Nearly a year after they received their first data center proposal, Ransom Twp. officials are poised to adopt an ordinance regulating the facilities’ development.
Supervisors will vote Monday on an ordinance updating the township’s zoning laws to include requirements for data centers’ development, according to public notices and the agenda for the meeting.
The vote comes as the township is involved in litigation over its rejection earlier this year of a proposal by Scranton Materials LLC to construct a data center campus on the company’s Newton Road property.
The company in November filed for a curative amendment, challenging the validity of the township’s zoning ordinance, 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.
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. The law is the focus of several legal challenges related to the supervisors’ January dismissal of the zoning change.
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 that a Scranton woman can legally oppose the plans despite not living in Ransom Twp.
Officials have not said how the new ordinance would affect the litigation with Scranton Materials. Efforts to reach township Solicitor William Rinaldi about whether the ordinance would render the lawsuits moot were unsuccessful Friday.
The Pennsylvania Municipal Planning Code states that no zoning changes or other governing ordinance may adversely affect an existing land development application.
More recently, Mudiita Land Venture LLC, a Carbon County-based firm with a parent company in New Jersey, purchased 528.6 acres south of Ransom Road and west of South Keyser Avenue in the township to build a hyperscale data center campus.
There have been no other data centers proposed in the township, officials have said.
At public meetings on the ordinance, people have been receptive to the proposed law but worry about future development.
The ordinance says data centers would be allowed only in 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 — as a conditional use.
As a conditional use, the developer would need to meet specific criteria outlined in the ordinance and receive township approval. The board of supervisors would be required to render a written decision on the application within 45 days after the final hearing. Under state law, if a governing body fails to hold a public hearing within 60 days of the application being received, the decision is deemed in favor of the applicant.
The ordinance stipulates that data centers have a maximum height of 40 feet and lot area of 8 acres. Other requirements address buffering, fencing, wastewater management, air quality, odor, glare and emissions, battery and fuel storage, parking, noise and vibration, and lighting.