The rules are being written right now
No data center in Martinsville & Henry County.
On July 29, more than 100 residents packed the Board of Supervisors room — and the Board pulled its data center rules and sent them back to the drawing board. The Planning Commission is rewriting them now, with no deadline. This is the window where it actually gets decided.
To be clear: no data center has been proposed in Henry County. That is exactly why this matters now. Rules written before an applicant arrives are rules written for residents — not negotiated against a project already on the table.
Status
Rules withdrawn, being redrafted
Planning Commission, no timeline announced.
Projects proposed
None, as of today
Confirmed by the County Administrator.
Next public meeting
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Opens 3:00 PM; public hearings 6:00 PM.
The numbers Henry County should see first
Every figure below is sourced, and every source is listed on our sources page — including the research that argues against us.
$14–$37
More on your power bill, every month
What a typical Dominion residential customer could pay by 2040 because of data center growth, in today's dollars. [source]
5M
Gallons of water per day
What a large data center can consume — comparable to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. [source]
10
Jobs needed for the full tax break
In a locality designated as distressed, the state threshold falls from 50 jobs to ten. [source]
$18B
Added statewide energy costs by 2040
JLARC's projection for generation and transmission under unconstrained growth. [source]
This is what "economic development" looks like.
A windowless box behind security fencing, a bank of cooling units running continuously, and a parking lot sized for a staff you could fit in a school bus. The building is the easy part to picture. The parts that reach past the fence — the water draw, the substation, the sound — are the ones that end up on the neighbors.
What's at stake here
Not abstractions — the four things a data center would change about daily life in this county.
Water
A large facility can draw up to 5 million gallons a day — as much as a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. Water was already named this county’s single biggest concern.
Power bills
Virginia’s own legislative watchdog projects a typical residential customer could pay $14 to $37 more per month by 2040 because of data center growth.
Noise
Measured at 40–59 decibels on residential property in Northern Virginia — loud enough to interfere with sleep, and it runs 24 hours a day, forever.
Jobs
Construction crews are large and temporary. Operations are small and permanent: a 250,000 square foot facility may support around 25 direct jobs.
July 29, 2026
Showing up already worked once.
More than 100 residents filled the Board of Supervisors meeting room. Speakers raised water, noise, health, and wildlife. Several said the draft rules did not go far enough. One told the Board plainly: "We're looking for strict codification."
The Board voted unanimously to strip data centers out of the zoning amendments.
See the full timeline"We're going back to the drawing board after listening to everything tonight."
That was one meeting. This is the next one.
The Planning Commission is drafting replacement rules with no announced deadline, which means there is no signal that will tell you when it's time to pay attention. The only reliable move is to be on record early — and to keep showing up.
We're not just against something.
"No" is easy to dismiss. So we wrote down exactly what strong rules would look like — closed-loop cooling with no access to public water, binding property-line noise limits, developers paying for their own grid upgrades, independent water testing, and a requirement to retrofit our existing industrial buildings rather than pave new land.
Read the rules we're asking for