More than 30 people gathered at Town Center in Virginia Beach on Tuesday, carrying signs and, in one case, leading a pet donkey named Darla, to demand that Virginia lawmakers impose a statewide moratorium on data center development. The rally marked the only Hampton Roads stop on a two-week statewide tour organized by groups pushing for a pause on new construction while state leaders craft public-health, environmental and economic protections.
The march was organized in partnership with several organizations, including the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, according to The Virginian-Pilot. Demonstrators argue that rapid data center growth, driven by surging data consumption tied to technological advances, has outpaced the ability of state and local governments to protect residents from the industry's side effects. Northern Virginia alone is home to roughly two-thirds of the world's data centers, per the same report, and hyperscale facilities can each require about 100 megawatts of power and consume up to 530 million gallons of water annually.
A Father's Worry for the Great Dismal Swamp
Among the marchers was Michael Jamieson, a Chesapeake resident who said he brought his concerns to Town Center because he wants his daughter to grow up with access to the same wild places he enjoys hiking today, including the Great Dismal Swamp. Jamieson said continued data center expansion could damage ecologically important areas before his daughter is old enough to explore them herself, and he told the station's report that he wanted her to see him act on his concerns rather than stay silent.
Linda Tindell, a Chesapeake resident and Republican who attended with her donkey, Darla, said data centers are a nonpartisan issue and that the pace and intensity of their environmental effects feel too aggressive and too rapid. Tindell told the outlet she wants her community protected from facilities that could threaten nearby ecosystems and farmland, a concern sharpened by the recent sale of the 4,000-acre former Frank T. Williams Farm in southern Chesapeake to Praetorian Fund, a private investment firm that disclosed no details about the purchase. Chesapeake residents are worried the site could become a future data center location.
Why Farmland Keeps Changing Hands
That worry is rooted in a broader economic squeeze on Virginia agriculture. The WVTF credited WHRO with previously reporting that Virginia lost nearly 10% of its farms between 2017 and 2022. Aging farmers face high input costs and financial pressures, and farmland sales are also occurring.
Catherine Setaro, Hampton Roads field manager with the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, said Virginia residents find the impacts of data center development unacceptable. Virginians are fed up, she said, with a system in which big tech acts without consequence while residents bear the cost, according to the Pilot's report.
Local Moratoriums Already Passed, But Advocates Want More
Data center growth has so far been limited in Hampton Roads, with Virginia Beach hosting mainly smaller facilities. But resistance has been building: the Chesapeake City Council blocked a proposal for a 350,000-square-foot data center last year after resident outcry, and both cities have since moved to slow the industry down. On August 18, the Virginia Beach City Council voted unanimously to enact a 12-month moratorium on permit applications for large and hyperscale data centers, while Chesapeake enacted an eight-month moratorium and restricted where new facilities can be placed, according to the CCAN Action Fund.
Governor Abigail Spanberger has also acted at the state level. In September, she signed Executive Order 22, establishing a statewide Data Center Accountability Framework that bars executive-branch agencies from entering or enforcing nondisclosure agreements that prevent public disclosure of material information about proposed data center developments, subject to limited exceptions; restricts state incentives for facilities demanding 25 megawatts or more; and accelerates data center noise rulemaking and rules for designating cooling-water scarcity areas, per Sheppard Mullin. The order also requires local approval for large projects instead of allowing them by right. Still, activists marching at Town Center say these measures fall short of the binding, statewide construction freeze they are demanding, since municipal moratoriums are generally set for fixed periods or dates while zoning updates proceed concurrently.
The Numbers Behind the Pushback
The scale of the state's data center footprint helps explain the urgency. A December 2024 study by Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found the state's 340 operational data centers consumed 5 gigawatts of electricity, a figure expected to double within 15 years, and warned that unconstrained load growth would eventually push grid expansion costs onto residential ratepayers, according to the Virginia Association of Counties. Separately, U.S. Energy Information Administration metrics published in May showed commercial electricity sales in Virginia grew by nearly 30 million megawatthours between 2019 and 2025, driven largely by data centers and marking faster commercial power demand growth than any state besides Texas.
Water is also a growing flashpoint. An August state-commissioned groundwater study warned that eastern Virginia's coastal plain aquifer faces declining availability amid population growth and industrial expansion, prompting regulators to designate the region a cooling-water scarcity zone requiring enhanced oversight, according to Insurance Journal.
Why Tech Firms Still Target the Coast
Despite the backlash, Virginia Beach remains an attractive target for developers because Corporate Landing Business Park hosts data center and carrier interconnection infrastructure for subsea cable systems including MAREA, BRUSA and Dunant; the cables land nearby at the State Military Reservation. The city approved an $800,000 economic development grant in May to expand Globalinx's landing station and colocation campus, according to WHRO.
State Senator Glen Sturtevant introduced a proposal in August calling for a formal statewide moratorium on data center construction, aiming to prevent rapid development from spreading out of Northern Virginia into Central Virginia and Hampton Roads. Meanwhile, local governments are running into definitional roadblocks of their own: during August planning reviews, Virginia Beach zoning administrator Hannah Sabo told the Planning Commission that drafting local regulatory safeguards has been hindered because there is no standardized industry definition of what constitutes a data center, according to a report by The Cooldown citing Virginia Business coverage.
Localities across the region continue researching potential regulations as they weigh zoning changes before their temporary pauses expire.
