During the July 15th meeting of Whitemarsh Township’s planning commission, the members of the commission reviewed draft language of an ordinance that would regulate data centers within the township. The draft would allow data centers by conditional use within six of the township’s zoning districts. Pennsylvania state law prohibits municipalities from banning a legal land use, and Montgomery County, in collaboration with Chester County, developed a model data center ordinance for municipalities to utilize when drafting their own. Whitemarsh Township used the county’s model ordinance, along with another from PennFuture, to develop the regulations.

Reviewing the draft ordinance with the commissioners was Tim Konetchy, the township’s liaison from the Montgomery County Planning Commission. Our initial article reviews some key points of the draft and links to it.

The news from the meeting is that Konetchy confirmed that the township has not received an application involving a data center. During the meeting, there was a discussion on the need to work quickly on the draft ordinance due to the fact that an application could be submitted at any time. If an application were to be submitted prior to an ordinance being adopted (or potentially at least under consideration), the regulations in the ordinance would not apply.

Members of the commission and the public made several recommendations on how to strengthen the regulations. Konetchy and the township staff were tasked with updating the draft with many of these suggestions. There were five or six members of the public at the meeting.

Another interesting aspect of the review and discussion is that the commissioners agreed that the ordinance, if adopted, should be treated as a “living” document that is reviewed regularly due to the fast-moving technology involved in data centers, potential court decisions on similar data center ordinances, and what can be learned from operating data centers around the world. The consensus was to review any adopted data center ordinance every six months.

Once the changes are made to the draft, the document will move to the Montgomery County Planning Commission for review, which takes 30 days. From there, the township’s board of supervisors can vote to advertise a hearing for the proposed ordinance, hold the hearing, and then vote. Overall, it is likely to take sixty days minimally.

We will continue to report on the issue as the process moves forward.

Photo – ©AndreyPopov from Getty Images via Canva