2401 Emmaus Ave. in south Allentown that calls for converting a vacant warehouse into a data center<\/a>. The building is next to homes, local businesses and a nonprofit that helps chronically and terminally ill children.<\/p>\nWhile City Council does not get a vote on whether the Emmaus Avenue data center can move forward, the proposal loomed large at Wednesday\u2019s meeting, as residents said they are firmly opposed to it, citing environmental and noise concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to be looking back in five years, 2033 or so, and now we\u2019ve got to clean this mess up. And this is in my neighborhood, but we\u2019re going to have to clean it. Right across the street from that data center, there is daycares, there is housing there,\u201d said Fred Marshall, a south Allentown resident. \u201cI mean, I don\u2019t even know why we\u2019re really talking about this in that area. I mean, there\u2019s some areas, I guess, these things could be in, not on Emmaus Avenue. That\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proposed zoning ordinance would allow data centers in two of the city\u2019s three \u201cindustrial\u201d zoning districts. Data centers also would be permitted by \u201cspecial exception\u201d only, which means that each proposal would receive a public hearing and vote by the city zoning hearing board.<\/p>\n
Under the ordinance, data centers would not be allowed within 75 feet of the right of way of a public street, or 200 feet of any residential, civic or childcare areas. The ordinance also would require robust landscaping around the perimeter, and thorough environmental, noise and waterway studies and reviews from the developer before any approval from the city.<\/p>\n
However, the ordinance, if it were to pass, would not apply to the Emmaus Avenue application, because it was submitted before the ordinance was introduced.<\/p>\n
City Planning Director Jennifer Gomez urged Council to pass the ordinance at Wednesday\u2019s meeting. Allentown\u2019s zoning code has no guidelines on data center construction, meaning there is widespread uncertainty about where such facilities could be built in in the city. Cities are legally required to allow all types of building uses within their borders, but their zoning codes can regulate where types of development are allowed.<\/p>\n
The ordinance has been in the works since earlier this year, and has been reviewed by the Allentown Environmental Advisory Commission, Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and Allentown Planning Commission.<\/p>\n
Several members of the public, however, said that the proposed data center regulations were too lenient, specifically criticizing the 200-foot buffer as insufficient. Advocates also called on the city to require, rather than just recommend, data centers use renewable energy sources, and to mandate studies on pollution, noise levels and other possible environmental nuisances both before and after data center construction.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo hundred feet is absolutely nothing,\u201d said Corinne Lalik, also a south Allentown resident.\n<\/p>\n
Organizers with Lehigh Valley Stands Up and their allies urged Council to enact a \u201cmunicipal curative amendment\u201d to the city\u2019s zoning ordinance, which they argued would give Allentown 180 days to amend and strengthen the proposed data center ordinance, while preventing data center developers from advancing their own applications in the meantime.<\/p>\n
Specifically, the amendment would allow the city to declare its zoning map \u201csubstantially invalid\u201d when it comes to data centers, because it does not address that type of facility at all in its code. The city would have 180 days to rectify this, and during that time developers would not be able to introduce their own amendments to address the gap in the zoning code.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ordinance truly is substantially invalid for data centers, and what actually would happen is if someone wanted to build one, they would have to come to you with a landowner curative amendment, and go through that process,\u201d said Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, an organizer with the advocacy group Food and Water Watch. \u201cThis is not an easy task, if you don\u2019t vote for this. What I\u2019m recommending is you deny this insufficient data center ordinance, and instead pass a resolution tonight to enact a municipal curative amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n
City staffers disagreed with that assessment. According to city zoning supervisor Mike Hanzo, since the city\u2019s zoning code does not specifically address data centers, they must evaluate such proposals as if they were the \u201cmost similar use\u201d that is defined in the zoning code, which, in the case of data centers, is industrial manufacturing.<\/p>\n
City Council will reconsider the ordinance at its June 17 meeting.<\/p>\n
Council members asked their solicitor, Maria Montero, to conduct a legal review before the meeting to determine the best way for the city to regulate data centers in the future, which could include enacting a municipal curative amendment.<\/p>\n
The Allentown Planning Commission will review the Emmaus Avenue data center plans at its regular meeting 12:15 p.m. June 9 at City Hall.<\/p>\n
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allentown City Council unanimously tabled an ordinance that would have regulated where data centers can go in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-211151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211151","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=211151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}