Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hello everybody out there in the audience. Glad you could make it. Um, I'd like to, uh, call to order the Chesterfield Township Planning Commission meeting on June 16th, 2026 at 7 PM. Um, if you would silence your phones, appreciate it. And I'd like to acknowledge, uh, Robert Siebert, Township attorney, Jonathan Palin, Township planner, Joe bomb a and Ava Miller from gifels Webster and That's it and if you would stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands Okay, I'm gonna call the roll here we have Rick LaBelle here Kathy Bosberg Richard broke art. Yeah, Brian Carr here Mark Renault Eric Heider and Carl Leonard is here and Alton James is a new member and he's excused tonight I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes from May 19 2026 I I'll support motion by Carl supported by Rick to approve the minutes from May 19th, 2026 all in favor. Opposed motion carries. Um, like to make a motion to approve the agenda as submitted or motion by Carl supported by Mark to approve the agenda as submitted. Any questions? All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Public comments? Sir, if you'd like to come up and... This would be anything that you want to talk about. It's not the agenda item. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got three minutes. Come on up, sign in, and state your name.

My name is Joe Katedge, live at 32825 Sutton. I'm here to get some answers, I guess. I've noticed what's going on in Lenox over the data centers. And I wanted to know, about two months ago, David Joseph was going to take on looking at what we could do or what we needed to not restrict data centers, but to make sure that they align with whatever standards we wanted in place. I've not heard anything back from him. Is there anything on the books that, if this data center applied for a permit, that you guys would have to look at? The air quality, distance from homes, anything like that, any type of building restrictions they have. Is there anything on the books? There's nothing.

We're still having outside meetings or people coming in, so we're still in the talking stage, but if something comes in, we're not aware of it until it shows up on an agenda. So I haven't heard anything. I don't believe anybody else has.

I guess my next question would be to Trustee Vosburgh. Lenox had a moratorium for a long time. They just lifted. And apparently there's something going through there and the whole community is up in arms ready to recall all of them. Do you not think it should be at this point where they're not ready for one to at least put a moratorium on for a building here as part of the township board meeting be up to them?

address that um if you stay there will be a discussion later in the agenda here after we discuss uh the village of apple grove site plan then there will be a discussion about data centers and some of that information that questions you've asked are going to be addressed in that so if you are able to stick around you can hear that at what meeting this one oh this meeting oh tonight

Thank you.

So you came at the right time. Okay.

The other one, about the same time, essentially there was a number of people that got rid of, there was going to be a car, a crash car resale lot at 25 and Gratiot that had been approved. People came back in, got the township to renege on it, had to go back to court. I've not heard the status of that. And I don't know if, to me, if it's still open, that's kind of a logical place for a data center to come in. Does anybody know what's going on with that property? Nope. Okay.

I can speak for myself, but I don't think anybody on this board knows unless there's somebody from the township that might know something, but haven't heard anything.

Okay. Okay.

Actually, I just did want to add that the item that you're talking about actually never was approved We actually this board actually denied it. I'm sorry that this board here actually denied that so that application I know they denied it, but then they had to go back to court, and I don't know yeah We haven't heard anything since then okay?

Oh Yep

There are no public hearings tonight, and we have one item a regular agenda and It's the village at Apple Grove site plan number 2026-06. RM2, 8.42 acres east side of Gratiot Avenue. No wood drive located to the north and south. Parcel ID number 15-09-30-251-047. The address is 48200 Gratiot. And with that, we'll have Avum Miller. run through the, uh, uh, butter. Thank you.

Thank you. So I'm going to look at our review letter dated May 21st, 2026. Uh, since this letter was written, the applicant has since submitted updated plan. So I'll address what has changed since then. Um, The applicant is proposing to construct nine buildings. Four of them are seven unit buildings, three, six unit buildings, and two five unit buildings for a total of 56 units. All units will have two bedrooms, a one car garage and a driveway townhouses are a permitted use in the RM two multiple family residential district. And the planning commission is tasked with reviewing the plans and deciding as to whether the site meets all zoning ordinance standards and their intent as applicable. Looking at the top of page 2, the site is currently vacant and is located on the east side of Gratiot Avenue with Nolwood Drive located to the north and south. The site was rezoned from C3 General Commercial to RM2 Multiple Family Residential in July of 2025. Scrolling down to the top of page 4, looking at the district standards at F1A, The space required between buildings when facing facades that have no windows or doors, the standard is 30 feet. And if there are no windows or doors on the side, then the buildings can be spaced 20 feet apart. The buildings to the east have a space of 20 feet between them in the plans. However, the building elevations show that there is a door on the left elevation of the buildings. The applicant stated in their response letter that the side access doors are dedicated exclusively to water meter rooms and will have no interior access. so the planning commission may wish to discuss whether this meets the intent of the ordinance whether the 20 foot buffer is adequate or if it should be 30 feet looking at f1c this one is in no case any building encroach any closer than 30 feet to a road drive or access lane the applicant has provided at least 30 feet since this was written so this is now compliant Looking on the top of page six at building surface materials and alteration, the applicant provided additional details for their building materials that should be found in your packets in a letter dated June 4th, 2026 with more specifications. The buildings are proposed to have a certainty asphalt roof with a 25-year warranty, Badger metal awnings, and Michigan Brick Company bricks and a Royal exterior portfolio vertical siding. All elevations have a brick impact barrier, which is compliant. The Planning Commission may wish to discuss the acceptability of these materials. And looking at item H, lighting, since this review was written, the applicant has added their photometric plan. They are proposing automatic light fixtures provided above each garage door amounting to 56 lights total that are mounted 9 feet high. Five lights are proposed on the side of the buildings 1, 4, 5, 6, and 9, mounted 16 feet high. And a floodlight is proposed at the proposed sign along Gratiot. Fault lights are not permitted in any zoning district and is not compliant. The applicant should also confirm that light will be maintained stationary and constant in intensity and color at all times and that there shall be no flashing, moving or intermittent type of lighting or illumination. The average illumination level permitted of lay in the ordinance is 0.8 foot candles for residential uses and the uniformity ratio should not exceed four to one. The calculations for the building front frontages and the sign exceed this average and is not compliant. Um, and I believe that is all that I need to address, but if there are any questions, I'll be happy to answer. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, is the applicant here tonight?

Anybody here from, uh, the village at Apple Grove? Mr. Chair, I don't see, uh, the applicant present. Uh, I'm not sure they were noticed of the meeting. Um, and we're aware, so I'm not sure why they're not here, but, um, don't see him tonight.

All right. Well, we'll do what we can. Um, I'm going to bring it back up to the board and, uh, we can start with Kathy Vosberg.

No questions at this time.

Eric, uh, The plan looked pretty good. The one question, does this fall under the category for our building facade requirements for materials on percentages or no? Or not as of yet? For facade. You know, with buildings with brick siding percentages, does this comply with those standards as of yet? Or does that fall in the same category?

Um, they did not provide those percentages for the building elevations for the building materials, if that's what you're asking.

Yes. Cause I think isn't, isn't it supposed to be brick of 75% on the facade?

Yes.

And I, it clearly does not. Um, so, um, I think that would be a question that we need to address other than that. Uh, I have no problem with the actual site itself, so.

Thank you. Um, rich.

question for Ava Miller. Ava, I didn't quite understand what you said at the end. You talked about, I thought you said signage and it was not compliant. Could you go back over that for me please? And where is it in the packet?

Um, so they had submitted their lighting plans after we wrote this review. So I was just providing a verbal update with the updated plans. They didn't have any photometric plans when we reviewed this. Um, And so my comment was not based on the sign itself, but they're proposing a floodlight at the sign along crash it. And so flood lighting is not permitted.

Was that part of the June 4th letter that they sent from learner surveying and consulting? Cause I don't see it in there.

Oh, let me find which, what the date is.

Does anyone else see that in the packet? Maybe I missed it in the packet.

I think 5-26-26 should be the updated date. I don't know if that was included.

It's not in there because that was actually one of my questions was I saw the detail on the signage. And I saw the landscaping around it, but it's actually not on any of the site plans. And I also don't see it on the photo metrics. Nothing along Gratiot, but I just, I didn't see any of the signage. So I was wondering where that was applicable. I mean, not because you're, that was actually just one of my comments, because again, they have the signage, then they have the landscaping detail around it, but it's not shown on any of the site plans or landscaping plans. So I was curious where that was as well. Because I, yeah.

Are you saying you don't have the updated plans?

Well, I'm just saying on the plan that I have, uh, I have the photometric, but I don't see where there's anything along, cause it's all zeros along Gratiot Avenue. Um, and then when you are in the plans on sheet D8 or is it 08, you'll see. the monument sign, and then you'll see the landscaping plan that goes around the monument sign, but when you go to the site plans, there are no monument signs shown anywhere on the plans. So I was wondering where that was applicable. Are they having multiple signs, one at each entrance? Are they having it all on grass? How many and where? To me, that's got to be clarified from a site perspective, but I know it's not my time.

Thank you, Brian. I guess my point would be I was ready to think this is a go, but now I'm confused. And if it wasn't part of the general packet provided us, um, maybe it should be next time. So unless I missed it, but if anyone sees it, okay. So it looks, you surprised me, Ava. That's all. Yeah, that's, that's not for me.

Mark.

Yeah, Rich took the same question I had, so good.

Brian? No, actually, I think from a site plan perspective, I think they checked all the boxes. Nothing really jumped out other than just the signage review. I think everything else was compliant from my perspective. So, yeah, so I have no issue other than that.

All right, thank you. Rick?

Back to the signage, I think that I would like to see where the sign is going to go, simply because we've got to make sure that we've got clear vision when we pull out that driveway. And secondly is, I didn't see it in here, what do they do about waste removal, garbage removal? There's no dumpsters. Is each individual home, is the garbage truck going to go in there and everybody's going to put a can out in front of their house? Or is it going to be, you know, a central location? That's my questions.

Thanks. And the chair has no additional questions. Um, so there was some, it was a question brought up about, uh, the siding, everything, everybody feels everything kind of addressed other than the lighting, the lighting.

Well, um, I'll entertain a motion.

Eva wants to add something.

The proposed sign I was talking about is found on Sheet 07. It labels, it has like an arrow showing proposed sign along Gratiot. I don't know, it's not on the actual site plan itself, Sheet 3, but I'll just say that that's where I saw that. On the landscaping plan on Sheet 7. It's amongst the trees, the frontage trees. It's not very easy to spot.

I don't know. But even with that, Ava, they still don't have the photometric. It doesn't show. Either way, we shouldn't have to guess. That's the biggest thing, right? Yeah.

It is on, like, on L201, the photometric plan, it is, it's not labeled, like, proposed sign, but there is.

Yeah, I think you're looking at where it says L3.

Yeah, the.

I see it. Yeah, no, I see it. But, again, when it comes to plans, we shouldn't have to interpret it, right? It should be clearly, you know, defining what they're looking for and, you know, it either meets or does not meet. Because even if you look at their foot candles, according to this, it says it only goes up one-tenth of a foot candle, which that doesn't make any sense. And then it's buried between trees. And then, again, the landscaping that they have around the light shown on that one sheet doesn't match because that landscaping is not shown on the site plan. So there's just a lot of, you know what I mean, there's just a lot of unknown, that's all.

Um, well, uh, what's the, uh, board's pleasure here. Somebody want to make a motion or do we want to table it for updated?

I'd like to recommend we table it until we get complete that the applicants not here to answer the questions.

I had a motion ready, but it's not ready now knowing that I think the applicant being here would have been, would have solved the problem.

Yeah, I support that.

Yeah. So you want to make it an official? Oh, you did.

All right.

So we have a motion by Mark Rudolph supported by Eric Heider to postpone, uh, the decision for the, uh, Apple Grove site plan two Oh two six zero dash zero six for up to our normal six meetings.

Give them a chance to six meetings. So what they need to do.

All right. Up to six meetings. All in favor. All right. Sure.

Can we, do we have a complete list of why it's being postponed and what information we want to get back?

Yeah, I think that's, we should be specific to what we're looking for when it comes back. Mark, did you want to add to that?

Yeah, we're looking for clarification on the signage and the lighting as well as the percentages of the building materials to make sure they're compliant. and waste management. So three items, lighting, signage, waste management and building material. So four, sorry, four items. Continued support.

We have a motion. We have support all in favor. I opposed. Motion carries. Um, Presentations, reports, and discussion. Appointment of officers.

Mr.

Chair? Yes.

The Commissioner should probably recognize that Mr. James is now present for the meeting as of 7-20.

Yeah, I was going to acknowledge him. He's going to move along the meeting, but welcome aboard. Glad to have you with us. So we have appointment of officers. Is that just for vice chair?

This would be for all officers. Chair, vice chair, and secretary. Okay.

Well, let's start with the secretary. Somebody want to nominate someone? Rick? I'll nominate Rick LaBelle. Did you nominate him? I'll second it. Hopefully Rick accepts. Okay. Okay. We have a motion to nominate Rick LaBelle, Secretary, to the Planning Commission. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion for the Chairman position, Mr. Carl Leonard.

He's physically here, but mentally he's not You know what I'll hang in there for a while sure I accept so we have a motion by Rick LaBelle supported by Kathy Bosberg to Nominate Carl Leonard as chairman of the Planning Commission all in favor aye opposed motion carries So we are looking for a vice chair Anybody want to volunteer?

I'll volunteer. I'll nominate.

Somebody want to second that? I'll second that. We have a motion by Rich Brokart, supported by Carl Leonard, Nominate mark renault as vice chair of the Planning Commission all in favor aye opposed motion carries Welcome I won't be here next week. No Got that. And we have a zoning ordinance discussion on a data center memo.

Mr. Chairman, tonight, you know, one of the big topics for these data centers has been on the noise they can produce. The planning commission has talked about that quite a bit. So we have retained Mr. Darren Brown from KNS Engineering. We did ask him to come here tonight. Him and I had a brief discussion on the phone. shared some good information. So I thought it'd be a good idea to start to have him come here tonight. Uh, kind of fill the planning commission on and some of the things to think about when it comes to the data centers. Uh, open it up for Q and a, if you have additional questions and then, um, maybe some recommendations on how we can incorporate that into, into our ordinances. So if Mr Brown's ready and can start that discussion,

There's a red button on the lower right corner if you push that, and we're ready when you are.

Sure, good evening. As I was introduced, I'm Darren Brown. My company is K&S Engineers. We are consultants in acoustics, noise, and vibration. One of the major topics we deal with on a regular basis is community noise issues. This could involve working with communities such as yourself, It could involve working with companies to get applications submitted to municipalities and getting them approved, making sure that they're following the rules, particularly when we're talking about noise and vibration. My history, I've studied engineering at Michigan Tech. Since then, I've been board certified by the Institute of Noise Control Engineers, and I'm also a licensed professional engineer in the state of Michigan. I have a number of years of experience. I've been doing this for the last 27 years. In the last two and a half years, I'm running my own company and all its challenges, but I'm here to answer any questions you might have, but when it comes to preparing noise ordinances, particularly when we're talking about the data centers, it's important to make sure that the ordinance doesn't just cover data centers. You know, it needs to cover all the aspects of what you're aiming to achieve within your community. So we can think about data centers and what that Brings to the community and what type of limits? We might want to approach that with there might be specific elements that you know, maybe apply to data centers But broadly when it comes to noise controls, there's various concerns and data centers are a lot like other industries It's industrial they have a lot of mechanical equipment other industries will also have a lot of mechanical equipment and Heavy industry there could be different types of noise sources Honestly, I'm not terribly familiar with all the industries that might exist here in Chesterfield Township but I'm looking to learn that and Use that information to help apply to your ordinance So if there are any specific questions, I would be happy to answer those I

Okay, thank you. Instead of going in order, I'm just going to leave it open, and whoever has a question, just go ahead and jump in. Any comments, questions?

Sure.

Thank you for coming this evening. Sure. I thought you were our new member. My question is, when I think of sound – actually, I have two questions. When I think of sound – we have a level of sound that we hear. Let's say it's 60 dB. A piece of equipment is producing 60 decibels of sound. If I bring another one online, and it's producing 60 decibels of sound, how much higher does the sound level go up? Or does it maintain, or is it the same 60 dB across the board? But because we're adding more and more and more of these, does that become more prominent? My second question is, what level is there noise and we don't hear it, but it's there and it's causing, causing disruption to our brain even though we can't hear it. Okay. Thank you.

Sure. Um, yeah, so there's, um, I think for a lot of people, we, we experienced sound on a daily basis. You know, we talk to each other, we hear cars go by, we hear mechanical equipment, the HVAC in this room, And so sound is something most everybody is familiar with. What we don't understand necessarily is the science of sound. So you ask the example, if you have two, and I'll say two identical noise sources, each producing 60 dB, and if they're located nominally in the same position away from the receiver, then the sum total of that sound pressure will be 63 dB. Okay? So it's... I'm sure you're familiar that sound is measured in a logarithmic scale that we call decibels. And the decibel is a ratio of sound pressure. So it's the physical sound pressure measured divided by what is understood to be the threshold of hearing. So it gives us a perspective of what we hear. And then there's a log equation that goes along with that. So if you have, say you have 10 pieces of equipment, the sound level will be 10 dB louder. If you have 100 pieces of equipment, the sound level will be 20 dB louder. So it's not necessarily intuitive, but if you do the math. But the reality is you're not gonna have 20 pieces of, or 10 pieces of equipment all located in the same position, particularly if we're talking about a data center. For example, some data centers will, they have a lot of cooling equipment. So on the roof they might have a series of chillers. One of the projects I'm working on right now for Lyon Township, reviewing an application there, Um, very big data center, you know, on, on a given building, they might have 80 chiller units, but they're spread out, you know, from one end of the building to the other. So the chiller units that are, you know, at the far end of the building, um, you're not going to hear as loudly as the chillers that are near the close down.

Sure.

How many did you say eight or 80, 80, eight, zero, eight, zero. Gotcha. Yeah. Um, So that's just an example. So as far as how we hear sound, in general, what you hear or what you feel is what you experience. Some people are concerned about low frequency sounds that maybe we don't hear, but they think that maybe it affects us internally. And I'll say that it's possible. But generally, noise has to be loud enough that you can hear or feel it to cause issues with your body. Now, there's a little bit different scenario when we call for ultrasonic sound, so sound that's above 20,000 hertz. So between roughly 20,000 and 30,000, there are frequencies that we don't hear directly. But our ear kind of is a little bit sensitive to them enough that if you're working in an environment that has ultrasonic type sound, potentially that can cause headaches, just kind of some mental disruption. there's actually new standards coming down the line for that but it's still something that's kind of new and that primarily comes into play for work environments that's not an issue for community noise that high-frequency noise doesn't travel very far it's very easily interrupted very easily controlled it usually dies in the air just from what we call air absorption. So usually it's people working close to that type of equipment. So physiologically, we have methods, standards that we can implement. Using A-weighted sound is the most common metric of sound measurement that we use. We can also use C-weighted sound, which is more sensitive to low frequency noise. So because of the shape of our ears, the design of our middle ear and our inner ear, we don't hear all sound equally. So different frequencies of sound, such as low frequency sounds, we don't hear very well. In fact, where we hear sound the best is right around 1,000 to 3,000 hertz. And coincidentally, this is also the location where a baby cries. Higher frequencies, we tend to be also a little bit less sensitive. So the A-weighting filter emulates the way we hear sound. There are some other situations where I was working on a music venue in Hamlin Township, Michigan. And because, and I'm sure people are familiar, when you hear music, particularly at a concert or somebody who has it loud in their car, most of what you hear is the bass. The thump, thump, thump of the rhythmic bass. And so this was causing a problem in Hamlin township. And so in addition to a a weighted limit, we added a C weighted limit that helped limit the amount of low frequency noise that could be produced. Um, because not only, um, does low frequency noise, it can be annoying. Um, it also penetrates into homes more easily. So the high frequencies will be blocked, and the low frequency noise tends not to be blocked. So when we structure an ordinance noise limit, that's one of the elements we consider, is that not just what you hear outside, but what might people hear inside their homes.

Just, I'm sorry, one more question. Sure. Is anybody considering or using any kind of noise canceling equipment to deviate or to eliminate this issue?

Sure. And that's a very interesting question. Active noise control can be a very effective tool. However, it tends to only be truly effective in limited spaces. So if it's inside a room, if it's inside a ductwork, it tends to work very well. Where it doesn't work well is in outdoor environments. Unless you have a situation where you have a noise source traveling in one direction bothering one individual or a series of individuals in one direction, because that's kind of the way it works, is you have one microphone that picks up the signal sends it to a processor. Then there's a speaker that creates the inverse, essentially, of that noise signal to cancel it out. But then there's a receiving microphone that kind of measures that response and maybe makes adjustments as necessary. And if you can imagine that, you kind of have a linear situation there. You have the sound coming in one direction, a vector, and then you're trying to make a counter sound in an opposing vector. And so you measure that in a linear fashion. Now, yeah, you could do it in multiple directions with multiple loudspeakers. But what happens is, in that situation, where the speakers have directivity patterns that overlap, you could actually make the sound worse. So it's not typically used in environmental noise control. Sure.

Anyone else have any questions?

I've got a few questions.

Sure.

First off, thank you for being here tonight. Sure. Got tons of questions when it comes to this subject. Let me hit you with four.

Okay.

Okay. So the low frequency sound effect, you started by talking about low frequency, right? And is it true that we, we don't know the effect of the low frequency sounds?

There is some documented effect of low frequency sounds, but in general, so it's commonly, Our ear generally hears sound between 20 hertz and 20,000 hertz. Below 20 hertz, however, different parts of our body can react to low frequency sound. But we do have an understanding of the sensitivity of the human body in those low frequency sounds. And generally, most sources of noise don't approach that, particularly I'll say most mechanical equipment, not necessarily all. Generators might be an exception to that, and that can be a concern for data centers. But the sensitivity to that we understand reasonably well. Is it possible to come up with a low frequency, like something different than A or C? Yeah, it's possible. There are some European countries that are... utilizing some low frequency noise limits that measure from 12 hertz up to 125 hertz. Um, I don't know how well those standards have been tested. Um, there is not a lot of supporting evidence that gives me comfort in using that type of metric.

Okay. We I've been thinking a ton about, you know, a data center goes up. It's a half a mile away. There's noise being generated.

Yeah.

And I keep I keep thinking, well, what are the neighbors going to hear? What are the what about the pets? Because animals have a different. receptivity, I would think to the, to the noise.

Sure.

I mean, just because we can't hear it, no one's going to want their dog freaking out 24 seven, three 65 for 25 years.

Sure.

And that's how long these things go uninterrupted. Their uptime is 99.9%. So a lot of our ordinances are written around the time of day. If it's, you know, if it's five o'clock and there's a lot of traffic, we may have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to the sound level. That's acceptable. Because we know in a couple hours it's going to go away.

Right.

In this instance, there's a noise source producing a constant frequency. I would think it's constant. Forever. And just because we don't hear it doesn't mean we shouldn't understand how it's going to affect people's pets, for instance.

Sure.

So what frequency range should we be even thinking about?

So I'm going to say the frequency range we should focus on is 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz. And the reason I say this is because when you focus on what we call the audible range, the recognized audible range of what most equipment produces, by limiting the values of that, you're also going to limit the low frequency noise. okay so if you say a generator can only produce so much noise either they've got a choice they have to enclose it they have to locate it somewhere where it's going to create less impact Um, certainly they're going to limit the operation cause they're expensive to run, but they need them there just in case the power goes out. Um, they need to run them occasionally, uh, in a duty cycle to make sure that the maintenance is maintained. Um, but let me, let me use another example. So I don't know if any of you live near an expressway. Expressways produce a lot of low frequency sound that we don't hear. And you're right. That's variable. Starts at 5, 6 o'clock in the morning and ends 8, 9. And it doesn't really end. It just changes its level. Data centers are going to be similar. The sound level is not going to be constant. Now, it's going to be more constant than a freeway. But At least from a day-to-day basis, the primary noise source from data centers is the cooling equipment. And the load on that cooling equipment changes between daytime and nighttime. So during the day, in the summer, it's hot outside, so the equipment has to work harder to cool. People are on their computers more, so the access to the data center is a higher load. So the cooling equipment works harder during the day at nighttime the cooling equipment. It's it's lower temperatures sun goes down There's probably less data being exchanged on the data centers. There's still data being exchanged of course backups happening or you know, whatever Other You know data is being exchanged but the load tends to be lower and So from the use standpoint and from the environmental standpoint, the load on the Chilean equipment is lower. So there is fluctuation in sound level.

Thank you for that. I wasn't thinking like that. Sound mitigation techniques. What should we be looking at? And my concern is, okay, everybody's happy a data center moved in. You live two blocks away.

Mm-hmm.

In the summer, the trees have a bunch of leaves. You've got all kinds of stuff perhaps knocking down these waves or at least changing the waves. In the winter, the leaves are gone. It's louder in my mind. You can hear it more. What techniques could we think about to help mitigate the neighborhoods surrounding this data center so that they're not bothered by the noise generated?

So I'm gonna answer this in two different ways. The first way I'm gonna answer this is I'm gonna say your primary tool to mitigate sound is to create a good ordinance that the data center has to follow. So it's not up to the township to determine how they're gonna quiet their noise. It's up to you to make sure they know what the rules are and that they do comply with the noise. Whether they decide to put noise controls on the equipment itself, on the building, or around the building is up to them. There are multiple ways that they can control the noise. Now to answer your question about difference between day or night or summer or winter, trees don't make a lot of difference. In fact sometimes help me understand that I'm gonna in fact sometimes trees with leaves on them can make sound conditions worse And my example on that is I was making measurements in a residential neighborhood along Telegraph Road over in the South field area and There was between the neighborhood and the road was large deciduous trees. The canopy on these trees was high. And what it did is it created an understory that was cooler than the upper story. And so what that did is it creates something called the temperature inversion. Normally, air temperatures are warm near the earth. and cooler as you go up in elevation. But when the air is cooler at the earth, we call that a temperature inversion. And what happens is sound tends to get channeled in temperature inversion. So kind of in that wooded setting or over lakes, you tend to have these temperature inversions and it carries sound further than it would normally if you didn't have the temperature inversion.

Last question for me and I'll give my friends here a chance to dive in.

But just to kind of follow up a little bit more on that, unless you have very dense foliage and very dense foliage that has a lot of distance to it, it doesn't really change the sound level. It might change how the sound sounds because high frequencies tend to fall off first, but the high frequencies don't dictate a lot of what the sound level is. unless the foliage is very dense and very deep, we don't consider it a noise barrier.

Last question deals with vibration.

Okay.

How do we measure that?

There are different ways. I think for an ordinance, you know, certainly the way we measure it is, you know, we can come in with measuring equipment and accelerometers and we can put the accelerometer in the ground or we can put the accelerometer, somebody's house and we can make a measurement determine what the vibration level is but for practical applications particularly when it comes to ordinance the best way to kind of assess a vibration is what people feel okay if people aren't feeling it it's probably not that important if people are feeling it it's important Building structures don't get harmed by vibration necessarily that people are just able to feel. It takes a much heavier vibration to damage buildings.

It's tough for me to, if you can feel it, if I can feel it, okay, I know it's there.

Okay.

So just because I don't feel it doesn't mean it's not there. Right. People could feel it. Other people could think they feel it. It's so subjective. It can be subjective. Would make me nuts. But right. Looking for a gizmo I can hold in my arm and my aunt and say, Oh yeah, vibration.

So, so the way we tend to write this into ordinances is we say, um, Vibration at the receiving property shall not be perceptible. And there is a standard, an ISO, International Standards Organization standard, that provides human perception of vibration levels. So when we say perceptible vibration, for engineers in the noise control community, they're like, then I'm going to be referencing these ISO curves or something very similar. And there's a couple out there, but the ISO curves are kind of like what most noise control engineers look at.

That's good. Thank you.

Sure. I think I have what should be two simple questions, and it builds a little bit on what you were just saying. One, Is decibel the correct measurement that we should be measuring, or should we look at potentially octave, go down to the octave levels? Okay. And then additionally, what we tend to struggle with from time to time here is how we measure or where we measure. Should we be doing that at the property lines, at the nearest buildings? What would be your recommendation in those situations? Sure.

So decibel, like I said, is this logarithmic. ratio of the actual sound pressure level over top of the reference sound pressure level of her hearing. And it doesn't matter what frequency it's at, as long as it's in the range of 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz. When we measure overall sound levels such as a DBA overall sound level, a DBC overall sound level, it's including all those frequencies. And whatever noise is happening in any of what you might call the octave bands or any frequency bands gets summed up together to create that overall level. So yes, I mean, if you wanted, you could come up with a octave band sound level limit, but that tends to be more cumbersome, more difficult to work with. It's easier and more practical to use DBA levels and DBC levels because it covers all those frequencies already.

And then, again, from a measuring perspective, what would you recommend?

Yeah, so what I typically recommend is that any location on a receiving property can be measured for, you know, meeting the criteria. If somebody owns a piece of property, that property should be protected. So whether it's at the property line, you know, in the middle of their backyard, the middle of their front yard, you know, maybe it's up at elevation outside one of their windows. They have a two-story home. They feel like noise is coming into their house. You might want to measure the sound level up at that second-story elevation to make sure that the noise isn't too high at that level. And I think that's fair. It's the sound that people are being subjected to in their home. Some ordinances say the property limit is set at the boundary of the location of which the sound is created. Okay. To some degree that makes sense as well. However, there's a lot of situations where you might have a piece of property and one of their boundaries, it butts up to a roadway. or it's some sort of utility easement and nobody's on the property. So what's the point of implementing noise controls where nobody's really present? The goal is to control noise so people are made safe or they're made comfortable, protect people's property. So I favor having it on the receiving property wherever that is.

That's what I was looking for. Thank you. Appreciate it. Sure.

Anyone else?

Thank you. Apologies. Going back to Mark's question in the sense of asking about our perception of it, we have LUFS, LKFS in terms of measuring our human perception of how loud something is. Is that something that you're measuring? Are you only using an SPL meter between measuring A-weighted versus C-weighted? How are you determining our human perception of loudness when it comes to those various frequency bands that we're talking about?

So like I mentioned, whether it's A-weighted or C-weighted, those kind of address two different aspects of how we perceive sound. So the The A-weighting filter describes the frequency range and how we hear it. A C-weighted measurement kind of extends that a little bit lower to some degree. So for example, we might recommend that a daytime noise limit for residential properties is 60 dBA and 75 dBc. So they have two different things we're looking at. One, the A, just kind of the general broadband A-weighted noise. But then the C-weighted, it's going to be more focused on the low frequency end of what we're hearing. So when we talk about perception, those two scales cover a lot of what we're perceiving. Now if you're talking about time weighting of how reactive a sound level meter is, That could be a little bit different. It depends on the type of measurement we're going to take. Are we going to take instantaneous maximum sound levels? A lot of ordinances are based on maximum sound levels. And sometimes that's important. For data centers, it's not really important because the sound tends to be it doesn't vary a whole lot. So whether we take an average sound level or we take an instantaneous sound level, we're going to get very similar values. If you're measuring cars passing by on a roadway, if you take an average sound level measurement over a period of a minute or five minutes or 10 minutes, that level is going to be a lot different than if you took an instantaneous sound level measurement right when the car passed by. There's going to be 20 dB different probably. So I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but did that help?

Yeah, I'm familiar with SPL meters, and I know from a human perception, obviously we perceive higher frequencies as louder than they are compared to lower frequencies, so... that measurement would be like an LUFS or LKFS. I don't mean to get technical with it, but I'm speaking the same language as you.

So you're measuring, or you're talking about LUFS?

Yeah. So I... You typically see that more on the music audio side in terms of the perception of how loud...

Okay, I'm not sure what the U is, but the L is the level. The F would tend to be a fast response.

We could table that for another discussion. Sure, that's fine. But the other question I wanted to ask was more about resonant frequencies. I know that several people have had questions about particularly lower frequencies, and even though that obviously they're out of our human perception, what those lower frequencies could do from a resonant frequency standpoint in terms of infrastructure. So could sound that is at imperceptible levels for us that are lower frequencies have an impact on infrastructure, particularly underground or things of that nature?

Yeah, typically not. If we can't hear it, you know, the infrastructure is more robust than we tend to be. So if we can't hear it or if it's below the limits we recognize, the sound is not going to adversely affect infrastructure. Thank you.

Appreciate it. You're welcome. Good questions. I was going to ask that myself, but you got there. Kathy?

Thank you. Thank you for being here. Sure. If I understood you a while back, you had said that our ordinance would have a certain noise level or noise tolerance. I'm not sure the terminology, but it's up to the applicant or the business to be able to keep their noise.

Correct. You make the rules and they got to follow them.

Right. Yep. So are there any noises that can't be reduced?

What do you mean?

I don't know. It's up to them to, to, so, so they can't find a way to do it. So then they just can't do it.

They can't do it.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. You make the rules and if they can't comply with the rules, then they can't build it.

Okay. And then, um, are there, and now that you've been doing, I don't know if you've been doing more related to, um, our um data center questions here but are there any existing noises that could become problematic if with other businesses if we did change our ordinance that's that's a very good question um so yeah if we change the ordinance what other businesses could be affected uh so

Typically we do this in kind of a couple of steps. We can set up an ordinance with noise limits that are commonly recognized noise limits. Back in the 1970s, the US EPA compiled a lot of information and data regarding sound in the community. They were primarily focusing on traffic noise, but they also looked at industrial noise and some other aspects or sources of noise. And what they determined is that And I'm going to throw a new term here at you guys, and I'm going to challenge you a little bit to understand it. But what they determined is that a DNL sound level of 55 dBA was adequate and very protective. And they said with a large margin of error to protect people's well-being when it comes to sound. Now, the DNL... We call that a day-night sound level. And what that is, is it takes a daytime average of sound, and it takes a nighttime average of sound, and it combines those two numbers together, but the nighttime sound levels are, they're penalized, so to speak. We add 10 dB to that, and then we combine an average to come up with what we call a DNL, a day-night sound level average. And so you can think of it this way, is that if the daytime level averages 55 dB and the nighttime level averages 45 dB, then that should be acceptable in almost all applications, all environments. Areas where it may be a little bit less acceptable is in very rural communities where sound levels tend to be much lower on average. If you look at a farming community, you have somebody working the field, it's going to be noisy. But that's maybe a few times a year, not every day. So a lot of noise ordinances reflect that. And they say, we want something similar. But if we're doing maximum sound levels, maybe we don't want a 55 dB maximum. Maybe it's a 60 dB maximum with a nighttime level that's 10 dB lower. say 50 maybe 45 but there's other things we can do to help be protective as well like you can add penalties if the noise is tonal you know a lot of mechanical equipment tends to be tonal so you might want to penalize that because tones tend to be more annoying maybe there's impacting like impulsive type noises like a hammer hitting an anvil you know a machine press that's stamping out parts has an impulse noise effect. You might want to penalize that as well. So hopefully I answered your question.

And more. Thank you. My last one is while you're out doing all of this research measurements for communities and stuff, is there anything else besides the sound thing that you're thinking to yourself, you know, they want all this information, but boy, if I were doing this, I would also measure for some, is there something else? Anything else?

I'm not asking you to, outside of your expertise. Right, I focus on my expertise, the sound and vibration, just as an example, kind of related to what you're saying. Kind of to help the situation, we might recommend a certain setback that either the building or equipment has to be from residential properties. And that relates to sound in the sense that the further you can get a noise source from a receiving property, the lower sound level it's likely to be. They still have to comply with the limits either way, but buffer spaces can also help.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Anyone else? Eric?

Expanding on the question on the DNL between day and night and details on that credit. What about hot and cold or winter and summer? Does that change the decibel levels in relationship to penalizing nighttime compared to daytime on sound. Does the winter-summer relation on sound, does that change something on an average between the D and L?

Generally, it doesn't change the level, but it changes our perception. And the reason it changes our perception is because during the summer, there's more activity going on. So it tends to mask other sources of noise we generally don't hear. For example, even in rural environments, insect and bird noise are really big. You know, that's present essentially, you know, maybe from May, you know, through to beginning of October. But then during the winter months, that sound doesn't exist anymore. So a nearby industry, maybe a data center or the solar panel firms, whatever noise they're producing might seem louder in the winter because you don't have these other sources of noise they kind of mask it to a degree. You know, there's a perception. It's like light and dark. You know, when it's light outside, you can see a lot, but when it's dark, you don't see much unless you shine a light on it. And then when you shine a light on it, you know, that's your focus. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

Okay.

You all set, Eric?

Yeah. Thank you, sir.

Anyone else? Sure.

Just from your experience and what your professional recommendation would be, if you had to say conservatively how far away a data center should be based on typical noise levels and air absorption over time, how far away should a data center be from any type of other properties? I'm going to include residential and commercial.

I appreciate saying residential and commercial. I'm going to limit it to residential, however. And the reason for that is commercial properties can tolerate higher sound levels. People don't tend to be at commercial properties 24 hours a day. They don't tend to sleep in commercial properties. So they're less sensitive uses. Now, that being said, you know, You could define certain properties as noise sensitive, like a nursing home. People are living there. They're rehabilitating there or enjoying their last days there. So you might even have more stringent standards for noise sensitive spaces, which, like I said, could be schools, could be churches, could be hospitals, the like. But as far as an advised distance, You know, I would say a minimum, a 500-foot setback I think is a reasonable value. Is it enough? It depends. You know, is it too much? It depends. You know, how big is the data center? What type of data center is it? Are we talking a hyperscale data center that's gonna be leasing space to Google or Amazon or Microsoft? Or are we talking about a data center that Ford is using to just do some of their own personal business data storage? The scales are different. The noise is different. A data center for Ford is likely gonna be smaller. So scale matters, the amount of equipment matters, where the equipment is located matters. A lot of data centers might not have, well I shouldn't say a lot, but a few data centers might not have generators, which can make a big difference. But one of the things I would like you guys to think about, and this is something I work on with the planning consultants, But one of the issues could be is generators tend to be the loudest source of noise for data centers. They have to do duty cycles, which would be mandated during daytime hours, likely when ambient sound levels tend to be the highest, if possible. But when you have a power outage, what happens? do those generators still need to comply with the noise ordinance or do we understand that it's an emergency situation that only happens once in a great while and that there's some grace there that maybe they still only have to comply with the daytime levels, not the nighttime levels. So just food for thought.

If I could follow up really quickly. The reason why I asked specifically about residential and commercial is I'm thinking about people going crazy while they're at work, you know, hearing some type of ambient sound. But I guess to make it easier, and I understand it depends on the size of the facility and how loud it would be, I guess, per... unit of distance or size but just like if you had to have a gut reaction of if this was you how comfortable would you be in terms of distance away from your house or your subdivision if you just had to make like a gut call and say hey I'd be comfortable if this was a thousand feet away or fifteen hundred feet away is there like a gut number that you'd probably have

I don't necessarily have a gut number. Like I said, there's a lot of factors involved. Um, my, in my primary concern would be the noise limits and that they follow the noise limits. Sure.

I have a question based on what was just talked about. So we're talking about this distance. Um, how far does sound travel before it loses its,

call it strength sure yeah so when we're in the outside environment and if we think about a point source you know a single unit like an air conditioning unit or a chiller unit the sound energy expands and as the sound energy expands the intensity or the sound pressure level gets lower and we call that geometric divergence So as you move away, the sound level gets lower. But real world environments, not all the sound frequencies, like low frequency sound versus high frequency sounds, they don't dissipate at the same rate. I mentioned air absorption. So just high frequency noises moving through the air, they get absorbed by the molecules of air themselves. If it's very humid, they get absorbed less because it's a denser medium. If there's less moisture, like winter time, they'll be absorbed more quickly. Medium frequencies, like around 1,000 hertz, they get interfered with by buildings or other elements. They might be absorbed, grass, soft ground will absorb sound, so if a noise source is on a plane of grass and the receivers on a plane of grass, you're going to benefit from sound absorption on the earth in both locations. But with a data center, they typically have rocks or pavement. So you have a reflecting surface at the data center wherein you might have a sound absorbing Surface near the receiver so that's going to affect how the sound travels low frequency sounds Say 80 Hertz 60 Hertz the wavelengths are very very long And it's hard for objects or even the ground to absorb those frequencies, so they tend to travel the furthest But distance does Yes. Yeah. Regardless of their way, the less intense it would be. Yep. The geometric divergence is still happening regardless of the frequency. So that's like one element. So yes, as you move away.

So would that be beneficial if a community was dealing with the data center, taking into consideration the size of it, the surrounding areas and how far away, I mean, I don't even know. I create an ordinance that would blanket different scenarios, but, Would that be a benefit to say, well, you know. Sure, I mean. To lower the sound intensity so we move it further away. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's a solution.

And there's a way to measure that to.

Yeah, so here's another aspect of what we'll recommend in the ordinance is that when somebody comes and proposes a data center Or some other business that you think you know that sounds kind of noisy You know we want you to do a sound study, and maybe it's mandatory that you know You know all businesses or all industry has to do a sound study With information of the equipment they're going to use most manufacturers are produce what we call sound power data. And that is essentially the amount of sound energy that a device produces. From that information, we can put that into a model that is constructed. It's essentially a CAD type model where we will reconstruct the environment in which it's gonna be replaced. We can put in receiver positions, we can put in buildings, whatever, and we can predict how that sound is going to propagate from the source out to receivers or to the community. So that's one of your tools that's going to help you assess whether a data center is going to be acceptable or not. You're going to require them to do a sound study when they introduce their application. And that will give you another element that you can judge, OK, is this going to be OK? Is it going to meet the ordinance noise limits, or is it not? Sure.

Anyone else? Sure. Because we're putting you on the spot, asking for your opinion. I kind of have a DBA and a DBC level in mind.

Okay.

Um, daytime 50, nighttime 40. And then for DBC 60 across the board, is that reasonable or is that just, I would say that's much, much too restrictive. Well, that's what I like.

Yeah. And, and you know, we like the sound of, you know, having these really restrictive limits that help us make our environment more palatable. But sound happens. And not that I'm saying data centers aren't a problem, but what I will say is uncontrolled data centers are the problem. If you have proper controls in place, it shouldn't be a problem. So 50 dBA is very low. If you wanted to say a low value, maybe 55 would be okay, but I wouldn't go any lower than 55. A lot of communities have 60 or 65 DBA daytime. Nighttime, 45 might be okay. That's probably the lowest I would recommend. 50 might be better. One of the things that you might want to remember is that I mentioned tonal noise penalties. So if there's a tonal noise that's being objective, we can penalize that, and we can bring it down to that 50 or 40 with that tone penalty. But broader band noises tend to be less disruptive. They're more bland. We accept them more readily. do ingest to their environments. People have mentioned this kind of constant source of noise. Yeah, there might be a constant on type noise. The level's not constant. But yeah, it might be constantly on. But if it's at a relatively low level, people will get used to that, such as living by a freeway or what have you. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we don't need to be scared about these things. Do we need to be vigilant? Yeah. But we don't need to be scared about them. We create the rules to make it reasonable and things will be okay. People, yes, they're concerned. They're going to be upset. I've been to planning commission meetings where People are really upset just the fact that a data center's coming to their community. They've heard all kinds of bad things and they're really worried about it, but they're coming in with fear. They're not coming in with understanding. The data centers are coming. The best way to prepare is to make rules for them to come in in a way that's effective.

It's not only data centers. It's a stamping plant. It's a screw machine job.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's why I lost my ear because I'm working in screw machine jobs. Right.

Refrigerated storage facilities, you know.

And generation. Generators are allowed. Yep. And I think that's something we need to look at is sound attenuation ordinance with our generators. Right.

But so when you talk about levels like 50 or 40, you know, you don't want to – make it so restrictive that people can't come to your community and run businesses because we need those businesses.

I've got another question. Besides the cooling units on these buildings, on the roof of the buildings, what generates all this sound on a data center?

So like I said, a vast majority of it is the cooling units. Some facilities have battery Energy storage systems that they might use for backup power. They might also use those to sell power back to the grid. It's kind of a dual function. Those make a little bit of noise. Transformers. So typically you have a data center, you've got to have a lot of power coming in for the data center. And those very large transformers they use, you know, they hum. They might have cooling fans on them. So those are going to be a source of noise. And then, yeah, the generators. But those are the main elements that create the noise. Okay. Thank you.

Anyone else? Kathy?

Just one more. I think being that you're the sound guy, it should probably be easy, I hope. Does the height of the noise generator, whatever it might be, make a difference? So, for example, if you're looking at a one-story building, three, four, five, and assuming the same type of noise is generated on each level, does that make any kind of impact on the surrounding community, a difference of?

Yeah, certainly the height of the noise source, the height of the receiver for that matter can make a difference. But talking about the noise sources, sometimes the chiller units are on the ground adjacent to the building. And that could have the benefit that the building then is shielding noise from the chiller units from maybe houses on the opposite side of the building. That would be smart planning on the developer to say, okay, we're going to put them on the ground and we're going to shield the residents using the building. Sometimes they put them on top of the roof just because there's not enough space on site for them or they want shorter cooling lines into the building, whatever the reason is. And with the noise source up higher, there might be less interference from the noise source to the receiver, so it's a little bit more open. But typically in those cases, they'll put up like a screen sound barrier wall around the units to help shield them from the residents.

Thank you. Sure.

All right. I think you might be all out of questions here.

Mr. Chair, I have a couple of questions. I think a lot of my questions that I have, you answered in a roundabout way. So just a little bit of a follow-up on some of those. So like right now, our ordinance in general, there's several different sections or references. Right now, for example, noise shall not exceed 65 decibels measured at any sight line. I think from what you're saying, that's not always created equal, and maybe that DNL was an average that can be used, and then also a maximum could be placed. Is that generally...

Right, so I would probably recommend changing that. I mean, if we needed to, we could work with that. But the problem is, say the facility is adjacent to commercial. Maybe you still have limits, say, different between residential and commercial as far as what the noise limit is. But the noise limit applies at the facility's property line. I don't know. I just personally feel that it provides protection, yeah. It takes a little bit more thought to think, okay, if we have it at this sound level at the property line, what is that sound level going to be at the actual receiving property? And the answer is going to be different every single time.

I was going to give my follow-up that it's not going to be the same for if it's surrounded by agricultural property versus if it's surrounded by residential versus industrial. So there should probably be... you know, some tweaks to that and some consideration for what the protected use is, which was my next question is you talked about measuring from the protected use. So you said use the example of a second story window, right? Do you have a recommendation how to do that when you may not know, like maybe it's vacant now, but it won't be forever. And then a follow up on that would be, you mentioned, um, when you're talking about the seasons, the perceived sound, is there a way of measuring perceived sound versus actual sound? And is that something you can even regulate?

No, I mean, it's too difficult to regulate. It would get overly cumbersome and complicated. It's best to implement a limit, whether it's a maximum noise limit or an average noise limit, and work with that. During the winter, people tend to be inside more so than outside anyway. So then they tend to be less affected, less influenced by outdoor noise. So there's a balance there. I think the best way to approach the ordinance is to keep it as simple as you can while including all the elements you want and then making sure whatever you set the noise limits at, it's the right noise limits for your community. and to assess what the right noise limits are might require doing some surveys within your community to kind of understand what's going on currently. But you know, I'm sure your community is much like many other communities where you have areas that are very quiet and there are others where it's noisy, you know, um, an expressway or, you know, maybe there is some industry already that creates some noise that, people are dealing with and maybe they're fine with it or maybe they're unhappy.

Mr. Chair, can I ask just a quick question or two? Let me give you a hypothetical. Let us assume that the Planning Commission were to decide the data centers, however defined, are going to be limited to an industrial zone. And let's assume you have an industrial park, a large industrial park made up of your typical industrial users. Having worked in a plant when I was in college, you know, you've got stamping plants and automobile plants and all the different types of industrial plants you can have. And in the summer, the doors are rolled up and it's noisy as hell. And you have a data center in that same industrial park. What is it about the data center that, from an acoustic standpoint, that makes it different than other industrial users in the same vicinity? Or are they different?

They might be different than other uses, other companies, or they might be very similar. It depends on.

But from an acoustic standpoint, why are they different?

Well, what I'm saying is they might be different than some, but they might be very similar to others. If you have a refrigerated food company making ice cream, they've got a lot of refrigeration equipment. I would say it might be very similar to that. But it is a different business. They have different equipment. They have high cooling needs. That's the difference. So you have a lot of cooling equipment that operates on a 24-7 basis.

So is your recommendation then when the Planning Commission starts to put together an amendment of the zoning ordinance to address data centers from a noise standpoint, is it your recommendation that data centers are so unique that we should have specific noise regulations for those? Or I think what I'm hearing you say is we ought to treat all, for instance, industrial users the same and impose the same sorts of noise criteria?

Yeah, so I don't think that, I mean, I think we run into issues if we try to specifically regulate data centers. Because if you have specific rules for data centers that don't apply to other companies, there's a discrepancy there. It's not balanced.

The reason I ask that question is having gone to several thousand meetings over the years. Yeah. and having been to millions of planning commission meetings where large industrial users come into a community and they satisfy all the zoning criteria, I don't ever remember hearing once anything about noise, truly. Yet in the last two or three years when data centers came into vogue, that is the single, one of the single most, other than the water and the electricity and the usual, the noise is one of the largest significant issues that's raised and I'm still trying to wrap my head around why is it different?

I would say social media.

Seriously.

I am serious, too. The knowledge that people have these days about issues like this is much greater than 10, 15, 20 years ago. People are more... focused, more vigilant. I mean, there's also groups, organizations that specialize in trying to disrupt these activities for one reason or another. So they're more active about it. I think it's become more politicized.

But if the Planning Commission starts to create these noise regulations that are going to be universal, not limited to data centers,

I think that's my opinion is the noise standards need to be universal because if you have a robust ordinance that is universal, you don't have to keep adjusting it every time something new comes.

And we're going to have to be careful to make sure that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot by maybe prohibiting or regulating a regular industrial user that we have now.

Correct.

It doesn't create any problems.

Right.

Yep. That's all I have. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you. Sure.

I have one, and I apologize if this was asked or answered already, but I don't recall it. When you're taking the measurements of specific equipment, how far is it outside the building? Is it within the building? So when Director Palin was talking about within the ordinance, I believe it was 65 dB. Where is that measurement occurring? Is it recurring? on a resident's property? Is it recurring like right outside of a building? I'm just curious because then that changes what the measurement would be outside of your home or inside of your home versus if that measurement is taking place right at the facility. Right.

So it sounds like you're talking about sound level measurement in perspective of enforcement. Partially, yeah.

But to me, where the measurement is taking place is important because it's going to determine the loudest perception, whether it's at the facility or if you're taking that measurement at your residence.

Right. So the way I would approach this is that from an enforcement standpoint, anywhere on a receiving property, you can measure the sound. And I would also say that that should potentially include outside second stories of homes or upper stories of homes. You don't want to measure right at the house, because there's reflection issues of the sound off the house. But I won't get into that right now. Essentially, where that noise creates impact is where it should be measured. So it could be at the property line. It could be on the back deck of somebody's house. Yeah, it could be a lot of different locations, but anywhere on that property where it creates an impact for the people using that property. Sure.

One last question, just more information on what you said and what Mr. Seifert said about fear and understanding people coming in on your experience on other planning commissions, communities that you've attended with. Is the data center, is noise or the environmental impact on something else the number one concern that residents have? That when they come in about the fear of not knowing and the understanding after the fact, is noise the number one factor?

Do you feel? There's a lot of issues people are concerned about. Noise certainly is a leading contender. They're concerned about water quality. The water quality, air quality, and noise are probably the top three things that people are concerned about.

Has anybody's... This has just changed after knowing the knowledge of understanding... in relationship to what Mr. Seifert said about the overall impact of industrial, yeah, why has data centers come to the light all of a sudden because of?

Well, so for Michigan, and I don't know this for a fact, but this is what I've heard, you know, through different inputs that, the state of Michigan has offered incentives to attract data centers. So there are a lot of applications of data centers that communities are dealing with. Similar to renewable energy, whether it's wind turbines, solar power, battery, energy storage systems, the state of Michigan is trying to be this permissive state for these applications. And whether that's good or bad, what it has certainly done is that it has stressed communities in ways they haven't been stressed before because now they have to review their ordinances. Now they have to deal with these applications. And they have to deal with public concern over this. So I think it's created a lot more work. for certain communities in dealing with these issues. And the state just kind of unleashed it on us. Is it good for growth? Maybe. But there's growing pains in the process. I don't think I answered your question, but that's kind of my perception of why it's going on. I mean, there's different things going on. I mean, we need data centers, but then, right.

What have you experienced in past communities? Is there one relative standout?

Sure. There are various noise issues. Another noise issue I deal with on occasion is amphitheaters. Music from amphitheaters that's relatively close to residential properties. Sometimes you like the music, sometimes you don't like the music. And that makes a big difference.

Thank you. Mr.

Chair, if everyone's good, I think maybe the next good step here is that myself and Jill and Ava can work with Mr. Brown on creating an outline for maybe a performance update to our performance standards when it comes to noise as a whole. And then... then we can separately work on an outline for the data center specifically looking at where they want to go. Um, and then, um, defining the different types of data centers and what needs to be incorporated. And then if I would say if there's anything that you think, you know, initially before those drafts come and those outlines come that you want to see for certain, I think now's the time that we bring that up and get that incorporated.

all right sounds good all right um so we have uh commissioner's comments um i'll start it off i'd like to again welcome uh alton james to the uh planning commission uh you've impressed me with some of your questions tonight um but uh glad to glad to have you aboard and uh my name is carl leonard so if anybody wants to mention your name and all that. We'll just go around.

That's all I had.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We had a memorandum in our packet from GIFLs, and I'm just wondering, it has a chart in there with various data center outline, the current standards, and then the recommendations. Has that been discussed? I know I was not at, I think, two meetings ago, and I'm not sure if we've discussed that. Yes, we have? No, we have not? Okay, because I have some questions. If there's time tonight, if not, I guess I can give them to Director Palin and incorporate that. I just didn't want us to go too far ahead. We've got a lot of information on sound, but there's some other factors, too, that have already been mentioned, such as like, you know, drain on the grid or electrical considerations, the water, the water temperatures, things like that.

I'm kind of thinking that we started with the sound. I'm assuming that Jonathan might have other experts come in. We were supposed to have somebody in from DTE, but that

yeah yeah we had him scheduled for the meeting uh the day of he couldn't make it and i've since been trying to make contact um i believe the supervisor's office has tried to make contact as well um but i'll keep trying and see if we can get someone in here so yeah i think this is going to be kind of a little bit of a lingering process i'll turn that over to them they can okay add that to the things to look at and then uh one other question to our attorney mr siebert

Is there a reason to have a moratorium, consider a moratorium on data centers until we've completed this process?

Well, as you recall, at the board meeting, what, three months ago or so, I gave the board sort of an off-the-cuff legal opinion because it wasn't on the agenda and this issue of moratorium came up, and it's clear to me at least, that the township board is not the body initially to impose a moratorium. There's some disagreement in the legal community over that, but there's a federal district court case directly on point that says exactly what I'm saying, or I'm saying exactly what the court said, that it doesn't originate with the board, it originates with the planning commission. So that was the reason that Trustee Joseph, I believe, made the motion to remand, not remand, but direct the Planning Commission to consider either or both an amendment of the zoning ordinance or make a recommendation regarding a moratorium. It can start here. The Planning Commission could make a recommendation for a moratorium to the Township Board and the Township Board would be the ultimate decision maker as to whether or not to implement one because it is a zoning ordinance amendment. You are prohibiting a land use for which there's a demonstrated need, and that's a zoning regulation. So it would be no different than a rezoning request that would come in. You make your findings, you make a recommendation to the board, and the board decides. That certainly wouldn't be something you would do tonight. There have to be specific findings. You would have to set a durational period, and the courts that have upheld moratoria have indicated that they must be relatively short in duration. They must be intended to address a specific problem that you couldn't have anticipated and that you have to have a game plan going forward to implement regulations to address it. So having said that, yes, you could recommend a moratorium to the township board, but you'd want to make sure that you made specific findings to do that, and this off-the-cuff tonight wouldn't be a good time to do it. But you could.

Thank you.

Eric?

I'm all set. Thank you.

I'm all set as well. Thank you.

Rich? No more questions for tonight. Mark? Good. Brian?

Rick? I'm good. I just would like to thank the speaker for coming out tonight. Pretty informative and thought there were some good questions thrown at you, so appreciate it. With that, I'll make a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting at 8.42. Who did the support? Motion by Carl Leonard supported by the new vice chairman to adjourn at 8.42. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries.