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A draft of a curative amendment for data centers was introduced at the Lycoming County Planning Commission meeting this week, the next step in trying to get ahead of the growing expansion of data centers in the state.
Although a copy of the document was only available for the members of the commission, John LaVelle, of Entech Engineering Inc.,the company that had been hired to work on the amendment, offered some general comments on the issues that are addressed in the amendment..
In June, at the request of the Lycoming County Planning and Community Development Department, the county commissioners approved the drafting of the amendment to the county's land development ordinance which triggered an 180-day period in which to get that accomplished and approved.
Jason Bogle, chair of the Planning Commission stressed that what they were looking at was only a draft and that nothing was set in stone.
In Pennsylvania if there are not specific areas designated for a use, a developer can come into a municipality and pick wherever they would like to build their facility. Because data centers were not specifically addressed in the county's zoning ordinance, LaVelle pointed out that the county had been vulnerable before they voted to draft the curative amendment.
"We don't have a data center use in the local county building ordinance, so right there, you have a situation where...until you do the curative amendment, you had exposure there where somebody could have come in and asked for locations," he said.
The state's fair share doctrine does not allow refusal of a legitimate business within a municipality or in the case of those entities covered by the county's zoning ordinance, somewhere within those areas. Currently there are 19 municipalities that are governed by the county's zoning ordinance.
"Within the fair share considerations, you have to recognize the use. You need to explain what the use is and you need to give the use a place where it can be developed," LaVelle said.
"And then you need to apply safeguards, special exception regulations, review standards that need to be met in order to have the use play well with surrounding uses and community," he added.
Topics that were mentioned at the meeting which are included in the amendment were power sources for the centers, water supply, zones permitted, setbacks and noise generated by the facilities and de-commissioning.
"Within the development review standards, the ordinance basically asks to report a land development plan that lays out the campus itself," he said.
"Is it a campus or just the building itself...what's the backup power generation plan? Where's the infrastructure going to go," he said.
In terms of noise and vibration, the amendment can include pre-and post-construction noise sections.
"We also ask what are the methods of supply for water and electricity and cooling," he said.
He cautioned that although the amendment can state a preference for a specific type of system, such as a closed loop system, it cannot design the data center.
Before the commission's next meeting, Bogle asked the members to discuss any questions they have with the planning department in order for any revisions or adjustments to the amendment can be made so that a recommendation to the county commissioners.
Public comment would go out 30 days before the commissioners hold public comment hearings, with the first, he said, possibly taking place in mid-November.