Complaints spark 2nd review of PW Digital Gateway area property values

After weeks of complaints, criticism and landowner appeals, the Prince William County assessor’s office on Monday revised its sky-high assessments of properties inside the planned Prince William Digital Gateway data center corridor.

Roughly half the property valuations dropped, but half went up — the result of the county eliminating one discount but replacing it with a new one.

But even for those whose assessments are now lower, there is no joy in Mudville. 

That’s because Digital Gateway-area landowners’ assessments remain in the millions, and their tax bills will be in the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands.

For instance, Jon Brower’s 131 acres on the north end of Pageland Lane, originally assessed at $50.2 million, was cut to $43.4 million. But that means his annual real estate tax bill, estimated at $416,000, will still be 13 times higher than he paid last year.

“Oh, that’s doable,” joked Brower when told of his new assessment Monday. He said he had already appealed the former assessment to the tax office, and the new assessment changes nothing. He still can’t pay.

Brower and about 100 of his neighbors are stuck with high tax bills because their land is now zoned for data centers. The Prince William Board of County Supervisors decided last December to create the massive Prince William Digital Gateway technology corridor on about 1,700 bucolic acres along rural Pageland Lane at the landowners’ request.

All are under contract to sell their land to QTS and Compass data centers for between $300,000 and $900,000 an acre and hoped their properties would have been sold by now. But two lawsuits, filed after the rezonings, put the brakes on the land sales and left the residents with soaring tax bills.

Notable among landowners whose tax bills shot up after the latest revisions is Mary Ann Ghadban, a commercial real estate broker who organized her neighbors to sell to QTS. Her assessments were revised upward by $7.5 million because the county eliminated discounts it had initially given for land deemed undevelopable, according to initial plans for the Digital Gateway. Ghadban could not be reached for comment.

Page Snyder, who owns 179 acres across Pageland Lane from Ghadban, similarly lost that discount, which added $11.9 million to her assessment. Her land is now valued at nearly $59 million, which could bring her a tax bill of $566,000. Snyder said she had not seen the new assessment but will likely appeal it.  

She’s not alone. The county tax office said more than 80 appeals from Digital Gateway landowners have already been filed.

To some landowners, the county’s decision to value the land for data centers despite the lawsuit seems grossly unfair.

“The land can’t be worth that because it can’t be developed because of the lawsuit,” Brower complained Monday. “If the zoning is questionable, then your assessment should be as questionable as the zoning.”

Land values in flux

As landowners got wind earlier this year that the county planned to value their land at $1.5 million an acre, their leaders complained to the assessor’s office. The landowners and their lawyers emailed and met with the county assessor’s office several times in January and February, according to a trove of emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In late February, the county assessors initially decided to discount the assessments because they said certain factors made the Digital Gateway properties worth less. The assessor’s office, however, insists those initial discounts were not influenced in any way by the landowners or their lawyers.

In the original assessments, the county arrived at a series of discounts for the Digital Gateway properties: 50% because of the legal challenge to the rezoning; an additional 35% because of a lack of infrastructure in the area; and 10% more because of a glut of data-center-zoned parcels countywide.

In addition, the county tacked on a big bonus for some: It valued land depicted on developers’ plans as “open space” at only $2,600 an acre.

Ghadban had benefited significantly: One of her properties was all open space on QTS maps, so that parcel, valued at $1.8 million in 2023, was initially assessed at $31,200. Another Ghadban parcel, assessed at $225,000 the previous year, was initially valued at $13,100.

Even former supervisor Pete Candland got a break. His 5.7 acres on Livia Drive, off Pageland Lane, were assessed at $1.04 million in 2023. The land contained some open space, which initially dropped its value to $817,500 and cut his taxes by 21% from the previous year.

Under the latest assessments, Candland’s land is now valued at nearly $1.9 million.

Several critics of the initial assessments complained that the county used developers’ plans rather than official county maps of the Digital Gateway to determine which areas might remain open space. The revised assessments reflect a closer review by county staff, who determined commercial properties are not generally discounted for open space. Thus, the open space discounts were eliminated, according to a memo to the supervisors from county Finance Director Michelle Attreed.

In the latest valuations, the assessors offered a substitute, focusing instead on what they said is an unusually low density of data center development allowed in the Digital Gateway compared to data center projects. “Planning staff confirmed (floor-area ratio), not open space, is the determining factor of how many square feet can be constructed on a site,” Attreed wrote.

For that reason, the county knocked off another 25% on all Digital Gateway assessments. Combined, the discounts brought valuations down from $1.5 million to $329,063 per acre.

The revised assessments, however, bring the total Digital Gateway-area land values to $574 million, about $29.5 million more than the original valuations, according to county records.

Experts question valuations

However, three Northern Virginia assessment experts contacted by the Prince William Times said some of the discounts the county applied to the valuations are highly unusual. Dave Winn, a Fauquier County resident who serves as an expert court witness in appraisal cases, called the 50% reduction for the lawsuit “arbitrary and not proven by market data.” 

“It was offered as a bone, a big one,” he said. He even questioned the $1.5 million per acre base assessment, saying it should be more like $2 million.

Neither Scott Mayausky, the Stafford County commissioner of revenue who has been in office 25 years, nor Eric Maybach, Fauquier’s commissioner of revenue, said they had seen 50% reductions based on legal challenges in their counties. Fauquier County uses an outside firm to do its assessments every four years. About 40 acres owned by Amazon in Warrenton, whose data center project there is also under a legal challenge, has had the same full assessment of $31,282,500 since 2022.

Both did say, however, that the 35% discount for lacking infrastructure is not unusual. The 10% discount for the land glut met mixed views. Mayausky said he could see it, but Maybach said it should just be considered development risk.

As for the latest 25% discount for low development density, Winn said that should be based on market analysis. “There's a valid argument to that, but the way the county is treating it is back-of-the-envelope. It's not sophisticated at all,” he said.

County hikes values on other data centers

In their review this week, the assessors did one other thing. Using various methods, they reassessed 49 other data center properties in the county. Eleven assessments decreased, some by tens of millions. The rest of the assessments went up. The valuations of eight Amazon data centers increased nearly $80 million. The assessments for one Sharpless Enterprises center on Wellington Road jumped $105 million.

The valuation increases totaled $333 million, which could bring in an additional $3 million in tax revenue.

Supervisor Bob Weir, an early critic of the Digital Gateway area assessment discounts, said he’s concerned all the changes will invite lawsuits.

“I'm not fond of constantly changing assessments. I mean, they've changed multiple times. And now, the entire basis has changed, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that,” he said. “I'm sure there will be litigation, not only from the Gateway but from the others. So, we’ll see.”

Reach Peter Cary at pcary@fauquier.com

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