zoning map update<\/a> creating a \u201cData & Technology Overlay\u201d that limits data centers to the northwest corner of town in a wooded area north of Business Route 6 and west of Scott Road, or Route 347, extending to Blakely\u2019s borders with Dickson City and Scott Twp. The land is an S-2 zone, or an open space\/conservation district. Other intensive conditional uses in that S-2 zone include sanitary landfills, solid waste facilities and fracking. Unlike rezoning, an overlay district conditionally allows data centers on the land while retaining the underlying zoning designation.<\/p>\nResidents from West Mountain Road \u2014 a small street parallel to Route 347 and the closest homes to the data center overlay \u2014 attended Monday\u2019s hearing with concerns over the proximity to their homes, Paone said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried to put it in the best location for the entirety of the borough,\u201d he said. \u201cEven though it\u2019s closest to their homes, we feel that it\u2019s still going to give them enough of a buffer that it wouldn\u2019t affect them if someone was to build up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the conditions, Blakely requires that before council even considers a data center\u2019s conditional use request, developers must conduct environmental impact, health and sound\/noise studies at their expense with a qualified professional chosen at the discretion of the borough. The borough also regulates data centers on not just standard dBa noise requirements, but also dBc requirements, which are lower-frequency sounds below the threshold that humans can hear.<\/p>\n
Data centers are also limited to 40 feet tall, prohibited from using any type of on-site electrical generation and are required to be built on at least 20 acres.<\/p>\n
Other restrictions include that data centers must:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Be set back 300 feet from all property lines and road rights-of-way, 300 feet from any property line of residential parcels that aren\u2019t part of the project, and 200 feet from any body of water, watercourse or wetland.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Abide by all state and federal requirements, including submitting all environmental permitting and reports to the borough.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Receive electrical power from Blakely Borough Electric Light Company \u2014 unlike most municipalities, Blakely administers its own electricity \u2014 and reimburse the borough for all expenses required for the service, including engineering, site work, rate calculations and training.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Allow the borough to access the buildings and grounds at least four times a year for inspections, participate in any emergency management and fire training, and provide the borough\u2019s Fire Department with any required equipment such as foam or vehicles to extinguish a data center fire.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Provide letters from all applicable public utilities certifying the systems have the capacity to meet facility demands while maintaining the same levels of service for existing residents and businesses.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Strive to use technologies for water conservation, such as closed-loop or recirculation systems for cooling to reduce the demand for public water, including using stormwater.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Adhere to guidelines on fencing, lighting, vegetation and other aesthetic elements to reduce visual impact.<\/p>\n
If needed, council can impose additional conditions on a developer beyond what is in the ordinance, Paone said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of control that a municipality has by using conditional use,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re happy to finally get it on the books, and we can move forward now with regular everyday borough business.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Data centers are now strictly regulated in Blakely. Borough council unanimously voted Monday to adopt an ordinance amending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2118,2116,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":{"0":"post-38016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-blakely","9":"tag-data-centers","10":"tag-lackawanna-county","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-scranton","15":"tag-scranton-headlines","16":"tag-scranton-news","17":"tag-top-stories-stt"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38016","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=38016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}