LOWER MERION \u2013 Lower Merion Township is about to become the next municipality to consider zoning changes to regulate data centers.<\/p>\n
At its next building and planning committee meeting, Lower Merion officials are scheduled to discuss including a provision for data centers.<\/p>\n
In October, the township included a draft zoning amendment on its building and planning committee\u2019s monthly agenda. The committee did not discuss the zoning change, other than noting it would be discussed at the committee\u2019s November meeting.<\/p>\n
According to township officials, Lower Merion\u2019s zoning code does not currently define or specifically regulate data centers as a distinct land use.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistorically, facilities performing data processing and telecommunication functions were addressed as broader office, institutional, utility, or industrial use categories in the Zoning Code,\u201d according to a staff memo on the proposed changes. \u201cRecent advances in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure have resulted in the rapid growth of large-scale data centers that differ substantially from traditional office\/technology uses in their building size, electrical demand, cooling requirements, backup power systems, and operational impacts. As a result, an increasing number of municipalities across the Commonwealth are adopting definitions, zoning classifications, and performance standards specifically tailored to data centers and associated development.\u201d<\/p>\n
In October, Radnor Township introduced an ordinance to regulate data centers, restricting their locations to areas along Matsonford Road and King of Prussia Road. That same month, the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an ordinance regulating data centers as a conditional use within its Light Industrial district.<\/p>\n
Under the proposed Lower Merion zoning changes, the township would permit data centers as an industrial use by special exception in its light industrial district.<\/p>\n
According to information from Lower Merion, the regulations on data centers will include setbacks of at least 1,000 feet from any residential zoning district. The maximum height of a data center and any accessory uses, inclusive of any rooftop appurtenances, shall be limited to 60 feet in height. A minimum of five acres shall be required for any data center with more than 100,000 square feet of gross floor area.<\/p>\n
The light industrial area where new data centers would be allowed sits along the Schuylkill River adjacent to Interstate 76 near Righters Ferry Road. The area is just under 30 acres. The site includes properties such as the Royal Athena apartments, a hotel, and a fitness center. There\u2019s also a small 1.76-acre site along Righters Ferry Road on the opposite side of Interstate 76.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOWER MERION \u2013 Lower Merion Township is about to become the next municipality to consider zoning changes to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[182,183,185,184,186,139,28,729],"class_list":["post-324089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-local-news","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324089","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=324089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}