QUALIFIED DATA CENTER TASK FORCE RELEASES REPORT
Environmental advocates express concerns
The Prince George’s County Qualified Data Center Task Force released its report on November 24. The report includes information the workings of the Task Force. It lays out six guiding principles:
Promote Compatible and Sensitive Land Use
Protect the Environment
Maintain Community Character
Ensure a Transparent and Inclusive Process
Maximize Local Economic Benefits
Invest in Local Social Infrastructure
The Task Force report provides information about current zoning regulations in Prince George’s County and lessons learned from other jurisdictions, including Loudoun County and Fairfax County in Virginia, and Frederick County in Maryland. It also describes in detail the public input provided to the task force in four public meetings. Finally, the Task Force report enumerates 14 policy recommendations.
These Task Force's recommendations are not regulations. They are suggestions to county decision makers, based on community input and lessons learned from experience elsewhere, about things that they could do to regulate data center development in Prince George’s County. The County Council will need to consider the recommendations and develop legislation to implement any of these recommendations.
The Task Force report provides information about current zoning regulations in Prince George’s County and lessons learned from other jurisdictions, including Loudoun County and Fairfax County in Virginia, and Frederick County in Maryland. It also describes in detail the public input provided to the task force in four public meetings. Finally, the Task Force report enumerates 14 policy recommendations.
These Task Force's recommendations are not regulations. They are suggestions to county decision makers, based on community input and lessons learned from experience elsewhere, about things that they could do to regulate data center development in Prince George’s County. The County Council will need to develop legislation to implement the recommendations.
The recommendations include:
Tighten restrictions on data centers in non-industrial zones
Protect environmentally sensitive areas by restricting data-center development
Establish an overlay zone that incentivizes brownfield and other underperforming sites for data-center development
Require a sustainable operations plan with every special use exception or planned-development zoning map amendment (ZMA-PD)
Incentivize the construction of sustainable data centers that exceed established environmental standards
Advocate for implementing a high-energy use surcharge on data centers
Adopt flexible, green design standards for data centers
Discourage speculative data-center development by incentivizing projects to pursue planned developments
Increase setbacks and screening requirements for data centers near residential areas
Amend the noise ordinance to regulate data-center generator testing
Require all data centers to undertake the special use exception process
Amend Planned Development requirements in the zoning ordinance to require Detailed Site Plan review for all data centers
Establish a community advisory group and verify compliance mechanisms to recommend and monitor community benefits associated with data-center developments
Establish a hybrid framework for Community Benefits Agreements, combining ordinance and project-specific agreements
You can find more details about the recommendations and background information here.
Now that the Task Force has presented its report, the County Council will study the recommendations and take into account what they have learned as they draft new legislation.
The County Executive’s moratorium on data center development expires on December 31. The County Council's Resolution CR-98-2025, passed September 16, 2025, created a 180-day pause on data center applications. During this pause, the County Council is to work in collaboration with the Planning Board to enact comprehensive legislation and implementing regulations.
Some environmental advocates who have followed the work of the Qualified Data Center Task Force have expressed concerns that decision-makers need more information than the Task Force has provided and that more time is needed to develop appropriate rules and regulations. Taylor Frazier McCollum, Noah Waters, Staci Hartwell, and others have pointed out the importance of decreasing data-center impacts on neighborhoods nearby and protecting local rate-payers from the costs of new infrastructure needed for data centers as well as numerous other ways that the county can generate commercial tax revenue, from heritage tourism to other smaller scale high-tech facilities.
This is a complex issue that requires careful, comprehensive long-range planning. The County Council should take the time it needs to get it right to protect Prince George’s County from the adverse impacts that have been realized elsewhere. -
Janet Gingold
Executive Committee
Sierra Club Prince George's County Group
