Action Needed to Stop Data Centers on Goochland/Henrico Border

There’s a lot going on with data centers in Eastern Goochland bordering Henrico that we should all be paying attention to.

Technology Overlay District (TOD) and Citizen Lawsuit

In November 2025, Goochland County approved the Technology Overlay District (TOD) to welcome light industrial development and concentrate all development of that type on the eastern edge of the otherwise rural county. The proposal sparked intense community pushback from residents, but was ultimately approved. Since that time, a group of residents has filed a lawsuit against Goochland alleging

• Defective Notice & Material Changes: Officials allegedly adopted measures that differed from published notices and made last-minute changes the night of the vote.
• Failure to Identify Impacted Properties: claims the county failed to lawfully and clearly identify affected properties or explain the TOD and Technology Zone (TZ) intended to incentivize data centers in eastern Goochland’s West Creek area.

The county approved $250K in funds to fight the citizens’ lawsuit. In May of 2026, a hearing was held where Circuit Court Judge Timothy Sanner rejected the county’s attempt to submit its entire 8,500-page adoption record, ordering a pared-down filing. This significantly reduces legal fees for the citizens.

A hearing is scheduled for October 20, 2026 to address a motion from the County to dismiss and a trial date remains unscheduled.

Tuckahoe Technology Park

In June, data center developer Tract (operating via affiliate VALCO Goochland, LLC) filed a preliminary application for a 12 building campus spanning roughly 900 acres located east of Hockett Road, near the intersection of Patterson Avenue (Route 6) and Route 288, bordering the Mosaic at West Creek residential neighborhood. They followed up with a formal conditional use permit (CUP) application in August. Goochland released an updated overview in September 2026 detailing several structural and situational adjustments:

• Fewer Development Segments: According to Goochland County’s updated tracking, the project structure shifted from its initial draft to a campus-style plan featuring 7 development areas spanning 871 acres.
• Height & Setback Controls: Project guidelines restrict building heights to 60 feet generally, allowing up to 80 feet in a singular zone provided those buildings maintain a strict 500-foot buffer from nearby agricultural or residential lines.
• Resource usage: Proposed usage includes up to 900 MW to 1,200+ MW of power demand and an estimated 600,000 gallons of water per day (scaling up to 2 million gallons daily on hot days) for cooling.
• Timeline: Construction could take up to seven years if fully approved.

Hundreds of local residents have staged protests, attended packed public meetings wearing red shirts, and voiced strong opposition, citing concerns over disruptive industrial noise, massive water consumption, heavy stress on local power grids, and the close proximity of massive multi-story buildings to 55+ and existing residential subdivisions. As a result of public demands and Governor Spanberger’s Executive order 22, non-redacted Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s) between Tract and Goochland County have been published on their website along with the updated application materials.

In addition, Goochland is amending local codes to enforce state law Code §15.2-2209.5 that mandates that any high-energy facility drawing over 100 megawatts must undergo mandatory noise impact studies regarding adjacent homes and schools. Read their letter to the community. The public hearing on ordinance updates scheduled for October 11, has been postponed to a date TBD.

The next steps for the Tuckahoe Technology Park application involve county staff reviews, public hearings, and evaluations by the planning commission and board of supervisors following the formal conditional use permit (CUP) submission. No public hearing meetings have been scheduled at this time. The earliest this could happen is the October 15th Planning Commission Meeting, and two full weeks notice to the public is required. Historically, these types of meetings always seem to take place around the holidays to dampen public willingness/ability to participate.

Pruitt Property: a surprise hyperscale data center development in the works for the Goochland TOD

Meanwhile…Goochland officials and residents were caught off guard by another major data center project that came to light during the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) proceedings regarding power grid expansion for the area.

• An entity – likely the landowner (Pruitt) submitted requests to Dominion Energy to secure power for a 1,200 MW data center development.
• The request involves infrastructure spanning both sides of Route 288 and Hockett Road in the West Creek/Tuckahoe Creek Technology Park area, requiring up to three new substations.
• The request was officially revealed during SCC hearings for a $98 million, 7-mile transmission line project. While that specific line was originally proposed to feed the new Eli Lilly and Co. campus, Dominion’s legal counsel revealed during the application process that they had already received executed ELOAs (Engineering Letter of Authorization) and non-refundable fees ($1M) for multiple data center developments along that exact same loop.

Because utilities like Dominion Energy must plan infrastructure years in advance to support these massive grid connections, these types of ‘high-voltage’ requests are frequently revealed at the state level through the SCC before local zoning boards even receive a formal architectural or county land-use application.

Residents and groups like Goochland Residents Alliance and RIGHT Responsible Industry on Goochland & Henrico sides of Tuckahoe Creek now have to hope and wait on the public release of the redacted ELOA documents to uncover who the underlying tech developer or data center operator behind the Pruitt request actually is. Because the The Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA) does not apply to any records held by the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC), they cannot simply be requested with a FOIA request like records from a public institution.

Unlike the Tuckahoe Technology Park location, this land is zoned under the TOD for ‘by-right’ development, meaning it can happen without public hearings as long as they meet all the zoning criteria.

What does Henrico have to say?

All of this industrial development is right next to the county line, including multiple residential neighborhoods, elementary schools and Tuckahoe Creek Park (which Henrico Co has committed $10M to expand with construction planned to start in 2027).

Three Chopt Supervisor Misty Roundtree attended and spoke at several of the TOD public information sessions and voiced her concern that Goochland wasn’t listening to their residents and that she worried about impacts to Henrico that weren’t even being considered. She recently went on record stating that she will not support an expansion of the water contract with Goochland to supply water for the data center industry.

Delegate May Nivar (HD57) and VA Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg (SD 16) have been engaged in community conversations about the impacts and urged protections for residents while acknowledging that Henrico has little influence and no control in Goochland County.

Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas noted that Goochland relies on a finite allocation of water purchased from Henrico. He cautioned that Goochland could find itself in a “very difficult position” if it focuses entirely on commercial data center demands rather than residential needs.

What can we do?

How can the average citizen push back against these dangerous developments? There are actually quite a few ways to make your voice heard on these issues.

• Follow and engage with local groups who are organizing to fight. They share information and coordinate attendance at meetings. Goochland Residents Alliance and RIGHT Responsible Industry on Goochland & Henrico sides of Tuckahoe Creek are specific to Goochland/Henrico and N4C and Stop Hanover Data Centers are helping too. If you know of other groups we should highlight, please let us know!
• Send written feedback to the Goochland Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors. Keep it civil and specific – how will these developments be bad for you and your neighbors?
• Attend the meetings in person. Your presence goes much further than an email in showing the local government that you care enough to take the time to show up, particularly if the meetings are at inconvenient times. At this time, no meetings are scheduled, so stay tuned. You can also check at the bottom of this page for public events related to Tuckahoe Technology Park. You don’t have to speak – most people don’t. That said, if you have a strong personal impact story, we encourage you to sign up and tell it. Not sure how to prepare? Email us and we’ll help.
• Write your Senator and Delegate and tell them we need legislation that protects residents from industrial development and that requires active consideration of impacts across county lines. Find your legislator here.
• Visit Tuckahoe Creek Park and take a look at the beautiful wetlands and boardwalks that are right next to the planned development. Write your Henrico Supervisor and County Manager John Vithoulkis and ask them to stand up for impacted residents and protect Tuckahoe Creek Park and the significant investment Henrico has made in improving it.
• Contact the SCC. If the proposed merger between NextEra and Dominion Power goes through, we will likely see increased data center development in Goochland including gas turbines generating power. Contact the SCC to speak out against the merger by November 9 or plan to attend one of the public meetings on the topic. Find the details on how to do that on the SCC website dedicated to the merger.