READING., Pa. \u2013 Representatives from the Reading Planning Commission updated Reading City Council Monday night on the progress of a proposed zoning amendment to regulate data centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In July, council voted to adopt a resolution to invoke a curative amendment process, which declared the current zoning ordinance defective as it relates to data centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By doing so, the resolution gave the city 180 days to adopt regulations and amend its zoning ordinance. During that six-month period, no developer may submit an application for a data center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The proposed amendment suggests limiting data centers to the HM-Heavy Manufacturing and MC-Manufacturing Commercial zoning districts through a conditional use hearing before City Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s zoning currently does not address data centers, which means that prior to the curative amendment process, a developer could have placed a data center in any zoning district.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jerome Skrincosky, the city\u2019s planning consultant from Hawk Valley Associates, said the planning commission soon plans on forwarding the draft to the county planning commission, which is the next step in the process before it comes back to council for a public hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The highlights of the regulations are to place a setback of 500 feet from a preservation district for a standard data center and 1,000 feet for a major data center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition, the plan is to also apply setback provisions from residential districts and other sensitive uses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a generational zoning issue, and what I mean by that, the magnitude of this could be and is on the right track to be as an impactful use as telecommunication facilities were in the 1990s, and we all see how saw how that evolved,\u201d Skrincosky said. \u201cWe probably can’t anticipate how this technology will also evolve over time, so it’s going to be something that we’re going to have to adapt to and then make modifications as we see necessary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Skrincosky said it is important that the city\u2019s amendment will not be considered too restrictive, which would open the door to a developer being able to challenge the validity of the ordinance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Skrincosky said existing businesses outside the specified zoning districts could develop data centers on their campuses as an accessory use.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilmember Raymond Baker said it is an important topic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in a time unlike any other where people are caring nationally about zoning laws in a way that I’ve never seen,\u201d Baker said. \u201cData centers are at the tip of tongues, and everywhere from here to California and everything from local office to Senate races. So it’s an important topic, and I’m glad Reading is at the forefront.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Council President Donna Reed said she still has a lot of concerns about locating any data centers within the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI certainly want us to increase our revenue base and to do good things and provide jobs, but I am personally highly skeptical of data centers in an area like this where we have beautiful natural resources,\u201d Reed said. \u201cCertainly, if things come before us in council, I’m going to need to be highly convinced that this is the proper place for it. I know there’s options, but from a preservation standpoint from, I have concern for the health and quality of life of the citizens of this town.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING., Pa. \u2013 Representatives from the Reading Planning Commission updated Reading City Council Monday night on the progress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[106589,112750,2116,2716,48255,39316,128,1095,130,129,123823,1087,70750],"class_list":["post-300612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-county-planning-commission","tag-curative-amendment","tag-data-centers","tag-donna-reed","tag-jerome-skrincosky","tag-raymond-baker","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-council","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-readings-planning-commission","tag-zoning","tag-zoning-amendment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300612","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=300612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}