New Kent Mulls Technology Overlay District Centered on Data Centers After Goochland

New Kent County staff presented a draft technology overlay district to the New Kent County Planning Commission Tuesday night, outlining a 1,800-acre zone concentrated in the rural eastern end of the county and described as accounting for roughly 1.3% of all New Kent land. County leaders framed the overlay as a regulatory framework aimed squarely at tech-centric development, particularly data centers, and said any final overlay would need approval from the New Kent County Board of Supervisors before taking effect.

Josh Airaghi, New Kent County Director of Community Development, led the presentation and told the Planning Commission that New Kent has not yet received an application or formal request for a data center project. Airaghi described the TOD proposal as a “proactive approach to set standards and expectations specific to New Kent and what New Kent wants to see.” He positioned the draft as preemptive zoning rather than a response to a pending proposal.

County records show the overlay effort grew from a Board of Supervisors action last April that authorized a contract with consultant Dewberry to perform a site study. The Dewberry work ranked available parcels by their “suitability for data center development,” using criteria that included proximity to utilities and the absence of resource protection areas for wildlife, according to staff descriptions of the study methodology.

Staff said the county internally reviewed the Dewberry rankings and examined other localities with data centers and tech overlay districts “over the past year,” then circulated the draft to reviewing agencies “last month” for initial feedback. County files include images identified as showing the proposed site for the potential overlay, but public materials released so far do not list parcel IDs, property owners, or a parcel-level map of the 1,800-acre footprint.

The New Kent move follows neighboring Goochland County’s recent technology overlay along Route 288, which staff and regional observers have described as controversial; New Kent officials indicated the draft is part of a regional pattern of localities establishing standards for data-center development. The Piedmont Environmental Council included the New Kent draft in its Data Center News digest alongside regional headlines such as a Richmond Times-Dispatch item about supervisors collecting nearly $300,000 in campaign donations largely from data-center interests and reporting that Dominion Energy’s data-center power requests are soaring.

With no formal application on file, the immediate steps are procedural: the Planning Commission review that occurred Tuesday night and an eventual vote by the New Kent County Board of Supervisors. County staff have not published a schedule for board consideration, and public records released to date stop short of identifying the specific parcels within the proposed overlay or publishing the full draft ordinance text.