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Commission agrees to begin process on a data-center ordinance amid debate on decommissioning and noise limits
Summary
Commissioners directed staff to begin research into a data-center ordinance after county and regional officials advised balancing impacts, decommissioning requirements and federal preemption; supervisors and staff flagged potential decibel limits and the need for consistent standards across uses.
Commissioners agreed it is time to start work on a township data-center ordinance to ensure the township can regulate impacts if applicants pursue data-center uses. A county official (speaker 10) pointed the commission to a county fact sheet, a model ordinance and cautioned against imposing requirements on data centers that are not required of similar industries. "You wanna make sure that the regulations in your data center ordinance are specific to the impacts of data centers and aren't imposing regulations ... on those data centers that other types of development would also [face]," the county official said.
Members flagged decommissioning and noise as two of the major policy challenges. One commissioner said South Hanover’s ordinance had a 55-decibel threshold compared to the township’s current 65-decibel baseline and urged caution about inconsistency across uses. Supervisor and staff members discussed federal preemption questions and the practical challenge of funding any long-term decommissioning obligations; staff recommended beginning the process so the township is not forced to treat data centers as a use not provided for. "It's time to start the process for looking into adopting an ordinance for a data center," staff (speaker 3) said.
