The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors has voted to temporarily halt action on data center and electrical substation applications requiring legislative approval, triggering a pause period of up to 12 months, the maximum duration permitted under Virginia law.

Board Acts After Attorney Rules Out Formal Moratorium

The vote took place during the Board's September 15, 2026, meeting, where a majority of supervisors approved the plan. The move comes after the Loudoun County Attorney issued a legal opinion concluding that a formal moratorium on data center approvals would not be legal. The pause mechanism was adopted as an alternative approach to achieve a similar outcome within the bounds of state law.

The Board indicated that the pause resolution should be made retroactive, with the effective date set as September 15, 2026.

The formal resolution to enact the new policy is scheduled to be considered at the Board's October 20, 2026, meeting.

Policy Review Driving the Decision

The Board's stated rationale for pausing action on legislative applications is to allow the county sufficient time to complete an ongoing review of its current data center policies and regulations.

That review involves proposed amendments to both the county's Comprehensive Plan and its Zoning Ordinance, specifically addressing data center standards and locations.

The project is referred to internally using the designations CPAM and ZOAM. According to the county, the outcome of that review has the potential to affect both existing and new legislative applications for data centers.

The project is expected to conclude in the summer of 2027, meaning the one-year pause, which would lapse no later than September 2027, could run up against or fall short of the full review timeline.

How the Pause Will Work in Practice

Under the terms approved by the Board, final votes on data center and substation applications will be suspended for one year. Virginia law requires that action on such legislative applications be taken within one year of a certain threshold event.

The Loudoun County Zoning Ordinance specifies that the one-year period begins when applications are sent to a Planning Commission public hearing.

Developers will still be permitted to submit new applications to the county during the pause period.

Those applications may continue to advance through the Planning Commission process while the Board's pause is in effect. However, the Board's stated intent is to defer any final votes until either the Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Ordinance amendments project is complete or the one-year statutory window has elapsed, whichever comes first.

The county confirmed that no applications will become inactive as a result of the pause. The Board also preserved the ability to make exceptions under specific circumstances, namely, if an application involves grid reliability concerns or if the statutory deadline for a decision on a particular application is approaching expiration.

Applications subject to administrative rather than legislative processes are not affected by the Board's action.

Part of a Broader Shift in Data Center Oversight

The pause is the latest in a series of steps the Board has taken to tighten oversight of data center development in Loudoun County, which has become one of the most concentrated data center markets in the world.

The Board previously approved an end to by-right data center development, a change that now requires all data center projects to come before the Board for a vote through the county's special exception process.

That shift represented a significant departure from how data centers had historically been permitted in the county, where many projects could previously be approved without requiring a public hearing or board vote.

Additionally, the Board is scheduled to take up proposed amendments to its grandfathering rules for data centers during its October 6, 2026, meeting, which falls between the September vote and the October 20 meeting at which the pause resolution will be formally considered.

Timeline and Next Steps

The sequence of upcoming Board actions reflects the pace at which Loudoun County is moving to restructure its approach to data center approvals. The October 6 meeting will address grandfathering provisions, the October 20 meeting will formalize the pause through a resolution, and the broader CPAM and ZOAM review is not expected to wrap up until summer 2027. The county noted that more information about data centers and proposed transmission lines is available on the Loudoun County website.