Telecom giant AT&T has announced they are pulling the plug on its controversial, 3.5-acre facility expansion on the top of Short Hill Mountain in northern Loudoun County and withdrawing its commission permit application.
“I am writing to inform you that we have decided to suspend our plans to construct the proposed building as part of our telephone transmission utility substation on Short Hill Mountain,” AT&T’s Principal Technical Architect Scott Rushin said in a statement to the county's director of Loudoun County Department of Planning and Zoning.
AT&T’s announcement comes a week before the Board of Supervisors were slated to vote on whether to grant the company a commission permit to expand a “transmission facility” on the top of Short Hill on the ridge between Hillsboro and Lovettsville.
The project had sparked widespread controversy through the county, especially in western Loudoun, as questions about whether or not the site was a data center or something else – like government security campus -- came to surface.
