With smaller municipalities, particularly rural ones, being faced with developers buying land with an eye on possibly building a data center, the Lycoming County Planning Commission voted to form a committee to help those communities navigate this new and often unknown issue.

The county also is in the process of drafting a curative amendment to their zoning ordinance which was determined to be invalid in providing regulation of data centers.

Earlier this week the county commissioners approved a resolution that triggers an 180-day period to enact a curative amendment to the zoning ordinance in order to correct that invalidity.

The issue was addressed at this month’s planning commission meeting and there was a unanimous consensus of the members that the ordinance is invalid when it comes to regulating data centers.

Jason Bogle, chairman, pointed out that the Municipal Planning Code is a state-enacted ordinance that all townships in the county can use to address their own ordinances even if they are not part of those municipalities under the county’s planning commission. The county currently offers planning and zoning services to 19 municipalities.

Bogle proposed that the commission appoint one of their members to act as a liaison with the remaining municipalities that are not under the planning commission aegis.

“I think the planning commission should be able to speak, on behalf of the planning commission, to any other townships that have questions regarding that matter,” Bogle said.

Continuing with this concept, commission member Jeffrey Stroehmann suggested they send a letter to municipalities making the offer to help them.

“I think a lot of them don’t know what they’re up against until it presents itself and by then it’s too late,” said commission member Beth Miller.

“How about in the letter we inform them that we’re aware of the issue, that we’ve got a staff that’s working diligently on it and the commissioners have been very responsive and explain

a little bit about what that curative amendment is, what it did,” Stroehmann said.

“Then make the offer to come to a meeting, so that’ll help you retain a little bit of resources. Just let them know we’ve got a team that we’re willing to come out and discuss,” he added.

“It’s essentially partnering with other townships,” Bogle said.

Commission member William Brooks, said that each member could speak with their own townships which would help to “cover a lot of ground in that manner.”

The issue of data centers has become a flashpoint in many communities, most recently in Muncy Township as a developer had submitted materials related to building a data center on farm land in the township.

Township resident Dewey Waugh attended the planning commission meeting.

“I’m just concerned with what you said about the data centers. We’re kind of directly in the bullseye for something like that coming about,” Waugh said.

“With the changes and the upgrades that you’re making, is that going to be something that could be made public once the documents are put together for more than just the township supervisors so that those advisory committees or people active in the townships could also understand what’s going on with those updates and changes,” Waugh asked commission members.

Bogle explained that once the document is final it will be made public.

“We will have public hearings for that as we get closer to having a real version of it,” Bogle said.

“That will minimize the time that the townships have to spend trying to have public hearings if we have a document together from a higher order to maybe work a little faster for ordinances than our own townships to kind of direct or control what’s coming on our townships,” Waugh said.

Commission member Brett Taylor urged Waugh to attend the hearings “because you’ll be able to hear the questions and the answers…The intellectual part going back and forth will probably be more beneficial to you than the document itself.”

Bogle also indicated that the topic will probably be on the agenda for future planning commission meetings.

The next meeting of the planning commission will be at 6 p.m., July 16 at the Third Street Plaza, 33 West Third St. Usually the meetings are held in the LYCO Board Room on the third floor, although this month’s meeting was held in the Commissioners’ Board Room on the third floor.