ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 A group of Allentown legislators are backing new regulations on data centers as officials throughout the region try to prepare their municipalities for an expected wave of proposals.<\/p>\n
Allentown City Council\u2019s Community and Economic Development Committee on Thursday recommended the full body approve legislation that would significantly limit where the facilities could open.<\/p>\n
If Bill 20 is passed as introduced, data centers would be restricted to the city\u2019s \u201cmost intense\u201d industrial zones, according city Planning Drector Jennifer Gomez.<\/p>\n
And facilities over 50,000 square feet \u2014 referred to as \u201chyperscale\u201d \u2014 would need to be on properties that cover at least 5 acres.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnvironmental protection is not separate from community. Wellbeing is a fundamental part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Ropski, chairman of Allentown’s Environmental Advisory Council<\/p>\n
There are only 36 parcels throughout the city that meet those criteria, and many of those already are being used, according to Allentown\u2019s Environmental Advisory Council.<\/p>\n
The proposed ordinance looks to define data centers to close a gap in the city\u2019s zoning ordinance. It also aims to establish a slew of details, including setbacks from other properties and maximum heights.<\/p>\n
Without zoning regulations specifically for data centers, a municipality could be forced to let those facilities open and operate under looser rules designed for other uses.<\/p>\n
Any data center would require approval by Allentown\u2019s Zoning Hearing Board, a measure that would ensure each proposal is open to public review.<\/p>\n
Each also would be reviewed by Allentown\u2019s Environmental Advisory Council, which helped Gomez\u2019s team craft parts of the ordinance.<\/p>\n
It aims to require developers to complete \u201cextensive studies\u201d of any proposed facility\u2019s water and electricity use, while also analyzing potential environmental impacts and issues caused by noise and vibrations the facilities generate, Gomez said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Kyle Ropski, who chairs the EAC, credited Gomez and her team for including provisions calling for robust reviews to \u201censure that impacts to residents, infrastructure and environmental resources are identified early and addressed appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEnvironmental protection is not separate from community,\u201d he said. \u201cWellbeing is a fundamental part of it.”<\/p>\n
Room to improve: Councilwoman<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach urged her colleagues to consider amending the ordinance before adopting it this month or soon after. She wants to strengthen the bill\u2019s noise and water-use provisions.<\/p>\n
Data centers use water to cool thousands of servers to prevent overheating. Large facilities can use up to 5 million gallons of water per day \u2014 as much as a city of about 50,000 people \u2014 according to a report by the Washington Post.<\/p>\n
Bill 20 should make \u201cwater-efficient cooling mandatory, not just \u2018strongly encouraged,\u2019\u201d as the legislation is currently written, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf something is \u2018strongly encouraged,\u2019 it won\u2019t be done,\u201d Gerlach said.<\/p>\n
Allentown is among about a dozen Lehigh Valley municipalities that have approved data center regulations or are considering them.<\/p>\n
Prologis is seeking permission to turn a million-square-foot warehouse into a data center. Allen Township supervisors unanimously approved those plans last month.<\/p>\n
Developers are proposing to build massive data centers in Upper Macungie and South Whitehall Township, but a warehouse in Allen Township could become the region\u2019s first hyperscale facility.<\/p>\n
Prologis wants to turn a million-square-foot warehouse into a data center, a plan that township supervisors unanimously approved in March.<\/p>\n
The facility at 2500 Liberty Drive sits about a half mile east of Northampton\u2019s border with the township.<\/p>\n
Residents of South Whitehall Township voiced their opposition to a proposed 5-million-square-foot data center near Parkland High School.<\/p>\n
CDE Acquisitions plans a massive campus with six data center facilities on space spanning 5.1 square feet \u2014 equivalent to more than 90 football fields \u2014 across the street from Parkland High School.<\/p>\n
Its plans also feature an electrical substation with emergency generators and more than 3 miles of new roadway.<\/p>\n
And Air Products is continuing its push to build a data center complex covering 2.6 million square feet at its former headquarters in Upper Macungie.<\/p>\n
Township officials are set to review the proposal May 27 after agreeing to postpone a public hearing as it was set to start in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 A group of Allentown legislators are backing new regulations on data centers as officials throughout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,2748,121,120,91793,91794,91795],"class_list":["post-208952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-city-council","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehigh-county-data-centers","tag-lehigh-valley-data-center","tag-parkland-data-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208952","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=208952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}