Upper Bucks supervisors OK new data center regulations amid outcry

Approximately six months after West Rockhill Township planners sat through a presentation on a potential Cathill Road data center, local supervisors unanimously approved a zoning ordinance to regulate the industry within the township.

Supervisors on April 15 also directed the township solicitor to prepare amendments to the ordinance that incorporate recommendations from planning commission members, as well as all of the public comments that the local officials have received on this topic. These proposed amendments are to be introduced at next month’s supervisors meeting scheduled for May 20.

“The three supervisors here are elected by you folks, and our job is to try to guide, manage and help keep our way of life for us,” board Chair Jay Keyser said. “Neither one of us three want to see a data center destroy the way of our life.”

“Our No. 1 goal is the health safety and welfare of our community. This [ordinance] is not to let data centers come in and ruin our township, its to protect our township.”

The decision came after more than 100 residents gathered at the township municipal building in Upper Bucks ahead of the hearing Wednesday night to protest potential data centers in their rural community.

“The ordinance is a step in the right direction, but it’s never enough because we’re doing the ‘what ifs’ and there’s things you can’t foresee that they may not know about yet,” Sellersville resident Michelle Marks said.

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction, but we need to constantly be able to have an open dialogue and they need to let the community come in and voice opinions before they make final decisions about any of it.”

Is a data center currently proposed in West Rockhill?

No formal land development applications for a data center have been submitted in West Rockhill, but last fall township planners were presented with an informal sketch plan for a data center at 215 Cathill Road in Sellersville.

The applicants, National Land Developers and Greener by Design, argued that the property is considered optimal for a data center because of its proximity to power infrastructure and the highway, and because it’s in an industrial area, potentially limiting the impact on residents.

A 150,000- to 200,000-square-foot facility would have approximately 18 employees across three shifts, they said.

That presentation was “purely informational,” township solicitor David Keightly told residents ahead of the hearing this week.

“Nothing’s going in at 215 Cathill Road or anywhere in the township as far as data centers go, so hopefully that’s some welcome news for some of you,” Keightly said. “Tonight is to establish restrictions so that if there is an application to build a data center, there will be a significant set of rules to follow for those data center applicants.”

Prior to the vote Wednesday, the township’s existing zoning ordinance didn’t have any regulations for the emerging industry.

As a result, if a data center application were to be submitted prior to this ordinance taking effect, Keightly said, “they can establish that use wherever they want and not be subject to any regulations.”

What does West Rockhill’s data center ordinance include?

West Rockhill, or any municipality in Pennsylvania, cannot outright ban data center development altogether.

Per the state’s municipal planning code, every borough, township and city within Pennsylvania has to allow for every possible type of development somewhere within their municipality.

West Rockhill’s newly-passed ordinance would limit possible data center development to the township’s “PI – Planned Industrial” zoning district.

This would be the only area where data centers would be permitted, Keightly said, and they’d be required to obtain special permission from the zoning hearing board before they could proceed with their project.

The ordinance also establishes requirements for a minimum site area of 25 acres, a height restriction of 35 feet and required parking setbacks 150 feet from residential lots.

Data centers would be held to regular township and state standards for noise, off-street loading, outdoor lighting, dust, fumes, vapors, gases, odors, heat, glare, vibration control and construction hours.

The regulations would also require applicants to improve public infrastructure where necessary to avoid negative impacts on the area and to have on-site solar power to generate energy for the data center to reduce strain on the public electricity provider.

Undergounrd utility lines would also be required where practical.

How do residents of the West Rockhill area feel about data centers?

The line to enter into the building formed approximately 30 minutes before the hearing was set to start and stretched well into the parking lot. Rresidents who were able to squeeze into the modest meeting room found any space they could, with people pressed up against the walls and sitting on available floor space.

Numerous residents spoke during public comment, with many echoing each other’s concerns about data centers in terms of water usage and contamination, power usage, rate increases, possible air pollution, impacts on wildlife, the loss of open space and more.

Many residents urged supervisors to bake a wide array of regulations and restrictions related to these concerns into this ordinance.

“The best thing about West Rockhill is the community and the country, it’s beautiful out here,” Telford resident Scott Reigle said. “I don’t know how we end up with one of these because there’s light pollution, noise pollution, air pollution and things we don’t know yet.”

West Rockhill’s natural beauty is one of the main reasons that Alex Robinson, a lifelong Upper Bucks resident, said he recently bought what’s supposed to be the forever home for his young family approximately a half-mile from the proposed site off Cathill Road.

“Its unfortunate how much its [the area] has changed,” Robinson said. “Some of that’s fine — developing more houses and lot of the commercial stuff is fine, but this just feels like it goes over the line and it seems like its at the expense of all of us.”

Some residents also suggested for supervisors to consider enacting a temporary moratorium on all data center development in the township to give them more time to better understand the potential impacts of this industry and craft and ordinance to best address it.

One proponent of the moratorium at Wednesday’s hearing was congressional candidate Lucia Simonelli, a Democrat who’s trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Bucks.

“In Pennsylvania there’s an effort from state leadership to make this a data center state, and things are happening too fast,” Simonelli said.

“I think this, tonight in particular, is an example of a township who has been proactive about creating an ordinance. In the absence of state and federal leadership on this, the municipalities have to step in and they’re doing what they can to try to keep their community safe so I do applaud the effort.”

A temporary moratorium would be ideal, Simonelli said, so that everyone can better understand the concerns at hand.

“Part of slowing down data centers is also slowing down AI until we can regulate it, too,” she added.

Just this week, Olyphant Borough officials in Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna County voted to approve a six-month moratorium on data center development through the state’s curative amendment process.

This formally declares the borough’s zoning ordinance invalid because it lacks definitions or regulations for a particular use, in this case for data centers.

But Keightly argued that if township officials declined to take action on the proposed ordinance as is in favor of pursuing the same process, it would open the township up to potential data center applications in the meantime that they wouldn’t be able to regulate.

To this point, Keyser repeatedly told the audience that the ordinance isn’t set in stone and will be amended based on the feedback they’ve received and the more they learn about data centers.

“We’re trying to get ahead of the curve” with this ordinance, Keyser said, to have at least some regulations on the books should the township receive a data center application.

Supervisor David Reiss added: “The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.”