Data center ordinance draws crowd in South Strabane
Residents in South Strabane Township turned out in big numbers to voice concerns about an ordinance regulating data centers.
The township’s planning commission held a special meeting Thursday evening for the purpose of considering the ordinance, as well as two other ordinances related to battery energy storage systems and noise.
The commission’s role is to vote on whether or not they recommend the board of supervisors ultimately adopt the ordinances. At the end of Thursday’s meeting, planning commission members voted to table all three ordinances until their regular meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Prior to that decision, there was about 90 minutes of public comment, mostly from residents concerned about the potential for a data center to be built in the township.
Township officials began working on an ordinance to regulate data centers late last year after a 1,400-acre tract of land owned by CNX Resources began being marketed for that purpose by real estate firm JLL.
JLL has touted the property, off of Zediker Station Road, as having 400 acres of buildable land for a data center. Data centers typically consist of large warehouses containing servers and other computing equipment.
Currently, there are no potential buyers for the property, and the township has received no applications for a data center.
Kristin Prezel expressed concerns about changes made in the draft ordinance between the first version posted to the township website in December and one posted earlier this month. Those changes include reducing the setback requirement from residential homes from 1,000 feet to 850 feet.
“The current data center draft ordinance is insufficient. It needs to be extremely undesirable for any possible data center interest. This can easily be done without violating any of Pennsylvania laws in regards to business opportunities,” Prezel said. “South Strabane needs a data center draft ordinance that is truly in the best interest of us, its residents. Any ordinance must include clear protections to prevent large-scale infrastructure from consuming significant portions of the township, or encroaching on our residential properties.”
Several other residents were also concerned about the setback requirements, which also includes that buildings and equipment must be 300 feet from the property line.
Planning commission member Fred Pozzuto reminded those at the meeting that there are currently no applicants looking to build a data center.
“If we don’t have any ordinance at all, when the applicant comes in we can’t just jump in and create an ordinance because we don’t like them. We have to have something on the books, and that’s what this is all about. We don’t have an applicant, so the particulars of the property line or where the building is going is strictly, purely subjective,” Pozzuto said.
Joe Roach, a resident of the Pancake neighborhood, urged officials to study other communities who have data centers to see the potential impacts, particularly how the energy usage could affect utility rates.
He said he recently spoke to an acquaintance from Columbus, Ohio, about what it was like to live near a data center.
“From the noise to the rates going up for electric, gas and water. Why can’t you look at other places where they already made the mistake, and write something to that effect so that it doesn’t happen here,” Roach said.
Resident Judi Panasik urged those in attendance to contact the county commissioners and their representatives in Harrisburg to voice concerns about data centers. She also cautioned that given the planning commission is only an advisory board, it is important to be there when the township supervisors are voting on the ordinance.
“Everybody just needs to make sure we’re going to the right meetings. When the supervisors have a meeting, that meeting is going to have a person taking notes. That is the most important thing,” Panasik said. “When that meeting happens everybody here sign up and get up and say, ‘I don’t want a data center’ … That is way more important than anything that happens tonight.”
The board of supervisors is planning to hold a public hearing on the data center ordinance on March 19. The exact time and location have not been announced, but Supervisor Jeff Bull suggested it would be in a larger venue than the meeting room at the township municipal building.