Months after receiving their first data center proposal, Ransom Twp. officials are updating zoning laws to address the rapidly growing industry.

The supervisors will hold a public hearing Tuesday on the ordinance, which includes regulations and requirements for data center development.

Under it, data centers would be allowed only as a conditional use, meaning they are required to meet certain conditions and receive township approval. The township’s general commercial/manufacturing and heavy manufacturing districts — along the southeastern part of the municipality at the Taylor border and in the southwestern part along the Susquehanna River, respectively — would have a maximum height of 40 feet and lot area of 8 acres.

Other requirements include:

• Setbacks of 400 feet from public roads and neighboring properties, with electrical substations required to be 800 feet from residential areas.

• Buildings visible from public roads or sensitive receptor properties must have variations in building materials, color, texture, architectural articulation and facade treatment.

• Data centers will be required to use public water where available and can’t use groundwater unless there are no other alternatives, withdrawing it won’t adversely affect existing customers, aquifers, streams, wetlands or ecosystems, and all state and federal approvals are obtained. Applicants are also required to submit a water study.

• Developers have to demonstrate that the project will use water-conserving cooling technology, including air-cooled and closed-loop cooling systems, and other technology that will protect water resources.

• An emergency response plan is required.

• The developer is required to decommission the data center upon abandoning it, discontinuing its operations, or if it reaches the end of its useful life, removing all buildings and structures, hazardous materials, construction materials, remediating any environmental contaminations and restoring the property to safe, stable and environmentally sound condition; the owner is also required to provide written notice to the township within 48 hours after permanently ceasing operations.

It also outlines requirements for buffering, fencing, wastewater management, air quality, odor, glare and emissions, battery and fuel storage, parking, noise and vibration, and lighting.

Under state law, municipalities are required to allow every type of lawful land use within their borders, or else face legal challenges over exclusionary zoning. This law is the focus of several legal challenges related to the supervisors’ dismissal in January of a zoning change that would have permitted data centers.

Scranton Materials LLC filed a curative amendment, which challenged the validity of the township’s zoning ordinance, in November that would have allowed the construction of six data centers, each with a 156,648-square-foot footprint, at its 251-acre quarry at 819 Newton Road. The board voted in January to dismiss the proposed changes due to lack of testimony and evidence from Scranton Materials.

The developer appealed the decision and filed a second lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment against the board earlier this year. The second lawsuit is ongoing.

A Lackawanna County judge ruled in July a Scranton woman can legally oppose the plans despite not living in Ransom Twp.

More recently, Mudiita Land Venture LLC, a Carbon County-based firm with a parent company in New Jersey, spent $2.4 million to purchase 528.6 acres south of Ransom Road and west of South Keyser Avenue in the township to build a hyperscale data center campus.

Ransom Twp. has not received any additional applications for data centers. Officials did not provide additional information on their decision to enact the ordinance or how it will affect the litigation with Scranton Materials.

Residents, opponent react

Lackawanna County has emerged as a hotbed of data center activity over the last year and a half, with more than a dozen proposed campuses in Lackawanna County.

Several Ransom Twp. residents reached this week said they believe the ordinance will provide protections against future data center development.

Ken Cruser, who has lived across from the entrance to Scranton Materials for 35 years, said the ordinance is overdue as data center developers propose projects in any municipality with high-voltage power lines running through them, such as Ransom Twp.

“I’m glad they did it,” he said. “I’m glad they’re letting the public know about it.”

While Cruser thinks the ordinance could have been approved prior to Scranton Materials’ filing an application, he said he’s glad the supervisors are addressing data centers now.

Longtime resident Sheri Lynn Brown — a member of the newly formed Lower Lackawanna Valley Citizens Alliance, which aims to protect communities from large-scale development — likes that the supervisors took their concerns into account when crafting the ordinance, and that it protects natural habitats, forests, animals, water and the township’s rural character. The requirement to have a decommissioning and emergency management plan, Brown added, is the best part because it ensures developers don’t leave anything environmentally hazardous behind if they shut down a data center, which other businesses have done in the past.

“This whole valley has seen, over and over again, especially with the mining and other industries coming in and then leaving, and then, you know, the residents are left to … pick up the pieces after that,” she said. “So a decommissioning plan is super important, and I think they’ve put a lot of work into that.”

Gary DiBileo, president of the Keyser Valley Neighborhood Association, who has been an outspoken opponent of data center development in Lackawanna County, said the association will continue to oppose data centers. Scranton Materials’ proposed facility would be located above the neighborhood in West Scranton, which has historically been prone to flooding.

“There is no question that the developers of data centers throughout Lackawanna County are moving at the speed of light in an effort to build them as soon as possible. Frankly, it’s hard to keep up with all the zoning maneuvering that’s taking place,” DiBileo, who is also the elected Lackawanna County controller, said. “But let’s be clear: Virtually nobody wants them here, especially without a health impact study being completed to assess what air and noise pollution data center generators will have on our well-being, not to mention our property values.

“The Keyser Valley Neighborhood Association group is looking out not only for ourselves in Keyser Valley, with our close proximity to Ransom and Newton townships, but all of Lackawanna County because our whole valley will breathe the same air.”

DiBileo said the neighborhood association, including attorney Laura McGarry, will continue to monitor and oppose data center development, including a three-year moratorium. He expressed thanks to Gov. Josh Shapiro for joining “the effort to slow down this invasion of Lackawanna County by data centers.”

The Ransom Twp. hearing will take place Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Municipal Building.