Manchester Township has passed an ordinance that restricts development of data centers to areas zoned for industrial and heavy industrial use and imposes other regulations that make it unlikely that a data center will be built in the township.
Like other municipalities, the township’s action was taken pre-emptively, assuring that residents’ concerns about the development and operation of data centers are addressed before any developer proposes building one in the township.
“We’ve had no inquiries (about data centers),” township manager Tim James said. “We’re trying to get ahead of this.”
The township’s ordinance establishes setbacks for data centers, restricts the size of any proposed buildings, requires substantial landscape buffers to absorb the noise such centers may produce and strengthens requirements when such centers are decommissioned.
The ordinance was composed in a manner to protect residents’ interests and take their concerns into consideration, which, James said, “should be our marching orders for everything we do.”
“It puts protections in place (for residents),” James said.
