Easton wants to join the growing list of Lehigh Valley communities aiming to be proactive when it comes to possible data-center development.
The city planning commission discussed the topic during its Wednesday night meeting. No action was taken.
Dwayne Tillman, Easton’s codes and planning director, said before the meeting that the city’s ordinance currently lists “data processing industries” as a use without specific requirements for such companies considering a site in the city.
While the city is mostly limited in space, there are various pockets near major highways available for developers to consider such facilities, according to officials.
Tillman said data processing facilities come in various sizes, from offices containing space for data processing to massive, warehouse-size buildings. Data centers are designed to house servers and network equipment for storing, processing and distributing large amounts of digital data, from artificial intelligence to consumer items like streaming services.
Communities can’t prohibit data centers, but the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code provides tools to regulate them through zoning laws and through subdivision and land use ordinances, known as SALDOs.
Still, approvals come from local municipalities, and that is why several communities, including Upper Macungie, South Whitehall, Palmer and Forks townships, have either drafted or are working on crafting ordinances that would regulate data centers.
Data centers are coming, hungry for space and resources. Is the Lehigh Valley ready?
Easton plans to enter the mix.
“What concerns me is yes, it’s too easy,” said commission member Hubert Etchison. “It would be too easy to get one through because it’s not regulated. And it needs to be right.”
Etchison said Easton’s current description for data center development provides the city with “very little protections.”
“So often, when we look at any of these projects, there’s sort of a blanket statement of minimal impact on the infrastructure,” Etchison said. “Well, this isn’t it. We’re talking about massive amounts of power. We’re talking about, frankly, some things that probably need to be thought about in terms of the possibility of water pollution.
“So we have to protect ourselves.”
Easton’s planning commission last month voted down plans for a 1-million-square-foot warehouse at the former Pfizer Pigments plant off Route 22 along the Easton-Wilson border. The developer, Scannell Properties, plans to appeal the vote either to Easton City Council or in court.
“We just went through this with the warehouse where, at the end of the day, the reality was they really never put together an environmental impact statement, not a real one,” Etchison said, shortly before the commission entered an “executive session” to discuss the developer’s court appeal of the commission’s decision.
Commission Chair Ken Greene said ordinances from other Valley communities give Easton officials a start on what items need to be considered when reviewing data facilities, including water and sewer use, power supply, emergency management procedures and parking. He said planning members should work soon on crafting more comprehensive language.
“Deliberation and discussion on this is fine, he said, “but unless we have an ordinance in place, we are bound by an applicant utilizing current standards.”
Other parts of the Lehigh Valley that sit near highways and have sufficient or abundant energy and water supplies, and areas of open spaces, could be prime locations for data centers.
St. Louis-based data-center company TierPoint last fall completed acquisition of a nine-building industrial park in western Upper Macungie Township that was once the world headquarters for AT&T Optoelectonics. TierPoint was already leasing a building at Tek Park for a data center, which the company said is its largest.
The eastern end of the Valley came close to having one at the proposed River Pointe Logistics Center development in Upper Mount Bethel Township, but negotiations with Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud computing wing, fell through last year for the site near Route 611 and Interstate 80.
A data center also is proposed at the former Air Products headquarters in Upper Macungie Township. The proposal would turn the former Air Products campus into a 2.6 million-square-foot data center. Plans were scheduled for township review in December but that has been delayed, and the project is expected to face stiff opposition from residents.
Amazon has committed $20 billion to build two data centers, one in Bucks County outside Philadelphia and another in Luzerne County near the Susquehanna nuclear power plant.
Contact Morning Call reporter Anthony Salamone at news@mcall.com.