Gregory Pirio keeps a decibel reader on his phone. So do most of his neighbors in the Trailside Homeowners Association in Sterling, a short drive from Ashburn's town center. The reason sits on Glenn Drive, where a Vantage data center complex runs eight natural gas turbines around the clock instead of drawing power from the grid like most of its neighbors in Data Center Alley. Pirio, a member of the Trailside HOA board, described the result simply: "The noise is just intolerable."
The county has logged about a dozen noise complaints tied to that facility this year. None have been ruled a violation, because Loudoun's ordinance sets a 55 dBA limit at the residential property line but doesn't have a separate standard for the tonal hum residents say is the real problem. Trailside's board is now weighing legal action.
Less than ten miles away, in Ashburn's Regency neighborhood off Waxpool Road, roughly 143 homeowners are looking at a very different number: reports of around $4 million per household from a developer hoping to assemble the 130-acre site for data center use. Same corridor, same industry, same physical fact of living close to server buildings. One community is stuck fighting a noise problem it can't win under current rules. The other has a shot at a payday most homeowners never see.
That gap is the real story in Ashburn right now, and it has almost nothing to do with how many feet separate a house from a cooling fan.
Trailside can't sell its way out. The homes there are individually owned, the HOA has no mechanism to negotiate as a bloc, and the facility next door was already built. Their only lever is code enforcement, and the code doesn't currently measure the kind of noise they're describing.
Regency's homeowners association set up an entity called Community Works LLC specifically to negotiate the sale as a group. Gandhi, a Regency resident and former HOA president leading the effort, put it this way: "These concrete buildings aren't going anywhere." Rather than keep fighting a facility he can't stop, he's trying to make the neighborhood the seller instead of the neighbor.
Even that path isn't guaranteed. Loudoun's Board of Supervisors would still have to approve rezoning the land, and a similar effort in Prince William County ran into an appeals court block on its Digital Gateway data center project this summer. Proximity created the opportunity in Regency's case. It didn't create the outcome.
The variable that matters most for a specific Ashburn address isn't distance. It's timing, specifically whether a nearby parcel's paperwork predates two dates on the county calendar.
On March 18, 2025, the Board of Supervisors voted 6-2 to end by-right development for data centers countywide, moving new proposals into a Special Exception process that requires a public hearing before the Planning Commission and the Board. A companion Grandfathering Resolution drew the cutoff at February 12, 2025. Anything filed before that date can still move through the old, lighter-touch process.
| Filed before Feb 12, 2025 | Filed after Feb 12, 2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Review path | By-right or grandfathered | Special Exception |
| Public hearing required | No | Yes, Planning Commission and Board |
| Noise and traffic studies required | Not a condition of approval | Pre- and post-construction noise study, traffic study |
For a buyer looking at an Ashburn home near an undeveloped parcel, that filing date matters more than the parcel's zoning designation on paper. A grandfathered application can still clear with far less scrutiny than one filed today.
The county is currently in Phase 2 of its Data Center Standards and Locations project, reviewing onsite power generation, energy storage, noise standards, and setback rules for future applications. The county's own adoption timeline has already slipped once, from an earlier target of December 2026 to a current estimate of spring or summer 2027.
Two public open houses are scheduled for this phase: September 28 at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, and September 30 at the Douglass Community Center in Leesburg. Both run from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. as drop-in sessions, with noise metering demonstrations from the county's zoning enforcement staff.
Two days from now, on September 15, the Board takes up a motion from Supervisor Juli Briskman asking staff to draft what a pause on new data center applications would look like while the review continues. Briskman framed the request bluntly: "The community has basically been begging us to do something about the unchecked growth of data centers." If adopted, new applications could stall for months.
That timeline isn't abstract for Ashburn specifically. Spring Valley Tech Park, a proposal for data centers off Evergreen Mill Road in Ashburn's transition area, had its Planning Commission hearing on July 23, 2026. Quantum Park, a proposal to add more data centers to the Verizon campus on Waxpool Road in Broad Run, goes before the Board for a decision on October 20, 2026. Both are still live while the rules that govern them are being rewritten.
Before writing an offer or setting a list price near any parcel that could hold future data center infrastructure, a few questions are worth asking directly:
The county's LandMARC system is the place to check pending applications by parcel, and it's worth a look before assuming a quiet field will stay that way.
Reporting from Axios in September 2026 found that home prices across Loudoun, Fairfax, and Prince William counties have stayed steady over the past several years despite the noise around data centers, both literal and political. A 2023 George Mason University study, cited by economics professor Terry Clower, found that Loudoun homes closer to data center sites have in some cases sold for more, and that Loudoun households on average pay less in property taxes than neighbors in surrounding counties precisely because of the tax base data centers provide.
Both of those facts are true, and neither tells a specific buyer what a specific Ashburn address is worth. A countywide average holds steady because it's blending homes catching an employment and tax-base premium with homes absorbing a noise or visual adjacency discount. The median doesn't reveal which camp a given house falls into. Only the filing date on the parcel next door, the generator type at the nearest facility, and whether an HOA has organized to negotiate collectively will tell you that.
Does living near a data center always lower a home's value? Not according to the available research. The 2023 GMU findings suggest proximity within the broader corridor can carry a premium tied to jobs and tax revenue. The effect on a specific address depends heavily on the type of facility, its power source, and how recently it was approved.
How do I find out if a nearby vacant parcel could become a data center? Check the county's LandMARC land management system for pending applications, and note whether any filing predates the February 12, 2025 grandfathering cutoff, since that determines whether it faces a public hearing or not.
Will the county's Phase 2 review change facilities that are already built? No. Phase 2 is aimed at future applications and performance standards going forward. Anything already approved or grandfathered under the March 2025 resolution continues under the rules in place when it was filed.
If you're weighing a specific Ashburn address against what's happening on the parcel next door, or trying to figure out how a nearby proposal might affect timing on a listing, Listed by Leslie Group tracks these filings the same way we track showings. Request a complimentary home consultation and we'll walk through what's actually on file for the address you have in mind.
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44927 George Washington Blvd. #265 Ashburn, VA 20147
