Data center restrictions tracker · Virginia

Front Royal Town Council, Virginia: data center moratorium (2026)

Data snapshot 2026-08-15 · part of Pricing the Fear of Data Centers

Front Royal Town Council, in Warren County, Virginia, adopted a data-center moratorium on July 7, 2026. Its status in this snapshot is enacted.

The record reads: "Front Royal Town Council voted 6-0 for a 90-day moratorium on data center applications. The moratorium followed a June 22, 2026 unanimous Town Council denial of a text amendment that would have allowed data centers; the Planning Commission… (datacentertracker.org)."

Details

ActionClassStatusDateMW thresholdScopeSource
MoratoriumrestrictionenactedJuly 7, 2026not county-widedatacentertracker.org

Jurisdiction type: municipality. County: Warren County. Dataset: datacentertracker. Snapshot August 15, 2026; documented actions, not a census.

Virginia context

Virginia has 29 documented local actions across 27 jurisdictions in this snapshot. At the state level, the state has a tax action (enacted, June 30, 2026), the state has a ratepayer-protection law (enacted), Dominion Energy territory has a large-load tariff (enacted, July 31, 2026), and Dominion Energy (GS-5) territory has a large-load tariff (enacted, November 25, 2025).

A town that says no to a data center gives up local tax revenue, not jobs: one large campus pays $2M to $90M a year depending on the tax regime, against roughly 50 permanent jobs. The parent piece prices it and lists the conditions that beat a ban.

Sources

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