Case Study: Fauquier County and the Town of Warrenton: The Restrictions Came After the Entitlements, and the Town Changed Sides
Plain-English summary
In February 2023, the Warrenton Town Council approved an Amazon data center, 4-3. The town approved its site plan in April 2024. It remains unbuilt.
The town first defended the permit against a lawsuit by residents. A changed council voted in January 2025 to have its attorney reassess those defenses. In July 2025 it struck data centers from town zoning without revoking the permit. As of November 2, 2026, the court's index showed the case under advisement, with no final order.
Fauquier County allowed data centers in two zoning districts in 2013 and 2017 and rezoned 234 acres at Remington for them in 2018. It restricted them from December 2023 on.
On the record read, those restrictions did not undo the approvals. The town changed sides. The report corrects the series' description of Fauquier as refusing data centers.
Summary of version 1.0, November 2026. The full report carries the record behind each point.
Full abstract
This case study follows two governments in one Virginia county through the data center entitlements they granted and the restrictions they adopted afterward, from the county's 2013 zoning amendment through the record available on 1 November 2026.
The Town of Warrenton made data centers a lawful use in August 2021, approved Amazon's special use permit 4-3 in February 2023 and its site plan in April 2024, and struck the use from its zoning in July 2025 without revoking the permit. The permit stands approved, unbuilt, and challenged as void from the start in Cross v. Town Council. After the council changed, the town directed its attorney to reassess its defenses in court and asked its zoning appeals board to uphold a determination that Amazon "does not currently possess" a vested right. The court's index, read on 2 November 2026, shows no ruling.
Fauquier County rezoned 234 acres at Remington in 2018 for up to 1,800,000 square feet, then restricted: a policy in December 2023, a special exception requirement at Vint Hill in March 2024, reconsidered and readopted that May with a wider exemption, on one motion with the settlement of a landowner's dispute, and in October 2026 an ordinance ending data centers as a use in the Business Park district, except on land zoned there on 20 August 2026. On the record read, the restrictions came after the entitlements and did not undo them. That order is ordinary in Virginia. What the county's text shows is how far an exemption can go past the list in the vested rights statute: the 2024 and 2026 ordinances protect a site plan only submitted and a Vint Hill project approved as a use on a plan that, as filed, does not name data centers or proposed by pre-application request.
The study corrects the series' earlier use of Fauquier as a refusal case. It is built from minutes, ordinances, staff reports, applicants' withdrawal letters and emails, the parties' filings, court orders and a Court of Appeals opinion. Press accounts are marked in the text, and no finding rests on them.