Amazon’s felling of hundreds of trees on Warrenton’s property planned for a new data center is being doubly questioned.
A lawsuit filed by Citizens for Fauquier County and 10 city residents last week alleges that Amazon Web Services failed to provide the city with required tree protection information in its application for a special use permit to build on the property, which the lawsuit details as one of the reasons , why the permit approved by the city council should be invalidated.
Local residents are also questioning what they see as Warrenton officials’ approval of tree felling. At the March 14 city council meeting, residents Dave Winn and Dave Gibson, among others, argued that the city is not enforcing its own zoning ordinance, which requires approval of tree surveys and tree removal plans before development can begin.
Warrenton Assistant City Manager Tommy Cureton said during the meeting and in a later email that Amazon is yet to submit a site development plan; a landscape plan; a tree survey; a tree protection plan; an evaluation plan; an erosion and sediment control plan; or a land disruption plan.
Regarding tree felling, however, Cureton said that what Amazon did is not illegal because its contractor was not involved in “land disturbances.” In an email to the Fauquier Times last week, he said Amazon had identified the area to be cleared for development and felled trees in that area, but did not remove stumps or disturb the soil.
“A land disturbance permit is not required until the stumps are removed and the land disturbance exceeds 2,000 (square feet). Neither the property owner nor the developer is currently in violation of the city’s zoning ordinance,” he wrote.
Some citizens are strictly against it.
“What’s amazing is that they’re starting site development without the necessary plans and permits,” Winn said in an interview. A land development expert with 40 years of experience reviewing project applications and permits, Winn argues that the city planning ordinance — let alone state statutes — is simple and clear.
“No one shall engage in any land-disturbing activity in the City of Warrenton until they have first obtained a land-disturbing permit,” the zone code states. It defines soil disturbance as “the alteration or removal of the city’s natural landscape, including trees and forests, that potentially alters its flow characteristics”.
“The City’s position is that this is not ground disturbance activity because they did not disturb the ground,” Winn said. However, he notes that the Code’s definition of land disturbance includes the clearing of trees.
The land disturbance permit is the first of many steps to obtaining a building permit under the city’s zoning code.
To obtain approval, an applicant must submit a plan survey and an approved site conservation plan, which includes five separate tree-related elements: a bank protection plan to maintain or replace natural forest areas; a tree overview listing all old trees to be preserved; a separate tree protection plan with the forest areas to be preserved; a tree replacement plan; and an erosion and sediment control plan.
The erosion and sediment plan serves to protect environmentally sensitive areas on the property. “Deforestation,” says the zone code, “must not be approved.”
The code defines clear-cutting as “the indiscriminate removal of trees” in preparation for development.
Drone photos taken by Protect Fauquier, a local organization opposed to the data center, show the extent of some tree felling — acres of land for each tree felled. A cleared area is part of Amazon’s 42-acre site that was once earmarked for a Dominion Energy substation, but the site was returned to Amazon when Dominion said it would build its substation elsewhere.
Amazon submitted a tree study on September 9, 2022 as part of its application for the special use permit required to construct a data center. The study determined that trees were felled and which should be left. However, the study did not include the 8-acre substation site, and the study was never updated. Overhead photos show that more than 200 trees were removed on the substation site alone.
Cureton pointed out at the city council meeting and in a note to the Fauquier Times that the on-site contractor, HITT Contracting, had marked the “boundaries of disturbance” on the project site and was cutting down trees within that line. Cureton noted that HITT drew its line from a site drawing in Amazon’s application, which was approved by the city council on Feb. 14.
However, the document isn’t a formal site development plan, which Amazon has yet to submit.
Winn called it a “concept plan” in the bid, but far from an approved site development plan. “They are clearing without any set, city-approved clearing limits or grading,” he said.
When asked in an email how there could be an official disruption limit if the city hadn’t approved a site plan, Cureton didn’t respond as of press time.
During the March 14 meeting, Cureton briefly touched on tree felling and reiterated that there had been no land clearing. “There is no bare ground or evidence of disturbance caused by tree clearing,” he said.
In response to a question from council member Bill Semple about tree felling, Cureton replied, “We have not received a site plan from the landowner at this time. But the tree protection plan will be included in this site plan as soon as we receive it.”
“My only concern is that there will be no trees to conserve,” Semple said.
While citizens who complain about tree cutting want the city to issue a work stoppage or fines for what they see as violations, lists the CFFC and residents lawsuit filed Thursday, March 16, in district court Fauquier, the issue was considered one of several reasons the court should annul the city council’s approval of the project.
The lawsuit says the zoning ordinance requires that applicants for a special use permit — which the council approved for the data center on Feb. 14 — must demarcate large trees on its property, and states that “any large trees before the building setback may have a conservation line.” become necessary if their removal would impair the character of the quarter.” The distance line marks the minimum distance that a building must have from the property line.
The lawsuit also notes that a tree survey filed last year was never updated and that the SEA does not include an existing provision for trees on the property. This was one of many ways in which Amazon’s application was flawed, leaving the planning commission and city council with insufficient information to consider it, the lawsuit states.
Well, according to the lawsuit, Amazon’s contractor has begun clearing trees from the site, which has already “degraded the character of the property.” It accuses Amazon of “allowing it to ignore the tree protection requirements until it has removed all the trees it wishes to remove and comes around to submitting a site plan” with its required tree protection study. “The Amazon SUP and Amazon conditions thus serve to thwart the goal of the tree protection requirements in the planning approval regulation and are illegal,” the lawsuit says.
Neither city council members nor Cureton responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit, and Amazon did not respond to questions about tree felling or the lawsuit.
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