Jessup will hold a public hearing next month as borough council looks to enact stricter legislation addressing data centers to protect residents.
Over the past six months, companies have proposed building large computer-filled campuses that draw power from the high-voltage power lines running through the Midvalley. So far, Archbald has received applications for three data center campuses along Business Route 6 and Eynon Jermyn Road. Officials also point to a possible data center in Jessup, though nothing has been proposed.
Lackawanna County municipalities that do not adequately address data centers in their zoning ordinances must hold public hearings and meetings in order to amend their land-use legislation.
Jessup will hold a public hearing June 11 at 6 p.m. at its Borough Building, 395 Lane St., regarding possible amendments to its November 2020 zoning ordinance to govern data centers, according to a public notice published Thursday in The Times-Tribune.
Archbald is working on similar legislation.
In phone interviews Thursday, Jessup Councilmen Curt Camoni and Gregg Betti said they both independently reached out to borough Solicitor Maura Armezzani Tunis about legislation addressing data centers, with Camoni contacting Tunis around early February and Betti contacting her in March.
Seeing the spread of data centers not just in Pennsylvania but across the country, and knowing the amount of power they would need, Camoni said it’s inevitable and only a matter of time before they come to Jessup.
“What I was looking to do was just try to put Jessup in a position where we were going to have a say in how this was going to happen, and that our residents would be the top priority,” he said.
Betti said he contacted Tunis after seeing what was happening in Archbald with data centers. Both Archbald and Jessup hired the same company to create their zoning ordinances, and as a result, they have similar zoning for data centers.
Archbald officials previously said they saw data centers as smaller, external buildings when they passed their March 2023 zoning ordinance. Camoni and Betti shared the same sentiment. Though Camoni was not on council when Jessup drafted and adopted its zoning ordinance, Betti was the chairman of the comprehensive plan committee that worked on the zoning — a process that began in late 2018.
At the time, borough officials envisioned a data center as a server room, not large facilities that look like warehouses, Betti said.
“Data centers weren’t what they are six years later,” he said. “The definition to cover a data center wasn’t what it was six years ago.”
The goal isn’t to keep data centers out of Jessup, but instead to find the right situation where they will benefit residents without being intrusive or having a negative effect, Camoni said. That means dictating where they can be built by putting them above the Casey Highway and away from residential homes while also establishing reasonable restrictions to protect the town, he said.
“Nobody wants to see a 70-foot-tall data center right in a residential area,” Camoni said.
Currently, the only definition in Jessup’s zoning for data centers is, “Data Center, which may include an Internet Server Building.”
According to a draft of the zoning amendment ordinance, that line will be deleted and replaced with: “A facility used primarily for or intended to be used primarily for the housing, operation, and/or co-location of computer and communications equipment and for handling, storing, and backing up the data necessary for the operation of a business or organizational entity.”
It also reclassifies data centers from principally permitted uses to conditional uses, which allows borough council to hold public hearings and impose conditions for any data center proposal that it approves.
If council passes the ordinance, data centers will become conditional uses in the borough’s light industrial/business park, general industrial and interchange commercial districts. The draft legislation removes data centers from the borough’s mixed use zoning district, which is a large strip of land between Breaker Street and the Casey Highway extending from near Hill Street to the Archbald border.
The amendment would apply seven conditions to data centers:
• They must be at least 1,000 feet from residential uses.
• Proposals must include a letter from the electrical provider certifying the network has the capacity to meet the demands of the proposed facility while maintaining sufficient levels to service existing borough residents and businesses.
• Data centers will be limited to 80,000 gross square feet for any one building and must have at least 300 feet between other similar uses.
• Data center buildings can be a maximum of 80 feet tall.
• Any proposal for a data center must include pre- and post-construction sound studies, with the post-construction sound study required before the borough issues an occupancy permit.
• Data centers must include roof-mounted solar panels to offset power needs.
• Data centers must include the latest technology in water conservation, including using closed-loop systems in order to reduce the demand for public water.
Betti pointed to potential noise issues when data centers use fans rather than water cooling.
“The conditional uses will address that kind of thing,” he said. “Basically that it’s safe, as quiet as possible and doesn’t interfere with residents’ daily lives.”
Betti also wants to ensure the construction of any data centers won’t impact residents.
As of now, Jessup will only hold a public hearing June 11, without voting on the proposed zoning amendment. The borough has to wait for the Lackawanna County Regional Planning Commission to complete its review of the ordinance before council can vote on it, Betti said. If the county finishes its review in time, council could vote that night, Betti said.
If council is able to vote on the legislation, the borough will advertise a special meeting, Tunis said.