold that to um back then it was Somerset Homes and I think I don't know if it was 90 or 180 homes were were planned on going there. That Absolutely, sir. Yes. Yeah. I still got the plans in my office. Um so anyway, uh I I I completely support the resoning of this. This takes uh some pressure off our schools. Um there's not going to be any school seats required by this and the profers are amazing and um I think I think we should definitely resume this property. Thank you, sir. Mr. Nicely. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure right now for this public comment and our discussions at this point, we're only discussing whether or not this reszoning should occur. Correct. Is that correct? Not overall project. Correct. I have no concerns about the reszoning to industrial. It seems to match with the rest of the property that's around it. I have concerns about the project. I'll hold those for later. Very well. Thank you. All right. Are there any qu any other comments about the reasonzoning at this point

from the commission? Okay. All right. If not, I am going to close uh the board's comment session. Um and I am open for if if you any action that you want to take. Um Mr. Chair, yes. Can you just use the words for me? You're going to close public hearing. Did I not close? I thought I closed the public hearing first then opened up for the board. Now I'm closing the board. But I'll close. Public hearing is now closed. Uh for as a matter of fact, application Z-2024- 002 4. Yeah. Okay. Was that good? Yes, sir. Thank you. Right. Um so um we're now if if if everyone is um content with their their comments or their their um questions. I'm open for any any motions at this time. I'd like to recommend that we not make any motions until we go forward with the um special exception. Okay, sense. Yeah, I would second that. I think we should take this as an entire package and and discuss the entire package and not take a look at this one. Okay. One bite at a time, right? Sounds good. So, no motion will be made, no action at this time. Okay. Now we vote. You have to vote to not take action. Yeah. Right.

Mr. Chair, because these are three separate. My understanding of the bylaws is that you would need to I if you wanted to defer action to later in a later in the meeting, you are you are allowed to do that per your bylaws, but you'll need a motion to do that and a second. It would be it would be difficult at least from my understanding of it and and from staff uh mentioning here to make any sort of motions or decisions on the special exception without having to address the reasoning. Yeah. All right. So, uh, if I can get a motion. I make a motion that we defer action on the resoning until after we've heard, uh, public hearing on the special exception. Second. Motion has been made and seconded. If we have a roll call. Who was the second? I'm sorry. Uh, Mr. Okay. Okay. Motion to defer action till after the special exception discussion. Mr. Dorta. Hi. Mr. Fox Mr. Palota. Hi Mr. Kendrick. Hi Mr. Mat. Hi Flattley. Hi Mr. Nicely. I and Mr. Williams. I motion carries. All right. Motion uh carries for to be to be deferred. Next, uh, we'll open public hearings for resolution PC-11-25, comprehensive plan amendment to add parcel 17-24 to the Claydale primary settlement area. Okay. Right. So,

let's take it here to the care. I don't have any further presentation. I don't Well, thank you. An applicant does, but so uh next on this um agenda item, I have Renee Parker to speak on this. So, I was a little unclear on the directions about whether I need to say something three times to make it count. Okay. Just making sure I understand everything. Correct. I do I do I do want to point out though reiterate something that the gentleman here said that they're not asking for any incentives. What a refreshing thing to hear. No incentives, no tax abatements. I mean, you almost can't believe it, but it's awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shaw. James Shawn James Monroe District uh speaking in my capacity as an EDA member and King George taxpayer and Claydale resident. Um got on the GIS uh this afternoon, took a look at the uh aerial photo of this area and I see all this green and then there's this jagged yellow line and then the green continues. This is a no-brainer. Vote yes. Thank you, sir. Are there any others? All right, Mr. Chris, is there any Is there anyone online? No, Mr. Chairman. Right. Very well. Thank you. Okay, seeing that there is no one in the room and no one online, public comment on application Z-2024-0000225 is now closed. Um, the floor is now open

to the planning commission for any comments or questions on that particular amendment to parcel 17-24. Any comments? All right. So, comment from the commission uh board is now closed. Um just like the previous um resolution, I need a motion to defer. Motion to defer uh the comprehensive plan amendment at parcel 1724 to the Clay Clay primary set area until after the special exception. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Mr. Mr. Duke, if we can have a roll call. Motion for deferral. Uh, Mr. Fox. Mr. Palota. I. Mr. Dorta. Hi. Mr. Kendrick. Hi. Mr. Mat. Hi. Mr. Nicely. Hi. Miss Flattley. Hi. And Mr. Williams. I. Motion carries. Right. Thank you so much, ma'am. Put this away. All right. Next is a public hearing u for resolution PC-12-25 application Z-2024- 00225 dog innovation hub special exception application. Okay. Um, so the floor I don't have one, two, three. Yeah. So I don't I don't have a sign in form for that one. Did was there one?

Unless Yeah. Actually, Mr. Shaw, I'm sure you signed up, correct? Wasn't there very well? Okay. Okay. All right. Let's tell you what. Um, I think you want to Well, this it's it's it's open for public comment, then we'll we'll come back. Um, see, yeah. So, I'm just going to open I'll open the floor. Uh, Mr. Shaw, come on up. James Shaw, James, Monroe District, uh, speaking in my capacity as EDA member, King George taxpayer, live in Claydale. Uh, you've heard my comments earlier, so I won't repeat. Um, vote yes. Thank you, sir. All right. Um, I think Miss Parker, you you you've spoken to Are you Would you like That's all it is. Please, please, please vote yes to the supervisors. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Are there any others in the room? All right. Uh, Mr. Chris, is there anyone online at this time? No, Mr. Chairman. Very well. Thank you. All right. So um the com public comment for period 4 application Z-2024-0025

the dog innovation hub special exception application is now closed. Uh I will now open the floor for um the planning commission itself for any comments. You have the floor. Is this is this to change the building height to 70 ft? This is the whole exception. One of them. Okay. It's one It's one of them. Yes, it is. So, um since Chief Moody is here and we asked about the uh fire uh protection for the taller buildings, um could you speak to that? Uh yes. Thank you for giving me the uh opportunity to uh to address that. uh the 75 ft's not going to be an issue with the fire and rescue department. So yeah, and the uh it it was uh the applicant has been very cooperative uh as we you know raised concerns or issues uh they have addressed each one of those. So um the profer for the ladder truck is certainly going to help with that. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, sir. Mr. Nicely, you have the floor. Yeah, I have a number of questions um and and concerns about the overall project. Um number one on my list, if you all have been listening for the past several meetings as we've been talking about data centers, is water usage. I heard nothing in your presentation about what your plans are to handle the cooling. I noticed in the documentation you talked about how you would pay for infrastructure improvements. I would like to hear something from the service authority. I I know where the public water is, where that plant is in Talgron. I have no estimation from you about how many gallons per day this data center because I I think you say you're

going to connect to the public service and public water. So, how many gallons are we going to are we able to expand that Dgram plant? Who's going to pay for expanding that Dgram plant? How long is that going to take to get approved? Water is my number one concern with data centers. Number two concern, we pulled another data center applicant through us through a lot of discussion about generators and diesel fumes and all of that that's going on. We were concerned about it in a very industrial part of the county where they already have a lot of smell and a lot of public concern from the from the dump. There's a very large residential area right behind them. Does nobody in that residential area care about the diesel fumes and that's going to come from the generators associated with this power plant? Number three is I'm a little confused about the traffic estimate. We heard from another data center that had a similar square footage that they're likely to need to have a traffic light on Route Three at their entrance. Yet somehow miraculously, we don't think this data center is going to require a stoplight at the entrance there at Washington Mills Road. And I guess it's I I I will go on to say that I certainly understand the residents concerns with revenue and they see the dollar signs and that that potentially come from a large data center like this. It does not impact the school system. It doesn't impact the police. They're offering very good profers for to account for the fire department. So, I don't see that as a big infrastructure. But I caution people that when you start waving dollar signs

in front of people, they get very excited and they tend to not think about the downsides of this. I'm concerned about the water. Very concerned. and we've had no discussion about it. I'm uh I'm happy to address that if it's appropriate at this time. Yes, sir. Thank you for for the comments, Commissioner. Um we have committed with the we're working with county administrator with the service authority on on anou for the project regarding water. We do intend to connect to the public water for portable uses, for flushing toilets, for just our everyday use. We do not intend to take there if any more water than than is needed. With regards to cooling, we have are working with the county and the uh the service authority with the potential to build if we were to do any cooling water cooling, we uh could build a our own line at our cost back to the water treatment plant for reclaimed water. But is our intention to have air cooled uh data centers and in if you see any of the new projects that are coming out of the ground here um in the last year almost everyone u is moving to the air cooled space. So we can't take more water than you have sir and we are we will we commit we're committed to that. Yeah that's really my concern is I'd like to hear from the service authority about whether about what infrastructure you're profering to pay for the pipe. Yep. the pipe is who's going to pay for generating the water that goes into the pipe and filtering and processing the water that goes into and comes back out of that pipe. I heard from board of supervisor um before about how many uh board supervisor Bender about how many times the water for a data center has to be processed. It's more than just a pipe. And until we get something back from the service authority that they that we've got a

comprehensive plan that can stitch all this together or you specifically profer that you're not going to use water cooling, I I've got a real concern with voting one way or the other on this until we get a more complete plan. Yes, sir. Yes. Sorry. I'm taking a question here. Yes. Uh we have committed to the water authority that we're only going to be taking enough water to satisfy our our portable needs. Not that's not the way I read your profer statements. Okay. We are we are committing to that. Um how you want to add to that or Good evening. Thank you. U my name is Ann Neil Cosby and I'm land use council for Dogrren West and because the zoning ordinance um when it was amended in specifically includes um for data centers the prohibition that they may not use county water um for anything other than domestic usage. There doesn't need to be a profer because we're not allowed to do that under the ordinance. Um and there's been a zoning determination that was issued by the zoning administrator to that effect setting forth what's allowed um in the county ordinance and what's not allowed. So we are not allowed to use county water for anything other than domestic usage and I'm looking at Mr. Vaughn here um you know which is you know your basic you know drinking water health safety toilet flushing. So under your ordinance, we cannot use um anything any county water for anything other than domestic. So that's why it's not profered and it does say in the profers, you know, that we will have a connection, you know, pursuant to what's permitted by law. So we are only permitted to do that. So that's um that's the answer there. So thank you.

I'm trying to get down to the right page to the computer here. Not reacting well. Yes, sir. It's getting late on the computer, too. Of course, Mr. Nicely, you you yelled in the floor. Yes, sir. Thank you, Miss um Flatly, you have the floor. So, to follow on that, I've been learning more and more about these cooling systems and and and so for clarification, um using humidity, water for humidity in the building. No, they it's using air. They they flow air through and and and quite frankly they're changing. Technology is changing literally every month in this space getting more and more efficient and we're seeing these buildings become more efficient. So there's no water used for humidity? No. Okay. And there's is there a glycol closed loop system? Anything like that? Yeah. I mean I don't I can't every system is unique and system but there are glycol systems. Are there many different types of of cooling systems? We you know what we're doing is committing that we're not going to use water for cooling. So so that would that but what I want to know because sure there could be some misunderstandings about what that looks like and as I've educated myself I just want some clarification. These glycol systems are 2/3 water and that water needs to be I guess uh filled the first time and then flushed and replaced uh periodically. And so when you say we're not going to use water, I want absolute clarification that you're not going to use water. And if you are going to use water, how much? How often? What are the limitations? And then I've for the life of me tried to ask several times for people to to to project if we have a large consumer of water in our county or multiple large consumers of water does that limit our further development in other places which is not an answer that you need you know to give me but it's a concern.

Okay. We we our conversations with the service authority are they gave us a level of water that they considered they could they could provide to us per building and that is pretty consistent with what you see of a of an office building. Um and that's what we're committing to taking as needed. Um one building at a time and we're also committing to putting in additional infrastructure if additional water is needed and we request it at our cost. So, can you tell me how much water they Yeah, typically like five depending on the size of the building, they they they vary. 5 to 10,000 gallons per day. Sorry. Sorry. And none of that is used for anything other than flushing toilets. That seems like a lot of water in, you know, washing hoses, hose bibs, and such things. Yes, ma'am. All right. She's yield to the floor. Mr. Fox, you got the floor. Yeah. A couple just picking up on that. So just just to be clear, are you essentially saying that uh you won't be using any water for the cooling application at the project? Yeah, we we won't be using county water for any of the cooling. Okay. For cooling specific any water. Any water. Not just county water. Any water. Are you going to use a well? Are you going to Oh, no. No. We're not We're not We're not We're not We're not drilling any jump on. Is it correct? No. I mean, if if Oh, I mean I if we were to maybe one day truck in some water to do something or to fill it up initially if that's required, but we are not intending to use county water for anything related to cooling. And maybe staff can confirm this, but I believe I heard that there is Virginia law now that you can't use wells for data center cooling water. Correct. Is that is that accurate? We are not intending to drill wells for I heard somewhere that it's actually prohibited now. It's I believe it's in your mistake. in the zoning ordinance your zoning ordinance. Okay. So if okay so that clears up the well issue and the service

authority issue. So essentially we come back to just clarification that for the cooling application no water is going to be used. Is that accurate? Correct. We are utilizing air cooling. Okay. Now I just like to turn then if I could to the issue of the uh standby power generation. Okay. Yes. because uh uh last time we talked about this, I think it was two three meetings ago or something like that, you had indicated that your assumption was diesel fired uh engines there totaling up approximately over a,000 megawatts of standby capacity. Is that still your base case uh assumption for this at the at the full load at full buildout? That's where that's where we could potentially get to if we Okay. And do you have any uh particulate matter emission study on what that full load runtime would look like? I can bring up my my team to talk about that and because I think it would be helpful to not only see that but also any prevailing wind data you have because obviously that emission is going to go somewhere and if the prevailing wind is played then I think the people there would probably need to know that. Yes. And and one of the things that differentiates this project is is the fact of how we the space that we have and the open space that we're providing in part is to allow for proper separation between the buildings for our to allow for for this type of I mean they do these studies based on concentric amounts of particulate over you know whatever however many thousand yards or whatever it gets to. Right. Correct. Indeed. you have something along those lines that we have not we have we have not commissioned a study at this point to do that but we are we are committed to following all DEEQ DEEQ regulates that very specifically and and if you wouldn't mind I'd love to bring up a gentleman on my team to to address that a little well that would be great but I I think in addition to whatever

they they may present I mean if if whatever you could actually submit for the record on that would be very helpful okay okay I'm I'm speaking particularly about particulate matter emissions from all those gen sets at some given uh at different run times you know 1 hour 5 hours 10 whatever it may be on concentric spacing right we could provide that right along with the prevailing wind because it's got to go somewhere okay um I'll be happy to listen to your colleague there if he wants to say anything about that I mean, there's no chimneys on these things. Uh, good evening. Uh, my name is Bill Jund. I'm a civil engineer with Gordon, uh, working on this project. Um, obviously, we don't have any sight specific studies, but I don't know if you Is that obvious? I I didn't know that was obvious. Um, I don't know if you had a chance to review the Jark study that came out earlier this year. Actually, came out at the end of last year. Uh, that was a a nonpartisan uh commission that was put together to evaluate data centers in the state of Virginia. They did a full evaluation of all existing data centers across the entire state and they they found that over the the last several years data centers are using only 7% of their air quality permits for the diesel generators. Basically that's turning them on for 20 to 30 minutes per month just for testing. They found that on average uh generators ran for one to two hours outside of testing during an entire year uh for for base load operations. Is it correct that they're allowed up to 500 hours per year? They are allowed to run at whatever their permit allows them to to if the power goes out a year, which is about 3 weeks. Uh, please continue. Um, so I think that I'm

trying to see if there's anything else we have on that. Um, I think that it's just important to note that the DEEQ has a lot of regulations on not only the air quality permits, but the type of generators that can be used on a site. Um, and that the technology continues to evolve, whether it's tier 2, tier four generators, whatever it is. Uh, and that whatever is required at the time of the air quality permit is what the operator has to use. I understand the permitting and I thank you for that. I think it's just in terms of reference, uh, the largest diesel standby setup that I'm aware of, I think, is in Lowden County and it's about 250 megawws. So, we're talking about something potentially four times that size. The largest in the United States that I'm aware of is about 570 megawws in Texas. Uh, so we'd be, you know, we're talking about the largest diesel fired engine setup in the United States right here on Route 301. Uh, which is okay. I mean, I'm not I'm not saying that's a deal killer for me, but I think it's important to have information at hand to make educated decisions. So that particular matter emission study of what it would be like to run at a thousand megawws for 1 hour, 10 hour, whatever it is, uh, and your concentric air quality given the the prevailing winds that we have in the area. And that'd be really helpful to for the for us and for the board of supervisors and for staff to to have. That's all I'll say on this. Other than that, I'll just as a general remark, I I do like the way you've developed the project. It checks a lot of boxes. I would commend you on uh on that in in in general terms. Thank you, Mr. Fox. You the floor. Have you yield the floor? Sir, are you you're done. Thank you. So, my question to that to follow up with that is um how

often would that be used? Yeah, they're typically as as Bill mentioned run for 5 to 20 minutes per month and they phase them in. They stagger them in. they don't do them all at one time which is required by DEEQ very specific standards that we can provide to the commission um that DEEQ reg uses to regulate these things and that's also why we've kind of if we looked at the development plan you could see that we have you know thousand feet of separation between several of the buildings so when you think about Lowden County because you're thinking about one building here one building if you look at the whole data center alley that's um which far and exceeds this project and uh there's much much more uh gener backup generation in that location. It's we're just doing this in a smart collective format as opposed to sprawling data centers that that was done in other jurisdictions. Here you guys have done a have been smart in in in identifying a few key locations where we can cluster these things in a in a smart efficient manner. All right. Thank you. All right. Anyone else seek inflation? Yes, sir. You got a floor. Just a follow up on the water. Um maybe Matt knows the answer. Um there the service authority is not on this property. Is that correct? There's no public water there. We are connected. I I don't know who would know. Do we are connected? Uh there is a there's a line that is built in the ground from the water tower back um behind the project that connects to the to the public system. It's just not turned on right now. Back to clay now. Yes. So it's not turned on and is is is that sewer as well there? There's so the water that is my I'm not speaking on behalf of the service authority separate entity from the county but it is my understanding that yes the the information that was provided about connecting the clay is

accurate. Um and then the other question was is there sewer on the property right now? No there's not. Um I believe sewer um I want to say it's up near the where the new fire station is being built. I believe that's the terminus of the of the public sewer lines. So it is um how will that get there? You'll have to run that and that will be at your cost, not the county. Okay. That sounds like a good deal to me. That doesn't surprise me. I yield back. Thank you. Are there any others? Mr. nicely. You have the floor. Yeah. If I could just go back to one, could you please pull up your site map again with the depiction of where your buildings are? Somebody sir, go back to their presentation. A question will be much easier with the visual here. Keep going back to the site map, please. My question is related to your storm water management plan. If you please go back, keep going back. Yeah, right there. Either one of those was fine. Right there is perfect. Yeah. I'm I'm curious that you have a storm water pond next to all of the buildings but one but but one and you have two associated with the building on on the left hand side. Why is there not a storm water management plan? I can't see the building number, but it's pretty to me. The building that doesn't have a blue blob next to it. Yes, sir.

Where's that storm water management? Sure, I'm happy to address this one as well. Um, so the the ponds you see there are conceptual locations. Um, in this instance, we feel that that building may require an underground detention facility instead of an above ground pond just because of space constraints. We didn't want to push too close to the Machota Creek. Um, it's our goal to be have an additional setback beyond the RPA that's already established there. We wanted that vegetative buffer to provide like a second row of protection uh of runoff into the creek. Um, and we just feel like maybe there wasn't enough room for a pond there, but that'll be determined during final engineering as to whether a pond is feasible there. Um, but we are trying to maximize the use of wet ponds because they are your best practice. Okay. Thank you. So, you you believe that one may end up going underground under the parking or under the building itself? Uh, it would be under the under the parking under the drive aisle um adjacent to the building. All right. Um, my second question is really not associated with with your permit so much, but as I've been doing research about data centers, there seems to be a growing concern about e-waste. Can you talk to us that any of you figured out a plan? Uh you look at the obsolescence of the servers and how many thousand server ports you're going to have in this data center and with a 2 to threeyear obsolescence, how many how many tons of of uh costic boards are we going to be dumping into the local landfill from the data center? Finally get a chance to talk. Thank you. Um there is an entire cottage industry uh involved in recycling e-waste. Um and you are correct. Um the typical turnover time or what we call refresh of the data center equipment uh which is the silicone chips, the servers, in some cases the racks every 3 to 5 years. Um that material that equipment is taken

out, recycled uh and in many cases refurbished and resold. So in terms of if the question is will the equipment come out once it needs to be refreshed and go to the landfill I would say that the chances of that happening are very limited because even though that may not be the most upto-date chip and compute that goes in uh it is still incredibly valuable uh and there are entire companies that come in get that get that equipment take it out refurbish refresh and then resell it to uh another data center user. Thank you very much. My my last comment here, has the county seen the the VOTE traffic assessment? I'm also I'm still very concerned that that we that we believe a similar size data center is going to require a traffic light, but this one doesn't. Yeah. Yes, I I can take that one. Um Carl Holtrren with Grove Slade were the traffic engineer on the project and uh VOTE had the same question. When we did the traffic study, they required us to look at traffic signal warrants at both proposed driveways, and we ran that analysis and found that the the projected volumes just are not they're not there. Not even close to meeting warrants. Um, route 301's obviously a busy road, but we're projecting that most of the outbound traffic is going to turn right out of the site to go south, and you really need the the left turn traffic to warrant the signals. So, in this case, it's it's really not close. We did look at that. It's in the traffic study in BTO agreed. So, what makes you believe that the traffic is going to be predominantly going south. What is it about southbound? Just looking at where we expect the employees to to live, just looking at the, you know, zooming out a little bit and seeing the population centers. We we talked about that with the county and VOTE. That's something we talk about before we even start the study is what percent of the trips go this way, that way, north,southeast,

west. Okay. Um, just so geographically, your second entry site down there, uh, this the the second one is off to the right of that. That's your primary one there at Washington Mill, right? The second entrance. Uh, yep. To the Am I turned around? Yeah. Which one is the the Washington Mill is there on the left hand side of this diagram? Right. Right there. That's correct. Right. Yeah. This is Washington. And where is your second entrance? It's right here at the northern end of the property. There's a there's a medium break here on 301. We'd be connecting to that. That's the right. Uh I don't believe so because the water tower is right there opposite Washington. This is Washington Mill, right? Disagree. The water towers Washington. Right. So, this this exhibit shows what we're calling the west the west campus driveway. Yeah. See the the north arrows here. So, we're at the southern southern western property line. This will be the primary access point. This is Washington Mill Road right here. Existing medium break. So, we're t right. Right. And your second one is to the north of that. That's correct. At the next crossover. Yeah, there there might be a crossover in between. I can't remember, but we are lining up this driveway with an existing crossover. All right. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Nicely. You Thank you so much. Uh I think Mr. Nicely has touched every aspect of your team. Was very nice about it though. Thank you.

Um I if there are no other burning comments or questions, I am going to close the commissioners um u comment session at this time. So um Mr. Apple, is there any thing that you want to say uh before we decide on any action at this at this time? No, I would I would just like to thank the commission for for your thoughtful questions and comments and especially the community. Um, everyone that's come out to our hearings, taken time out of their day to come and and talk to us. Um, we really appreciate it and you've made our project a better project and it's gotten us to where we are today and we're we're grateful for that. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. Um, so we need an action, I think. Can we take an action collector if Mr. Chair, if you could if you could close that last that third public speaking. Well, I I did I not did I not? You didn't say the exact All right. Uh so did I not? Goodness gracious. All right. uh the public hearing session uh for uh the application Z-2024-0025 um is now closed. Um so under advisory or with question can we take do can we take an action? Yes, you're now you are now on your third public hearing for this particular project that was related to the three special exceptions

uh that were listed. Um you have deferred action on the other two. Um you may take them up. I believe you could probably take them up in any order that you would like. Um, I think it would be cleanest if you would to address the special exceptions, but I believe you need to take up the zoning first suggestions commission. I'd say what I correct. Yeah. Yes. Well, uh, sure. I was wondering if we were waiting or would want to wait for some information that was addressed tonight before taking any action. Yeah, I would prefer to defer this to next month. Well, um, Sean, you're you're you're absolutely welcome to make the motion. If it's seconded, we'll take the vote. If not, then someone will defer it. But well, I would uh just want to make sure that um Mr. Fox had some questions about the particulate matter. Mr. Nicely had some questions about water usage. Um so it would be my recommendation to get the answers to those questions uh before we take a vote on this. I would second that motion. So, are you making a motion? I'm sorry. Can you repeat that motion? I make a motion that we defer a decision on this until after some of the questions that we've asked tonight are clarified uh pertaining to the air

quality particulate matter that Mr. Fox was addressing and the water issues that Mr. Nicely was addressing. Second that motion. Motion's been made and seconded. Um, M. Leuke, if you could do a roll call. Motion to defer action on all items till the next meeting. Should we clarify for them what we actually want? She she wants to defer all all items. All items. They're all a group. Yeah, Mr. Chair. Point of order. We would have you would have to do each of those three separately. You'd have to do each of those three separately. I don't make the rules. Sorry. Uh you have to do each of those three separately. And your bylaws require that you specify a date and time. If you're deferring and not taking action after a public hearing, the bylaws contemplate you taking action. If you don't take action, then you have to specify the time, place, and date that you will take action on it. And it'll need to be for each of those three public units. So, should we have somebody just said discussion after somebody makes a motion or No, you're having discussion before before the motion. Um, but that's what we that's what we just in my opinion, we just had. I'm going to start by withdrawing my motion because it was not the appropriate motion. All right. So, um, Sean, you you have the floor, but that's okay. All right. I'd like to make a motion, and if it doesn't carry, then we can consider a different motion. But my motion would be that we approve resolution PC 1025

and resolution PC 1125 and PC 1225 as presented. You will have to do those separately. Okay. So let's let's start with the first one and we'll see if you get a second. But we wouldn't I don't think we'd want to approve one without the other. No, he's you have to that's I would start with start with the zoning and see if you get a second. We'll go. Well, I have a question though. If if you propose those and we say no, we don't get to come back and talk about it. Well, then you can make a motion to defer. I do. We once it's been voted yes or no, do we get to then defer? No. No. It's voted down. It's voted down. Yeah. So, I'll I'll ask I'll ask the applicant um if they're ready for us to vote on this tonight. Of course, he is. You Yes, you do have the option to defer. Should you Can I consult with my with my team here? Uh yes. Sorry, I was not expecting this scenario. I'm sorry. So, Mr. Chair, there may be some confusion uh in in a comment that you had made that that discussion would happen before the motion. I I think you were referring to the discussion about each particular item that you all would have collectively as a group. Pursuant to Robert's rules, if you make a motion and that motion is then seconded, you then open it up to the commission and say, does anyone have any discussion as to that motion? And you certainly can at that point in time. Yeah. So the

question could be is there any unrest right at that po at that time. Can I can I step in? Can I step in? Sure. Because I I I want you know we have we have we have said that we want to be transparent, collaborative with this community. We want to address your concerns and we've been working on this project for quite some time and we are certainly willing to wait one more month or as needed to address those concerns and I don't want put undue pressure on this board. I want I would my my hope or our hope is that we could get everyone on board with this project before we go to the board of supervisors. Well, so if I could get you to state that you would like to defer our I I I will officially request to defer this application to address your concerns and look forward to doing so. Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. So, I'll make a motion that we defer all three items. We don't have to. Okay. One at a time. You you will you will have you will have to Right. Hey, sir. That Mr. nicely that that does not matter per your bylaws. It does it well if it was done that way. It was done incorrectly. It needs to be because you had a public hearing on it. The bylaws state you have to take a vote or you have to vote to defer each one. He doesn't the applicant doesn't get to decide at that point. I'll make a motion that we defer the vote on PC 10-25 to the next scheduled meeting. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Miss Luke, if we can get a roll call. Yep. Hang on a second, please. Until the next meeting. Okay. Who was the second? Brett. Brett. Okay. I ran out of vote sheets so I had to

type it in. Do you have a meeting? The next meeting is July 8th. Yep. And Mr. Palot, you would be you you would be making a motion to defer that to July 8th. Correct. That is correct. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Kendrick, I Mr. Paliv. Hi Mr. Dakorta. Hi Mr. Matet. Hi Miss Flattley. Hi Mr. Fox. Hi Mr. Nicely. Hi. And Mr. Williams. I. Okay. Motion carries. Right. We got to do this two more times. Yes, sir. I can get a motion. I'll make a motion that we defer PC 1125 to the July 8th meeting. Motion's been made and seconded. Gotcha. I heard you. Gotcha then. Okay. So, Sean made a motion to defer action to July meeting. Seconded by Brett. Okay. Uh, Mr. Kendrick. Hi, Mr. Palota. Hi, Mr. Mat. Hi, Mr. Dortto. Hi, Miss Flattley. Hi, Mr. Fox. Hi, Mr. Nicely. Hi. And Chair Williams. I. Okay. Motion carries. I make a motion that we defer PC 1225 to July 8th. Motion been made and seconded. Okay. This was for the special exceptions. Okay. Mr. Dorta. Um I Mr. Fox,

Mr. Palota. Hi, Mr. Kendrick. Hi, Mr. Matet. Hi, Miss Flattley. Hi, Mr. Nicely. Hi, and Cheer Williams. I Okay. So, all public hearings have been uh heard and have a action has been taken on them. So that moves us on to our next item on the agenda which is new business uh which is resolution PC-13-25 Dogren Innovation Hub HCOD exception request. Mr. Chair, since that's related uh to the other three, it's related to the project. Right. I don't think you you you don't need a formal motion and and a second and a roll call vote on that. I think since I I believe the chair sets the agenda or staff sets the agenda that can just be carried over as new business to the July 8 meeting. Very well. Thank you. Okay. All right. Moving right along. We're going to go to the staff's report for June 2025 director's report. Um, which is attached. Thank you, sir. Uh, the director's reports attached in your packet. And one exciting item of note, we finally hired an environmental programs manager. He started yesterday, so I will eventually, his name's Michael Randall. Um, he's getting his feet wet. So, hit the ground running, right? Oh, yeah. I hope to bring him. He's working

on getting registered to take his his certifications and his classes. So, I'll bring him to a future meeting to meet y'all. All right. Thank you. All right. Uh let's see. No Buffalo Wild Wings. See any committee reports? Anything to report on on our committees? Sure. Yeah. Or Zotac. I haven't heard. I thought that the supervisors might send it to us, but I don't know. Okay. I know where we're starting. That's okay. Um I can speak to that a little bit. Sure. Yes, ma'am. Um we are having another follow-up discussion at the board meeting next Tuesday about which of the recommendations from Zotek they want to move forward. Very well. Thank you. Um commission reports. Um nothing to report but I would like to say um thank each and every one of you for your your diligence on this process. Um it is very it's very vital and very important that these processes are done correctly and done in order. Uh so we we thank our attorney for his guidance along the way. Uh and uh I thank all each and every one of you for your patience. All right. Next is other or future business. There's nothing. And here comes our favorite part of the meeting which is the adjournment. So can I have a motion? I make a motion we adjourn until Tuesday, July 8th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. Motion's been made. We'll just all in favor with that. You know what I'm saying? Meeting adjourns.