{"id":57971,"date":"2025-12-11T02:53:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/57971\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T02:53:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:53:06","slug":"mayfield-borough-passes-new-zoning-ordinance-aimed-to-proactively-regulate-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/57971\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayfield Borough passes new zoning ordinance aimed to proactively regulate data centers"},"content":{"rendered":"

MAYFIELD, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Over the past year, one thing has been made clear in Northeastern Pennsylvania: if data centers are mentioned on the agenda, the council room will fill.<\/p>\n

This was the case for Mayfield Borough, as members of council, including council president Diana Campbell, voted on what they call a proactive measure during Wednesday night\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our first step in protecting the health, safety and welfare of our residents. That\u2019s what zoning was put in place to do to begin with,\u201d said Campbell.<\/p>\n

In a unanimous vote, the council approved an ordinance that would heavily regulate data centers in the borough.<\/p>\n

Before the vote, the public was invited to comment, where Rev. Nathaniel Sorochka of St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral voiced his concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy couldn\u2019t the zoning board just rezone the lands so they can\u2019t allow these data centers to come in? We all know the negatives of them. They like to promote the positives of it, but the noise along would drive someone crazy, especially in a small town,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code<\/a>, municipalities must zone for various land uses and cannot outright ban them.<\/p>\n

Recognition of this law and communication with county officials sparked the creation of the new ordinance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to just say no data centers or no solar farms or no whatever it might be, but you can\u2019t do that according to state law. As an elected body, we abide by state laws. The power we do have as a local elected body is to regulate it and say where it can go and what it can look like,\u201d said Campbell.<\/p>\n

Campbell says the borough has not received any data center proposals, and the new ordinance is not an invitation for developers to propose centers in the area, but a set of regulations where the neighborhood was once vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Under the new ordinance, Campbell says a data center can be a conditional use in a C2 zone west of Business Route 6 in Mayfield Borough.<\/p>\n

Height, noise, and distance limits have also been set in the new ordinance, which can be viewed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MAYFIELD, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Over the past year, one thing has been made clear in Northeastern Pennsylvania:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-57971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-scranton","9":"tag-scranton-headlines","10":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57971","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=57971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}