Carbondale could become the next Lackawanna County community to proactively regulate data centers with a zoning ordinance that would allow nuclear reactor-powered facilities with special approval.\n<\/p>\n
Carbondale City Council will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 1 N. Main St., to consider an ordinance setting requirements for data centers, according to a public notice published Tuesday in The Times-Tribune. Carbondale has not received any applications for data centers, Mayor Michele Bannon said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is entirely proactive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The proposed ordinance would amend city zoning to define and regulate data centers, limiting them as special exceptions in Carbondale\u2019s light industrial, heavy industrial and interchange activity center districts.\n<\/p>\n
Carbondale is the second Upvalley community to address data centers, joining Mayfield<\/a>, which adopted its own data center legislation in December.<\/a><\/p>\n The ordinance does not approve or permit any data center projects \u2014 it only establishes the regulatory process and guidelines that they have to follow for approval. Municipalities in Pennsylvania are required to allow for every type of lawful land use somewhere within their borders, which means carving out zoning for data centers.<\/p>\n The ordinance defines data centers and accessory uses, backup generators, data center campuses, data center parks and small modular reactors, or SMRs.<\/p>\n According to the legislation, an SMR is:<\/p>\n \u201cA small nuclear fission reactor designed to be manufactured off-site and installed at a location to provide energy to buildings or commercial operations. SMR designs may include pressurized water, Generation IV, thermal-neutron, fast-neutron, molten-salt, and gas-cooled reactor models. An SMR must be fully licensed and permitted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and may only be considered by Special Exception approval.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Energy reports<\/a> SMRs are under licensing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and will likely be deployed in the late 2020s to early 2030s.\n<\/p>\n Lackawanna County communities are updating their zoning to address data centers, including Archbald<\/a>, Blakely<\/a>, Clifton Twp., Covington Twp.<\/a>, Dickson City<\/a> and Jessup<\/a>; other municipalities including Moosic<\/a> and Olyphant<\/a> are working to adopt data center legislation. Ransom Twp.<\/a> rejected a data center zoning amendment<\/a> last month that would have allowed a data center campus on Newton Road at the site of Scranton Materials LLC.\n<\/p>\n Municipalities have largely banned on-site power generation \u2014 aside from necessary backup generators \u2014 for data centers in their zoning ordinances. But, like Carbondale, Covington Twp. also provided for SMRs as special exceptions. A recently rejected settlement<\/a> agreement between Clifton Twp. and a data center developer looking to build a campus along Interstate 380 in Clifton and Covington townships included a stipulation<\/a> that had prohibited nuclear reactors or gas power plants on the site. The stipulation is no longer in effect.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Bannon said she doubts Carbondale would get an SMR, but city officials wanted to avoid technicalities.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that we want to allow it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to cover our bases.\u201d<\/p>\n The ordinance stipulates that on-site energy generation during normal operations \u2014 not backup generators \u2014 is a separate use and subject to applicable zoning regulations.\n<\/p>\n Carbondale\u2019s draft zoning ordinance is similar to Dickson City\u2019s newly adopted zoning standards, which borough council unanimously approved Thursday, by designating data centers as special exceptions. Other communities regulate data centers as conditional uses.<\/p>\n The conditional use and special exception processes are similar in that they require data center developers to abide by specific regulations on top of standard zoning requirements. Developers also have to attend a public hearing where they discuss their plans and residents have the opportunity to testify and ask questions. The central difference between conditional uses and special exceptions is which legislative body votes on the proposal. Conditional uses go before councils and township supervisors, whereas special exceptions are before zoning hearing boards.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s zoning amendment would make data centers special exceptions across light industrial, heavy industrial and interchange activity center zones in:<\/p>\n \u2022 Carbondale\u2019s southwest corner, continuing north along Brooklyn Street.\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Between Cottage Street and Gordon Avenue.\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Around North Scott Street, Apple Avenue, Clidco Drive and Dundaff Street.\n<\/p>\n \u2022 The industrial park surrounding Enterprise Drive.\n<\/p>\n So far, every data center proposal in Lackawanna County has followed the high-tension power lines strung across the valley. In Carbondale, those lines enter the city\u2019s northeast corner from Carbondale Twp., running across Carbondale\u2019s northern tier over Canaan Street and moving northwest across North Main Street and Enterprise Drive until crossing the Fell Twp. border.\n<\/p>\n Bannon noted most of the available locations are small, and larger lots are split between Carbondale and its neighbors in Carbondale Twp. and Fell Twp., which makes developing data centers there unattractive due to the logistics of navigating approvals from two municipalities instead of one.<\/p>\n \u201cThe city of Carbondale is very dense \u2014 there\u2019s not a lot of open area,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, I\u2019d rather make sure that our residents are secure and that we\u2019re proactive in that we\u2019re doing the best we can to serve them while at the same time being compliant with regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n The zoning ordinance also includes requirements to:<\/p>\n \u2022 Provide will-serve letters from a local water utility, sanitary sewer conveyance utility and electric utility if connected to the electric grid, confirming adequate capacity and service.<\/p>\n \u2022 Submit an analysis of raw water needs from either private or public sources; the city can request, at any time, a developer-funded water study by a company of Carbondale\u2019s choosing.<\/p>\n \u2022 Provide a water feasibility study to determine if there is an adequate supply, and to estimate the impact on wells within 1,000 feet of property lines.<\/p>\n \u2022 Conduct preliminary, interim and as-built sound studies six months after receiving an occupancy permit, as well as a vibrations study showing no vibrations beyond property lines.<\/p>\n \u2022 Submit an emergency response plan.<\/p>\n \u2022 Submit decommissioning plans addressing e-waste and hazardous materials.<\/p>\n The ordinance also has specific regulations for SMRs, including:<\/p>\n \u2022 Approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or a similar\/successor entity.<\/p>\n \u2022 Demonstration of a federally approved constructor and operator of the facility.<\/p>\n \u2022 Demonstration by the licensed operator and developer there is an adequate repository of nuclear fuel produced by the SMR with a federally licensed facility\/agency.<\/p>\n \u2022 Prohibiting processing or enrichment activity.<\/p>\n \u2022 Any temporary fuel storage, used for refueling or removed during refueling, will be disposed of in accordance with an NRC-approved plan.<\/p>\n \u2022 Before beginning construction, the operator must submit any required decommissioning plan, and if the NRC does not require one, then the operator must submit it to the city, ensuring the removal of all radioactive materials when it is no longer operational.<\/p>\n \u2022 Submit a safety plan complying with federal standards.<\/p>\n Although the ordinances have not yet gone into effect, Carbondale will eventually share land uses with its Upvalley neighbors as part of the Northern Lackawanna Planning Association, or NorLack \u2014 a zoning collaborative involving Carbondale, Carbondale Twp., Greenfield Twp., Jermyn and Mayfield.\n<\/p>\n Zoning collaboratives like NorLack require only one municipality to allow a land use, which means only one of the five towns will have to agree to accept data centers. If no town agrees to allow them, all five will have to allow them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carbondale could become the next Lackawanna County community to proactively regulate data centers with a zoning ordinance that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[3099,2116,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":{"0":"post-113417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-carbondale","9":"tag-data-centers","10":"tag-lackawanna-county","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-scranton","15":"tag-scranton-headlines","16":"tag-scranton-news","17":"tag-top-stories-stt"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}