zoning ordinance<\/a>
\nFull spectrum pre and post-construction sound study measured at the lot line<\/p>\nThe amendments also alter design standards, including increasing yard setbacks from a 20 feet foot to 80 foot minimum and buffer yards from 15 foot to 40 foot minimum This makes a setback for residential districts at 1,000 feet and changes building height limits to include rooftop structures within the 80 foot limit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Residents raise concerns about data centers<\/p>\n
Laurel Chuss, a Bethlehem resident, lives 200 feet from a proposed data center. She shared her concerns about the center being so close to her house in the public comment section of the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m heartbroken that regulation comes too late to protect my home,\u201d she said. \u201cNo family should have to choose between unexpectedly moving or experiencing the negative lifelong impacts of living too close to a data center. I ask you to please protect other families in Bethlehem from my family\u2019s current reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shelby Carr, also a Bethlehem resident, said she believes the city should enforce a ban on non-disclosure agreements for data centers.<\/p>\n
She also expressed the importance of community meetings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope it\u2019s not lost on you how desperately people don\u2019t want a data center in our community and while we can\u2019t outright ban them, we should be doing as much as we can to safeguard our community and its resources by crafting tough ordinances,\u201d Carr said.<\/p>\n
Resident Mike Pipestone said he would like to see more post-construction reporting done.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said if the city gives away all water and power generated in the city, all that\u2019s left is a smoking, intemperate mess, and that\u2019s not doing right by the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this room today, I\u2019ve heard all of our councilwomen show us the way forward with both courage and wisdom,\u201d Pipestone said\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said voting for this amendment is a starting point and emphasized the importance of participating in midterm elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Resident Bret Becker also voiced his concerns about the water usage of data centers.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s worried about his property value decreasing because of data centers being built in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBethlehem is preparing to allow one data center with no substantive guardrails,\u201d Chuss said. \u201cMore will follow. Three data centers using three million gallons of water and now you\u2019ve exceeded the water of Bethlehem steel with 300 jobs to show for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resident Michael Bianco recommended the council to experience a data center visit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said to stop data centers, development and fees can be made more expensive so it\u2019s not attractive to develop here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing I would say is to increase the fine because the purpose of a fine is to hit these people where it hurts for abusing our water, for abusing our land, for abusing our airspace and for abusing our communities,\u201d resident Christian Maldonado said.<\/p>\n
Council\u2019s response to the amendments<\/p>\n
Leon said there are currently no regulations on data centers in the city of Bethlehem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very much in support of (the amendments) for the main reason that it\u2019s currently, in our zoning ordinance, a wild west,\u201d Leon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Colleen Laird, vice president of the council, urged residents to contact state legislators and go to planning commission meetings where proposal decisions are made.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Laird said a vote in favor of this ordinance would place restrictions on data center development in the city and a vote against would leave an unregulated industry in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Hillary Kwiatek said she appreciates the tremendous amount of work that went into writing the amendments.She asked Fletcher if the amendments are legally defensible, and whether they establish impactful restrictions and requirements that don\u2019t currently exist in the ordinance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fletcher said she developed the amendments with the legal bureau and feels this is as far as they can go legally regarding data centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Jo Daniels said the ordinance needs to be reworked and residents applauded when she explained why.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not against developing, but this here, you just gave them a slam dunk,\u201d Daniels said. \u201cThe way it stands right now, the developers are holding the bag on this 100%. We can do better and I think this audience of people here that took time out of their evening expected better.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she appreciates the work, but the standards and community protections aren\u2019t strong enough. She also said\u00a0 there are more regulations that can be put in this ordinance and mentioned\u00a0 there are many communities in the U.S. who have \u201cbeautiful frameworks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniels said she\u2019s concerned data centers will get approved and their business and operations will change without annual studies being done to ensure they\u2019re maintaining requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSix months later, the business changes, the operations changed, they\u2019re using 50% more water and now my shower is at a trickle,\u201d Daniels said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilman Michael Col\u00f3n asked what an expected size of data centers would be accommodated by these amendments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fletcher said the answer would likely be small scale data centers, equivalent to one basketball court, and medium colocation, equivalent to two football fields.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Col\u00f3n also asked what enforcement looks like if developers get accepted and then later violate ordinance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
David Taylor, the city\u2019s zoning officer, said the city investigates complaints and gives a violation notice to the developer with 30 days to cease. If they don\u2019t cease, the case gets taken to civil court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilman Bryan Callahan said more research should be done to strengthen the amendments and residents applauded this idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI live here too on this planet with all of you and completely feel the same way about what\u2019s going on, but I want to make sure that we understand where the terms are and where our levers of power are and how we can plant a flag, draw a line where we can actually have an impact here locally,\u201d Kwiatek said.<\/p>\n
Next steps<\/p>\n
The next Bethlehem City Council meeting will be held on Oct. 20.<\/p>\n
Leon encourages residents to attend the planning commission meeting, where public comment and voting on the proposed data center at 2184 Industrial Drive will occur, on Nov. 12 at 5 p.m. in the Town Hall rotunda.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fight doesn\u2019t end here and I appreciate that you all have stuck around this long,\u201d Pipestone said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very long meeting.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents filled the seats and hallways of the town hall\u2019s rotunda for a nearly four-hour Bethlehem City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[8918,153,155,154,524,1197,4164,295],"class_list":["post-301760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-7-minute-read","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-community","tag-feature","tag-governance","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301760","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=301760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}