Section 15.2-2209.5 took effect July 1. It forces developers to study noise and utilities to disclose substations. It sets no limits on either.

Roanoke, VA

Author: Roanoke Rambler Staff

Published: 12:49 PM EST September 16, 2026

Edited: 1:00 PM EST September 16, 2026

Virginia has a new law governing where the largest data centers can go and what their developers must disclose before a local board votes. It took effect July 1, 2026. Del. Sam Rasoul of Roanoke is one of its ten patrons.

It is also narrower than the debate around it suggests. The law requires studies. It does not set a noise limit, a water cap or a setback. Understanding that distinction is the difference between holding a project accountable and misreading what local officials are actually empowered to do, a distinction that matters now, three weeks after a regional industrial board voted behind closed doors to buy land near the I-81/I-581 interchange.

Here is the breakdown:

Who Wrote it

Two identical companion bills moved through the 2026 session and were signed into law:

Both patrons represent Prince William County, the center of Northern Virginia's data center buildout, where fights over noise, substations and water produced the legislation (Virginia LIS, HB 153; SB 94).

HB 153 carried nine additional patrons, all Democrats. The bill as introduced lists them in this order: Thomas, Guzman, Helmer, McAuliff, Reid, Carr, Keys-Gamarra, Rasoul, Reaser and Singh (bill text, Virginia LIS).

That eighth name is Roanoke's. Rasoul, who represents the 38th District, signed onto a data center siting bill months before Wood Haven became a local controversy. HB 153 also incorporated a separate measure by Del. McAuliff, HB 511, and SB 94 incorporated SB 130 (Virginia LIS).

This was the third attempt. In 2025 the General Assembly passed a broader version — HB 1601 and SB 1449, also patroned by Thomas. Gov. Glenn Youngkin declined to sign it, returned it with amendments, and vetoed it on May 2, 2025, citing concerns about reduced local autonomy. Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed the 2026 version, and her office lists it among the new laws taking effect July 1 (Office of the Governor).

More than 60 data center bills were introduced in 2026. About 15 passed, many of them identical House and Senate pairs (2026 General Assembly update)

Who Voted for it, and Who Didn't

The Governor's office called the law bipartisan. The House numbers support that. The Senate numbers show a genuine fight.

HB 153

Source: Virginia LIS. The two House floor actions in March are also logged in the chamber's own vote tracker (Virginia House of Delegates).

SB 94

Source: Virginia LIS.

The tell is that 21-18-1 vote on Feb. 12. SB 94 cleared the Senate by three votes with one member abstaining. A Roem floor amendment had passed 24-16 the day before. In committee the margins were similar: Senate Local Government reported the bill 8-5-1, Senate Finance and Appropriations 10-5. On the House side, Counties, Cities and Towns reported HB 153's substitute 15-6.

By March, both conference reports cleared the Senate 29-10. Something shifted between February and March, and the conference substitute is where to look for it.

One reporting gap, stated plainly: the individual roll calls are published as PDFs through the House vote tracker linked above, but this story has not yet pulled the names. How Sen. David Suetterlein, Del. Terry Austin and Del. Chris Head voted is not established here and should not be assumed from party. Rasoul's support is documented by his patronage of the bill, not by a roll call reviewed for this story.

What it Requires

The operative language is now § 15.2-2209.5 of the Code of Virginia, enacted as 2026 Chapters 567 and 568 (Virginia Law). Effective date: July 1, 2026.

The Trigger: 100 megawatts

A "high energy use facility," or HEUF, is one the applicant "reasonably anticipates at the time of filing" will require 100 megawatts or more of electrical power from a retail electric utility.

Note what that definition never says: "data center." Any facility above the threshold qualifies. And the trigger is the applicant's own projection at filing.

Mandatory: A Sound Study

Before approving a rezoning, special exception or special use permit for a new HEUF, a locality shall require the applicant to submit a site assessment examining the facility's sound profile on residential units and schools within 500 feet of the property boundary.

Mandatory: Utility Disclosure

The locality shall also require the electric utility serving the facility to submit a form describing any new or existing substations that will serve it and the anticipated transmission voltage required.

This is the provision with the most reporting value. It puts on the public record what has generally been treated as confidential commercial information: the grid infrastructure a project needs.

Optional: Everything else

At local discretion, the assessment may also examine effects on ground and surface water resources, agricultural resources, parks, registered historic sites, and forestland on the site or immediately contiguous land.

Water is optional. In this region, water is the binding constraint.

How the Findings May be Used

The assessments are to be used to evaluate consistency with the locality's comprehensive plan, compliance with its noise ordinances, compliance with zoning provisions, and compliance with other applicable law.

The Four Limits

1. It is a disclosure statute, not a veto. It compels studies and defines how they may be weighed. It sets no decibel ceiling, no water cap, no minimum setback. Subsection G states that nothing in it "shall be construed to prohibit, limit, or otherwise supersede existing local zoning authority."

2. Noise is the only mandatory subject, and only within 500 feet. A home 600 feet from the property line falls outside the required study.

3. Expansions are exempt. The section does not apply to a site with existing legislative or administrative approval where the applicant seeks an expansion or modification and that expansion "does not exceed an additional 100 megawatts or more of electrical power." An approved campus can grow substantially without triggering a new assessment.

4. The State Corporation Commission keeps everything. Subsection E is emphatic: a local site assessment does not change, replace, impact or delegate any SCC authority. Ratepayer and transmission questions stay in Richmond.

There is also no rulemaking provision. No state agency is directed to write implementing regulations or to define what an adequate assessment looks like. That judgment falls to each locality.

Why this is the Wood Haven Story

A regional industrial board voted in closed session on Sept. 11 to enter a purchase agreement at Wood Haven Technology Park near the I-81/I-581 interchange, prompting residents to ask whether the land would become a data center. Days later, the board would not confirm details. No project has been announced, though the Rambler is following developments.

The new law supplies four questions with legal force behind them:

Will it require 100 megawatts or more? Below that line, none of this applies.

Does it need a rezoning, special exception or special use permit? If the parcel is already zoned for the use, there may be no triggering approval at all. That is the most consequential gap in the Wood Haven context, and it is answerable now from existing zoning maps.

Will the locality exercise the optional water and agricultural review? Officials can be asked to commit to that, before an applicant with a name and a timeline is at the table.

What has the utility filed about substations and transmission voltage? That form becomes a public record once submitted.

The Local Codes are Being Rewritten in Real Time

Roanoke City. A planning commission staff report proposes adding both "data center" and "data processing facility" as new zoning uses. A data center — described as an intensive use typically covering multiple acres — would be allowed in the Industrial Planned Unit Development district by special exception, subject to supplemental regulations covering screening, setbacks, building design, noise and an infrastructure impact study. Because a PUD requires Planning Commission and City Council hearings and a special exception requires a further Board of Zoning Appeals hearing, that path carries at least two rounds of public review (City of Roanoke staff report).

Roanoke County. The county's zoning definition of "utility services, major" already covers "electrical switching facilities and stations or substations," and expressly excludes utility transmission lines otherwise reviewed and approved by the SCC (Roanoke County planning packet). That definition, not a data center category, is the current hook for the substations a large campus would need. The packet reviewed for this story does not address data centers as a use.

Franklin County. Officials confirmed the county "routinely receives inquiries, and project leads" including data centers, while stating no project has been announced. The current draft zoning ordinance would require data centers to sit at least 200 feet from non-commercial zoning districts and accessory structures at least 75 feet from residential property according to reports, though the rewrite is not final.

The Benchmark Next Door

Botetourt County closed a $14 million sale of 312 acres in Greenfield Industrial Park to Google on June 20. The proposal is three data center buildings of roughly 300,000 square feet each, three substations, an office building, roads and stormwater facilities, taking most of the remaining land in the 750-acre park, whose zoning was changed to allow data centers in November 2024.

Water use is projected at 2 million gallons per day at the outset, rising to as much as 8 million with expansion, drawn initially from Carvins Cove. The water authority's executive director said Google would become its largest customer. Carvins Cove currently produces about 10 to 12 million gallons a day against a 24-million-gallon treatment capacity, with 56 million gallons available from all authority sources combined.

Under the new law, a project of that scale filed today in a locality requiring a rezoning would produce a sound study, a substation disclosure — and, only if the locality chose to ask, a water study.

The rest of the 2026 package

The siting law did not travel alone.

An energy consumption tax on data centers, the first of its kind, was activated through the two-year budget the legislature finalized in late June. The compromise preserved the industry's existing sales tax exemption while adding the new levy.

HB 496 requires reporting and disclosure of water use associated with data center operations, amending § 62.1-44.38. HB 323 directs the Department of Energy to study beneficial use of data center waste heat and convene a working group (Beveridge & Diamond).

The SCC, in August, ordered data centers to cover the cost of transmission infrastructure built exclusively for them (Office of the Governor).

For a Roanoke Valley reader, HB 496 may prove more consequential than the siting law. Noise carries 500 feet. Water comes out of Carvins Cove.

What to Watch

Whether the Roanoke Valley delegation owns this law. Rasoul's name is on HB 153. The Senate votes were close enough that individual positions matter, and those roll calls are public.

Whether local officials commit to the optional reviews before an applicant arrives. The water and agricultural assessments are discretionary. Asking Roanoke County and Roanoke City to state a policy in public — before there is a named company to negotiate with — is a question that can only be asked once.

Whether Wood Haven needs a rezoning at all. If it doesn't, the law that took effect July 1 never comes into play.

The Roanoke Rambler