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Life next to 199 data centres

bbc.com

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Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#41

Post by rurp »

dylan604 wrote: post #26
alyxya wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't heard of Loudoun County before. I also did read the article and here's a sentence from it. > But while most locals the BBC spoke to opposed the data centres, the industry has many powerful proponents, including US President Donald Trump. Also moving isn't something to take lightly. > "I never thought that a data centre would be built across the street from my house," she said. "I would not have bought this h…

> "I never thought that a data centre would be built across the street from my house," she said. "I would not have bought this house if I had known what was going in across the street." and let this be a lesson to anyone looking to buy with vacant land within whatever radius you want to apply. if you think you might be upset by something that could be developed in the future, you can do some basic research on what zo…

The best research one can do is only going to be so useful. Zoning laws might stop an average person or corporation from building something undesirable, but entities with enough wealth and connections can get those changed. Lately the conventional wisdom seems to be that NIMBYs have too much power, but in all of the cases I'm personally familiar with a single wealthy person or corporation was able to re-zone property however they wanted over the overwhelming objections of the longtime residents nearby.

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#43

Post by opengrass »

lemonlime227 wrote: post #17

Ashburn/Loudoun resident here, lived right next to us-east-1 for 10+ years. No, the noise is not impactful. The data centers are very quiet on the outside. More noise comes from Dulles Airport nearby. Main problem is 1. visuals. They are horrendous blobs to look at. 2. land/electricity values. Gone up a lot in the past few years. Happy to answer any questions.

How's the power bill?

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#44

Post by littlekey »

The part about the person who saw they're building a new one in her neighborhood would make for a great Onion article.

"'I never thought they'd build a 200th data center,' says woman who lives in county with 199 data centers."

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#45

Post by mdasen »

SirFatty wrote: post #13
alyxya wrote: post #7

It's sad seeing people impacted by these data centers considering how little voice they have. I don't think anyone wants to live near a data center unless they actually worked there.

I wonder how much property value is affected.

Since 2017, Louden County housing prices have gone up 59% according to Zillow. To put that in perspective, NYC is up 24%, LA up 56%, Chicago up 28%, SF up 7%, DC up 10%, Boston up 29%, Atlanta up 48%.

Ashburn, which is where the majority of the data centers are in Louden County, is up 56% so even when you look at a smaller area around the data centers, it doesn't seem to have harmed property values.

Even if you look at mansions on an acre of land a couple houses down from a data center, it looks like they've gone up in value at least as fast the average for both Louden County or Ashburn (https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/44335-Oldetowne-Pl-Ashbur... this place I randomly looked up is up around 70% according to Zillow).

It doesn't look like it's impacted housing prices negatively. That doesn't mean it doesn't impact how some people care about their homes. Some people might prefer to pay higher taxes than look at a data center across the street. But it isn't economically hurting residents. Their property taxes are very low, they have the highest median income in the US, and their property values are going up faster than most.

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#46

Post by tomhallett »

dylan604 wrote: post #26
alyxya wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't heard of Loudoun County before. I also did read the article and here's a sentence from it. > But while most locals the BBC spoke to opposed the data centres, the industry has many powerful proponents, including US President Donald Trump. Also moving isn't something to take lightly. > "I never thought that a data centre would be built across the street from my house," she said. "I would not have bought this h…

> "I never thought that a data centre would be built across the street from my house," she said. "I would not have bought this house if I had known what was going in across the street." and let this be a lesson to anyone looking to buy with vacant land within whatever radius you want to apply. if you think you might be upset by something that could be developed in the future, you can do some basic research on what zo…

If I'm correct that the data center shown is on Belfort and Glenn Dr, then you don't even have to "research" zoning, just look across the street.

In 2021/2022 before it was built:

* Here is what that lot looked like [1]. To assume something wouldn't be built there is optimistic at best. (And there was precedent for data centers at the time - there was already a data center less than half mile away on Vantage Data Plz across the street from Tart Lumber.)

* If you look across the street, ie if the video would have panned to the left, you would have seen the "US Customs and Border Patrol" building - not winning any architectural design awards [2].

For someone who bought their house decades ago, then yes - the area has transformed drastically. But grouping someone who purchased recently with someone who purchased decades ago is a bit muddled.

[1]: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9991758,-77.4300191,3a,75y,1...

[2]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/IAD146/@38.9981504,-77.428...

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#47

Post by silexia »

littlekey wrote: post #44

The part about the person who saw they're building a new one in her neighborhood would make for a great Onion article. "'I never thought they'd build a 200th data center,' says woman who lives in county with 199 data centers."

If you like the Onion, check out the Babylon Bee.

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#48

Post by bigwheels »

NoiseBert69 wrote: post #6
jasonthorsness wrote: post #2

Article makes a huge deal about humming/buzzing but there’s no way that’s a real thing right? What would be the reason it would go beyond like any HVAC-ish thing on a large building? Lost me at the first sentence :(

I live close to a hospital and they make a generator test run once a month. That's an ultra deep sinus (~30Hz) that's humming along - you can hear it everywhere within the city. It's was super easy to measure using a Sensirion Differential Pressure sensor. They have a few extremely sensitive models that have a 100Hz sampling rate (50Hz useable after Nyquist) - also: you can sense washing machines (from vibrating buil…

What is the sensor attached to? And how can you pinpoint the source direction of sounds with it?

The product listing says something about a manifold, it looks like a raw component with 4 pins or so.

https://sensirion.com/products/catalog/SDP510

Re: Life next to 199 data centres

#49

Post by dylan604 »

rurp wrote: post #41
dylan604 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I never thought that a data centre would be built across the street from my house," she said. "I would not have bought this house if I had known what was going in across the street." and let this be a lesson to anyone looking to buy with vacant land within whatever radius you want to apply. if you think you might be upset by something that could be developed in the future, you can do some basic research on what zo…

The best research one can do is only going to be so useful. Zoning laws might stop an average person or corporation from building something undesirable, but entities with enough wealth and connections can get those changed. Lately the conventional wisdom seems to be that NIMBYs have too much power, but in all of the cases I'm personally familiar with a single wealthy person or corporation was able to re-zone property…

Just because you bought the place doesn't mean everything is finished. If you want to be a NIMBY, then you have to keep up with what's going on around you. If someone wants to rezone a plot, there's normally some sort of cursory public notice about it giving a small window to voice concerns. take advantage of them or not, but if you want to keep the status quo, you have to fight for it. the world is constantly changing
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