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Data centers were on the mind of several of those attending this month's Lycoming County Planning Commission, with local municipal officials bouncing questions off the county's board to try to understand how their municipalities can deal with the issue before a proposal arrives at their doorstep.
For Muncy Township residents at the meeting, the proverbial fox is already in the hen house, so to speak, as a legal notice of deemed approval was already published by the developer of a proposed data center.
Under the Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), there are strict timelines that must be met when an application is submitted and according to township resident Dan Waugh, "because of the inaction by the Muncy Township supervisors and the solicitor and the zoning office, the legal notice was posted today and it's the approval for the data center has been deemed approved for the application because of inaction."
When asked by Waugh if the curative amendments that both his township planning commission and the county's planning commission are drafting to address deficiencies in zoning ordinances concerning data centers, could help or as he put it, "are we beyond" that.
In response to most of the questions, the board told the officials and Waugh that it would be best to contact their municipality's solicitor because of the legality involved.
J. Mike Wiley, solicitor for the commission, did give a very broad overview of the issue, one which has been repeated many times for the people seeking a way of deterring data centers from locating in their municipality.
"Every municipality that has its own zoning is required to provide for all legitimate uses," Wiley said.
"So, you have to have some mechanism in place to provide for them." he added.
The county planning serves several but not all municipalities in the county.
"One of the benefits of multimunicipal zoning is that you can spread the obligation across mult-municipal boundaries which is what the county can do because it's in a multi-municipal zoning subdivision process," Wiley said.
Board Chairman Jason Bogle offered his interpretation of the process.
"A municipality cannot write an ordinance that specifically excludes one function. You have to all it in some places. You cannot write an ordinance that's so stringent that it can't be," Bogle stated, with Wiley adding, "we can't do something that would be considered exclusionary."
Jeffrey Stroehmann, planning commission member and also a supervisor at Woodward Township, another small county municipality, said, "We're all in the same boat together."
"This is a huge capitalistic opportunity and Wall Street is driving this," Stroehmann claimed.
"What we're dealing with in our local small rural communities is called development pressure," he added.
Stroehmann said that developers come into a community, find the loopholes, and then bring in their attorneys.
"We all know we're vulnerable...we rely on the attorneys to build the fences," he said.
"We're required to create reasonable conditions for that development, but what's reasonable for us isn't necessarily reasonable for Wall Street. What is reasonable for us is bring it in, but find your own power source that isn't going to negatively affect the people in our townships. Bring it in but don't make so much noise...that can upset our property values our safety, welfare, so on and so forth," Stroehmann said.
Several municipalities, including Woodward and Washington townships and the City of Williamsport have ratified curative amendments to set conditions for data centers, according to Bogle.
It was also agreed by the commission that they would welcome any county municipality to attend their meetings and bring their concerns.
Meetings are held on the third Thursday of the month at 6 p.m. in the Commissioners' Board Room, 3rd floor, Third Street Plaza, 33 West Third St.
Under regular business, the planning commission approved the following with conditions: Codney/Sandoe subdivision in Cogan House Township and the Greenview LLC Subdivision in Franklin/Jordan townships.