Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, we are on YouTube. Before we start tonight, Dave, with your permission, I just wanted to introduce Melissa Rhinestadter. She is transitioning into Guy Donatelli's position. Franklin Township has worked with her. I think she's a great individual and looking forward to us working with her in the future. So if you'd like to start, Dave, please go ahead.

Sure, if we want to call the Franklin Township Planning Commission meeting August 6th, 2026, call to order at 707. Do we have any public?

I do not see any. I don't know if we want to call Rachel public or an expert from Chester County Planning.

Did Rachel have any public comment? Probably not.

I do not have any public comment.

Thank you. Let's move on to approval of the minutes from June 4th, 2026. Give everybody a chance to look real briefly. Hopefully we all looked at it. Is there any motion to approve or any discussion before that motion?

I'll make a motion. What month is it?

It's June 4th, 2026.

I'll make a motion to approve the June 4th, 2026 meeting minutes. Thank you. Do I have a second?

I'll second that now.

Alright, Mark got in there just in time. Any discussions, additions, deletions? Being none, all in favor say aye. Any opposed like sign? Great. I lost track of the agenda, but I think the only other item on the agenda was the data center ordinance. I think it's a good idea. We were talking earlier, Nate, Jeff and I, that if Melissa, you wouldn't mind just giving us a brief background where we got to this point, understanding that you didn't draft this particular draft, but have a command of it and also explain to us, one, the concerns that everybody had about whether this is a standalone ordinance or not. It doesn't appear to be. And then two, why we will be working off of our own copies and not putting the copy up on the screen.

Sure, absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. I'm happy to address those items before we kind of delve into the ordinance itself. I think that's good background information for us all to have. For those on the Planning Commission that may be aware, there were questions as to whether this ordinance that's sitting before you today Just for your review, is a standalone ordinance. This was a question that had come up in relation to comments or questions that were taken at a PSAT conference recently. There were questions about standalone ordinances versus amendments. So a standalone ordinance, just for clarification purposes, we believe that PSATS was referring to townships, municipalities that do not have a zoning ordinance. So they do not have a zoning ordinance, but they are working on creating a specific data center ordinance that regulates data centers. That would be a standalone ordinance. Okay. However, Franklin Township has its own zoning ordinance. It is able to amend its zoning ordinance to include regulations on data centers. So in terms of whether this is a quote standalone ordinance, it is not. It is an amendment to the existing zoning code. So we are comfortable going forward legally with how this is presented. Does anyone have any questions on that before I move on to the next item?

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

And Melissa, if you can just bear with me for a minute or two. I apologize, Rachel. Rachel Griffith is on with us this evening from Chester County Planning Commission. She was on in June, and she's been a good source of information. So I'm happy she's here. Thank you.

Yes, thanks for joining us, Rachel. And Rachel was involved in some of those communications as well, which might have been what Jeff was referring to there. So for the second item, it's a little bit more straightforward. Why we are not sharing our screen tonight to show the draft ordinance. There's twofold to that. The first is more of a practical item, that this ordinance amendment is simply in a very, very preliminary stage. There are actually currently blanks in the ordinance where we will need to discuss as to what we'd like to add into those blanks. And secondly, under the right to know law, if we were to show this at a public meeting, it would actually be subject to the right to know law and someone would be able to ask for and obtain information. this draft ordinance. So to be able to keep this as a discussion draft, it would be best if we were able to just keep it off the screen for tonight. But in future meetings, we'll be able to do that once we're more comfortable with the language. So if anyone has any questions on that, I'm happy to answer that. Otherwise, I will just move on to the actual substance of the amendment itself.

So we should have a copy open for ourselves?

Yes, I would suggest that all the Planning Commission members flip to the sections in your packets for tonight that have those, the pages of the amendment. It will probably be easiest to just flip through them along with me. I have a hard copy here with me, but I also have a copy on the screen as well.

The jazz starts on 6 of 63.

Perfect. So we'll walk through some of these pages together. Obviously, feel free to stop me. This is more than happy to have a question answer as we go along. So the first couple of pages.

I have a question. Yeah, absolutely. Should should we stop you? You don't have to laugh. You knew I was going to have a question. Should we stop you? How long are you going to, are you going to just do a brief summary or are you going to go through it?

So I think what I'd like to do is give a general summary of each of the sections, just because I know some sections will have many more questions than others. And if we are able to just move on from a section, I think that'll be in the benefit for everyone if we can go kind of chronologically here. So I'll give a quick summary of section one. I'll ask if you guys have any questions and then we'll move on to section two.

Okay, great question, Melissa. Sorry, go ahead. A question for you, Melissa. Are we going to be intending to delve into specific language within this working document, this working draft?

I am more than happy to take certain edits that you have. This is a working draft. I will try to do my best to take notes. Like I said, I have my hard copy. I will write down edits. There are also blanks that I would like to talk about. So if those are specific items that you'd like to address, I would ask you to address those as well. That helps us just for Guy and I to make some edits later.

Excellent. Thank you.

Of course.

Okay, so that I don't blow this up later on. Hey, Chuck, I think Rachel had a question first. Go ahead.

Oh, that's okay. I just wanted to ask the PC how you'd like me to provide input. So just for your sort of background info, once everybody's happy with the ordinance and the township supervisors send it to the County Planning Commission for review, I'll typically review it along with are review planners and provide comments, like very specific comments then. So I'm sort of thinking, I've got a bunch of comments prepared, but I'm sort of thinking that this is your time and that if you have specific like technical questions that I might know the answer to that I can weigh in. So that's sort of how I'm planning to participate tonight, if that sounds okay to you.

Rachel, I think that would be incredibly helpful if you have more technical items that you have seen in other ordinances that you've reviewed or that you know that the county is absolutely going to consider. I think those more technical items would be much appreciated.

So I'm just going to be brief about what my thought was. I'm concerned that the way this is written is very similar to the way the mushroom ordinance was written. I don't know if you're familiar with the mushroom ordinance. And the mushroom ordinance blew up in our face because the state was able to take that mushroom ordinance and say, look, you've separated mushrooms out and you can't do that. I'm concerned that a similar, something similar to that will happen with this. So keep in mind as you go through that, that's my major overarching concern.

That's a fantastic connection, Chuck. I appreciate you bringing that up. So I am aware of the mushroom issue that had happened a couple years ago. That was a matter that was actually handled, I think, under ACRE. And ACRE has very specific regulations about how you can regulate agriculture itself. So I think that's going to be the distinguishing factor here. is that ACRE is very specific. Mushroom farming itself is actually very specifically regulated under ACRE and the Right to Farm Act, where here we are looking solely at data centers, which do not have that extra layer of protection that ACRE has. But I'm happy to address any questions that you may have and your concerns as they come up.

I have one follow up, in a sense, to Chuck's question, Melissa. That is that as I'm reading this, I'm concerned that because what I see is rather stringent, requirements placed on data centers are not in line with the requirements we place on almost anything else, that this would undermine the notion that this ordinance um is not designed to prevent um an appropriate data center from being built in the township in other words and there are from my point of view as chair of the historical commission we are making requirements of the data center concerning its effect on historical properties that we do not make elsewhere. And so it seems to me that I would look at this and compare it to our zoning and say, this is in fact puts enormous hurdles only on one type of use. And my concern, just to elaborate on Chuck, is that that kind of focus makes us so out of balance with the rest of our ordinances, rather than, for example, creating an environmental ordinance that would apply some of these things across the board to all uses in the township, setting the same standards. which I think you could do because what we're concerned about are extreme or abnormal uses. And so I don't see why we couldn't regulate all potential abnormal uses, not just those with respect specifically to data centers. And I would feel more comfortable personally about the ability of that sort of regulation, which is what it is, to survive a challenge because it's applied to any use, at least with respect to certain noise levels, certain quantity of water use. But for now, having it all right here, to my mind, makes it easy to construe this ordinance as an attack on data centers.

Those are good thoughts, Paul.

Go ahead. Paul states it so much better. That's what I'm thinking. He just states it much nicer.

I mean, I'm just curious, is that not counterbalanced by the requirement this would only be done in an industrial zone? I think it was light industrial specifically is what it said. So how much of that is counterbalanced by that restriction? I mean, basically everything in the LI district is pretty much heavily regulated to begin with. So if it's only in the LI zone, it seemed like it would be fairly similar to the other uses of spelled out for an ally. I'm not disagreeing. I'm just wondering if that would serve to counteract some of that perspective.

Yeah, I appreciate all of your analyses. I think they are similar analyses that all of the municipalities in Chester County are dealing with as to whether they would like to include this in its own section within its zoning code, if it feels like it needs to be included in a certain zoning district, or if they feel that they can include it into some more general code, such as the environmental code. As of right now, a lot of the townships that we have handled, and Rachel, I see your hand is up, so I will get to you as well. Most of the townships that Landmacker Lane has handled has handled our zoning ordinances in this way. We are currently in the process of having them reviewed by the county, so I do not have strict advice or experience on exact approvals of these ordinances, being completely honest with you. However, we do see that many of the municipalities are going through this process. However, I cannot say one way or another, because this is such a new area that our county is getting into and the state is getting into, that we can say this is absolutely discriminatory zoning or absolutely not discriminatory zoning. Obviously, We have Guy Donatelli who has worked with the county and seen the ordinances that the county has set forth, both our county, Montgomery County, and our other townships that we work with. So these are the forms we're seeing now. This is our best foot forward in how we're working through this. And I will pass it to Rachel because I saw her hand is up and she may have some experience from the county reviewing these.

I'll give Rachel a chance, but if you can just keep these comments in mind, Melissa, But I think we still want to get to the sections rather quickly. And I think some of these concerns will express themselves again in the sections. So Rachel, please comment, and then if we can start working on the sections.

Yeah, just overall, I think what I read is pretty aligned with how a lot of the municipalities are handling data center ordinances. So this isn't too out of the norm. In our data center ordinance guide that we worked on with Montgomery County, we had the standards apply to data centers over 100,000 square feet. So there might be a different set of standards for smaller, less intensive data centers that might be associated with an office building or something like that than for these large, like, you know, really intensive uses. So I think that if you're allowing smaller data centers, maybe by right in a certain district where they're appropriate, and then having the separate process, you guys have special exception. You could also do conditional use. You can apply stricter standards to that use that you know is going to be more intensive.

Great. Thanks for that clarity. I think that's four or five sections down, but we'll get to it.

absolutely yeah we will definitely be getting to it and um i will keep my summaries of the section incredibly short um so we will be able to keep this meeting moving along since this is a long amendment um so for i'm going to skip completely over the whereas clauses we don't need to go over those if anybody sees any edits to those i'm more than happy to talk about that later but for right now i think i'd like to delve into section one here which is the purpose and intent. So right now, as we have alluded to, the article is allowing data centers in the industrial zoning district. That is what's stated in B. You will notice that throughout the rest of this document, there are blanks as to where it refers to that district. I believe Mr. Donatelli's intent was that if we wanted to change the district that they'd be located in, We can change those words. However, he has industrial zoning district in Section B. If anyone has any concerns about that, we can discuss. But that is... L.I.

or L.I.?

Yes. Yeah, he has written industrial. We'll need to be specific to Franklin Township right now. Yeah. So we will do L.I. It goes into a non-exclusionary statement. That's something that we had just maybe touched on a little bit, and I'm more than happy to discuss that further at a later time. Protection of historical resources, we discussed that as well a bit. And the rest of it is, Section E is a bit more legal aspects, and then Section F is just in the event that these data centers continue to evolve, how these regulations would relate to that.

All right, we've got a raised hand, Melissa, Mr. Gibson.

So when we start off with A, we've talked about regulating data centers in particular. To help with the concerns that Chuck, Paul, and myself have, should we better phrase that to be regulate the unique aspects of data centers? Sure, I'm happy to include that. Things like that? Sure. It's not the data center itself. It's just the unique aspects.

Sure. Unique.

Does that make sense, Chuck and Paul?

Yeah. And keep in mind, guys, the whereas statements that we kind of glossed over also tackle that, right? So like that's what helps justify adopting something like this is those kind of page and a half worth of whereas statements that also kind of, that's all the background. Why are we doing this? Because of this, because of this, because of those unique things there. But again, doubling down on some of that language is never a bad idea.

Thank you. That's the only thing I had on that section.

Perfect. Did anyone have any other questions on Section 1 before we move on? Section 2 is just definitions. So we can, if anyone has any questions about the definitions, we can do that as well.

Great. Maybe we'll talk about this later. But I mean, when I first looked at the data center accessory use, I thought maybe we were talking about those smaller when I first read that name, that we were gonna get into the smaller data centers that Rachel was referring to. And maybe we'll come back to this because we'll have to put more definitions in once we get to the section that deals with the size of the data centers and how we regulate them.

Yes, the data center accessory use, We can definitely rephrase if that makes it more clear as to what aspects actually are included in that. But we can discuss that maybe once we get to that section that requires more definitions. I think that would be helpful. Yeah.

How is a primary use defined? Maybe, Nate, you can answer that.

How is that? I'm sorry. Do you mind repeating that?

So you have a piece of property and you want to put a building on it. And that building has uses. But it doesn't just have one use. We like to think that it only has one use. It doesn't have one use. It has 10. And you kind of decide, the designers decide what they want to call it. And guess what? They don't pick what hurts them the most. They pick what hurts them the least. How Do we control, because that's what we want to do, we want to control what they're calling it. Primary use, secondary use, tertiary use. I mean, it goes down the list. I used to work on the Franklin Mint. Franklin Mint had a data center in it, but it wasn't what we're talking about, but it had a huge data center in it. What would the use have been now? You know, it's long gone, but that piece of property had 15 uses.

Yeah, that's... Nate, do you have an input? Yeah, I just clipped a couple of the zoning definitions just for everybody's sake, just to have them in front of us there. So I just put those in the chat real quick for accessory use and use. And yeah, there's a little bit of gamesmanship out there in the world, Chuck, with these uses because the other part of it seems to be the power aspect of it, right? So there's a little bit of that going on out there. But to say, you know, again, you got to, when you're coming in for an application, you know, what is the primary use? Are you an office building? Are you a data center? Are you an energy supplier? Right. So, you know, that's gotta be kind of decided at the beginning based on the language and the code based on the uses. And then what are those accessory uses? Right. So again, you know, like you said, could a data center be an accessory use to an office building? You know, that's probably ambiguous right now, how everything is worded. Right. Um, but could some of these power facilities, be accessory uses to the data center? Yes, that could be based on how we have it drafted right now. So I don't know if that helps you, Chuck, but sometimes it's crystal clear, but I think there is some gamesmanship in the industry sometimes on what the primary use is. Oh, it's not really a data center. It's a power plant and it's a this and it's a that. Oh, yeah, yeah. So that is out there in the world.

To be honest, it's not necessarily always the designers. they're trying to figure it out at the same time. Some of them, some of them are trying to game it, but other people, it's just not clear. So I want everybody to keep that in mind as we move forward, that people aren't gonna come in and just say, yeah, I have a data center, necessarily.

Yeah, I think we can keep that in mind, Melissa. I mean, again, maybe it's, again, if, you know, maybe the language somewhere also reads like, you know, if you are proposing a data center, it's considered the primary use and not an accessory use, right? Maybe it's as simple as that. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I mean, is there some objective standard that could be applied that would define it as a data center? I mean, if 75% of the internal space is dedicated to server racks, then that's not an office building. That's a data center. If it's 20%, then it's not.

Yeah, I mean, we have, there's a, there's a definition that that's most, I'm not sure if you pulled that from the county or in Monaco's recommendations or where that came from, but I know there's a definition that I've seen very similar language in multiple communities at this point. But yeah, maybe again, maybe that's kind of something we just think about a little bit.

Unless we go back to what me and Paul were suggesting where we're only going to address the problems and not the use.

Say it again, Chuck. How do you mean?

Well, and I don't want to speak for Paul, but I believe we were both suggesting that we worry about regulating the problems that occur from data centers as opposed to regulating data centers. So you regulate water usage. You regulate, you know, noise.

I think, Chuck, that's a good point. Maybe let's let Melissa continue down because I think as she continues down these sections, it jumps right to that really. And I think that'll be kind of helpful.

Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Nate. I appreciate that. Yeah, we can always work on the definition of data center. I think even if we decide to go a different route, we probably will still need to define what a data center is so it doesn't fall under another use. So no matter what, we'll keep that in the back of our minds and we'll continue to think about how we can further define data center. So we've gone through Section 2. We're now on Section 3, which essentially establishes that data centers are going to be permitted by special exception and that the applicants will have to comply with all other SALDO and zoning requirements.

So special exception here is our conditional use?

Two separate items. Two separate things. Yep.

Okay.

No, that's fine. I'm, I'm always happy to have people jump in. You guys have been doing this for a while. I'm, I'm happy.

And I think this is a critical point, right? So again, the way it's drafted right now is a jumping off point is it would be permitted as a special exception, right? And the, and Melissa, maybe I'm jumping in politics. You'd probably explain it better. Right. But when you have it as a special exception. you know, that's going to go through your zoning hearing board. Whereas if it's a conditional use, that's going to go to your board of supervisors. Conditional use, I would say, leans towards a permitted use that you're allowed to apply permitted reasonable conditions to. Whereas a special exception, help me, Melissa, maybe on better terminology for that.

Special exception is usually easier to get than a conditional use. That's always the way I think about it. Special exception, you have a lower burden as the applicant. Conditional use, you have a higher burden. So we can always do conditional use if that's something you all would like to consider. But for right now, it's drafted as a special exception. Rachel, I'm not sure if you've seen more of one than another.

We've seen almost all conditional use, and that's what we recommend. And I also wanted to point out that there's a clause in the draft that says the township may attach reasonable conditions to any approvals granted under this ordinance. So to me it sounds like you want to make it a conditional use.

Everyone agree? I think you have incorrect me if I'm wrong. There's always a concern going to the zoning hearing board. They typically are people that are involved in the township day to day like most of us are and. don't have an understanding as if a conditional use was required.

Dave, I totally agree. I think what happens is once it gets to the special exception of the zoning hearing board, you've got a quasi-judicial body that nine times out of 10 is worried about, you know, how far somebody's shed is from a property line, right? As opposed to a major land use issue that I think should really be in the planning commission council supervisor world.

um so i i tend to think that we might want to think of this more as a conditional use than a special exception i would agree i like the idea of the planning commission providing the review and feedback to the board along with the recommendations and the board of supervisors representing the the town the township being the final authority on that yeah so i i definitely lean that way i don't know if anybody has an opinion against that but i think we want to look at conditional use jeff um

Giving a thumbs up, I agree.

Okay. We have a majority of thumbs up.

Thumbs up for me.

Yeah, conditional.

Great. Okay. I will absolutely change that to conditional use then. Thank you. I appreciate all of your input.

Crossing stuff off.

There we go. This is what we wanted to do. Purpose of the meeting. We're being efficient.

Question to the PC team. Is there a reason we are going in with a light industrial zoning as the target and are not considering the special use zoning?

Jeff, I don't know if it was the May meeting or June meeting. I apologize. Maybe, James, I don't know if you were there or not. I apologize. I wasn't. Okay. So, yeah, I think we had some general discussions. We bounced around some different options. I think ultimately we landed on limited industrial just because, again, of the similar types of uses. The SU districts were all either completely built out or very tiny and really started becoming, you know, didn't really pass the smell test of feasibility to a point. Whereas I think the light industrial district did, whether it's practical or doable, still a little bit to be determined. But there was at least some larger areas in that light industrial that at least helped it pass that smell test of viability, I think, was kind of where we all landed initially. Is that fair, guys? Nate, since you're master zoom,

Since you're a master of Zoom, can you bring up the zoning map?

Yeah, I've got a copy in front of me as well.

Perfect. Yeah, there you go, guys. So, yeah, so again, you can kind of see where the three different LI districts are versus the kind of three smaller SU. You know, again, one that's essentially a residential neighborhood at this point, two other kind of very tiny tracks. So, again, you guys know the areas better than I do, frankly, but we just thought that was a better jumping off point.

yeah i was looking at the existing ordinances for those two districts and uh the height and uh area restrictions for the two of them that's why i was asking okay but passing the sniff test of reasonability is a point i hadn't considered so thank you yeah and you can't even add it's not like none of none of the sus and the allies are on the same side of the street as each other so it's not even like you could join two pieces of property

in two different districts and it would matter. So I think we're still good for LI if everybody is. I am.

Nope, makes sense. Thank you for the clarification.

All right, Melissa, you're on.

Yeah.

Perfect. We will keep moving down then. We are on section four. So this is where we get a little bit into the nitty gritty of the data center conversation. regulations so this section as i'm sure you guys have read goes through maximum height setbacks noise some of these big players that we're having with the data center issues so you will see some blanks in here there's some blanks in d and e that's maximum height for the data centers and the setbacks that's something that i think we will all need to discuss and nate i will definitely need your thoughts in there

Yeah, and guys, I'm certainly, I don't know that we need to get into weeds too much on these specific topics. Where my head goes, at least initially, is, you know, something regarding height. You know, we might want to look at what is the maximum height we allow currently in this township, and that may be kind of where the jumping off point is. Regarding setbacks, there is no magic setback. You know, what might work at 2,500 feet for some rural county in Pennsylvania doesn't work for Westchester Borough, right? So there's no magic number there. I think on the setbacks and screening buffering setbacks, what I personally would like to do is just drill down a little bit into those partials. And just, again, from a viability standpoint, you know, what is something that appears to be reasonable such that again we're not confining it that it's it's so much that you can't build on that lot right um try to find that middle ground a little bit but i'm certainly open to suggestions or ideas and again i'll probably use the jumping off point will be kind of existing li regulations okay how much more how much further do we want to go than what's already there is kind of where my head's at so yeah i was looking at the li and for the height restrictions the 40 feet makes sense to me and

Right. Some of the setbacks I'd like to see larger.

Increase those a little bit. Yep.

Yeah.

I think the setbacks go hand in hand with sound. Agreed. There may be something else that I'm not thinking of right now, but sound is going to be critical. So, I mean, we may have to push the sound down and we can reduce setbacks. But if we don't push the sound down, then you have to increase setbacks and is the game.

Are you guys okay for the time being? I'll kind of maybe try to get some initial feedback over to Melissa to plug these in for the next kind of version of this.

Yeah, the only thing I have to add, if I might, is I recall from the last discussion sort of visually looking at some of these parcels in light industrial and what were considered fairly standard reasonable setbacks for a rural county would essentially obliterate the parcels. as a buildable parcel, if I recall correctly. So there's, I think in some ways, we're gonna have to define a setback with more stringent noise, vibration, and other rules, because if we define a setback purely on a distance basis, we will make those parcels pretty unbuildable.

Okay, okay, let me, like I said, I might even quasi sketch something out a little bit on one or two of these parcels just to see where it lands. It gets tricky to tie the noise to the distance a little bit. I have a whole separate discussion point on the noise, but no, I think that's a point well said.

Zach, you have your hand raised.

I can't hear you, Zach. Sorry, is this better? Yes. Okay. One thing I do remember from the last conversation that we had was actually the nature of the LI districts as well. There's really two of them. One of them, and this is something I would worry that someone would say that you've restricted it to zoning that doesn't really have any ability to be built on. The one that's across the street from me, the Pico substation, unless Pico is going to sell the cornfield and the SOI to a data center, there's really nothing on that LI district or zone to build. That leaves the smaller one sort of in the village itself. And the nature of that would seem like, to Paul's point, I think if you actually had the standard setbacks required for the stuff that surrounds the other LI district, you would pretty much eliminate any ability to build there either. So I don't know if that.

Well, I think that's, yeah, to your Paul's point. I mean, again, that's, that's where I just want to kind of think it through a little bit. You know, we're not going to say, you know, just because, you know, a certain person in some other area thinks it should be 2,500 feet, you know, that's just not going to be practical. Right. But, you know, I look at this Pico substation area, right. Like, You've got an electricity producer with a substation, with power lines, with a lot of property. And that actually checks more boxes than you think, right, of possible viability. So I wouldn't discount that as a possible site because of those things.

Does that make sense? Well, yeah, but I guess my point is it's owned by PICO, and I don't see any scenario in which PICO is going to sell that land to somebody to put a data center on it.

I would not treat it like it's a conservation easement or a public trust. It's PECO and they're in PGM and there's money in data centers and lots of moving parts out there. So I would not put it in that bucket, in my opinion.

I agree. I don't think that's a roadblock.

So if we have Nate come back after looking at those particular parcels,

for setbacks. Prior to the meeting, Nate talked about wanting to talk to some of his noise experts as well and get back to some of the noise.

Yeah, Melissa, I think the next section is noise. Is that correct?

Yeah, I think we just hit setback. So F is noise. So Nate, if you want to get us started on noise.

What I'll say is it's really complicated. Melissa, where did you grab this section from? I apologize.

I will be honest. I did not grab it. So I do not know where I grabbed it from.

Okay. So the short version I want to give you guys is we, when I say we, Panoni using the rural, we have a team of nerds that are like PhDs in noise stuff. They blew my mind. Like, I didn't even know that, like, when you start talking low level and vibration, it's really, really wild stuff. So I connected them with a couple other attorneys we were working with in both Delaware and Chester counties, and they've drafted up some language that these municipalities are looking at. I was either going to have that language provided to Melissa and or have them take a look at kind of the draft of language and just provide our team some specific feedback. And then depending on the need, connect them directly with Melissa to have a conversation and or have them provide some feedback to the group here if we need to later. They're very, just very knowledgeable on data center specifically, all these variabilities of noise. Part of the problem with noise ordinances, guys, is like every municipal noise ordinance is like not set up for current world right like it's it's they're all outdated they don't match up they they almost like nine times out of ten deal with like construction activities or like a light manufacturing plant and like that's it and there's no measures there's no there's no measurability there's no math to it it's really challenging so a lot of other municipalities also have been updating their noise ordinances to kind of be consistent too so a few moving parts of that short variation is i wouldn't stress too much on the noise stuff unless anybody really really enjoys that type of stuff More to come on now is kind of where my head was going on that.

Great. That's helpful, Nate. So maybe it's best if we hold off on the noise for a while until you, me, and Guy are able to connect with what you call some nerds over there.

I mean, I'm a fellow nerd, but this is a whole other level of nerdiness regarding this stuff. It was over my head, and I took classes in college on this kind of stuff, and it was over my head.

Perfect. Okay. Well, maybe we'll skip all that noise for right now since some language is going to be changed. Is everyone comfortable with that?

Yes. Yes.

Great. Perfect. So the next subsection we're looking at here is negative impacts. And I think maybe this is some of the items that may be of a concern here. We're looking at dust, air, smoke, all of those items, emissions, and vibration. So that's a fairly short subsection. So I'm also going to go to the next one. The next two, because I think they all may kind of go together here. So we've got safety. And again, this is items that we will need to discuss at probably a later date to kind of drill into some locations here. Some of the internal fire, resisting internal fires for a certain amount of minutes. We can discuss that at a later time. We don't need to do that now. And then battery storage. So that is also under safety.

At what point do we get fire department to start looking at it?

I think that that was going to be my point too was, you know, Jeff, I think maybe once we get to maybe let's keep, I'm going to kind of call it the second version of this, right? Just a little bit more refined version. Is that something you'd get your emergency management staff take a look at? I think that would be a good time, Dave. Again, don't want them spinning their wheels just yet, but I value their feedback just like I do on solar panels and things of this nature that, you know, they've got to deal with and they know the consequences of and knowledgeable about. Let's get that in front of them at that point in time and see if there's any red flags, concerns, things like that.

Okay.

Got it. Okay. And to that point, the next section is emergency management. So just being, uh, the plans being viewed by the fire departments and EMS and all of that. Um, the applicant will also have to coordinate with, uh, the Chester County 911 coordinator. You know, I, I'm sure that is a fairly, um, common article that's in a lot of these ordinances. Um, So if everyone's comfortable with that, then we will take a look at that at maybe a later date. V2 will be looked at by the emergency folks. That would be great. The next item that we're looking at is J. It's energy system dash supply. One of the items that I had, Rachel, if you don't mind entering a question from me. Can I go back? Sure, of course.

So in the last section, I think it's important that we have something in there that covers natural disasters. So we get a hurricane, massive hurricane that comes through, and all of us are kind of scrambling around. But we have, in the future, we have a data center that has potential catastrophic consequences that no one's looking at. I feel like we need to have, they already need to have a plan and they need to be, they need to be, you know, telling everybody what is, you know, what happens when their, their structure fails.

They need an emergency management plan.

Right. That's, that's the intent of section. I believe. Is that correct?

Yeah, you're right. So it was, um, Section I is supposed to give procedures in those events. Chuck, if you feel like the wording that is set forth in Section I, sub A, sub 1 through 5 doesn't meet that, I'm happy to talk to Guy about adding in something specific about in the event of natural disaster, they need to have a plan. That's different than the plans that are set out in 1 through 5.

Yeah, one through five is just, you know, they have a fire. Okay. But I think we need to say, in the case where it's not only you, you can't claim it was a natural disaster. You need to be prepared when all hell breaks loose.

Good idea.

Good point. Okay.

Okay. I'm taking notes. That's why I'm looking down here.

I'm taking some too, Melissa.

Perfect. Thanks, Nate. Okay. Got it. So I have a note to look into that natural disaster comment, how we can incorporate that. Okay. Okay. So now for Jay, I think we're back to Rachel. I had a question for you, and it might be a very simple question, but I see in Jay subsection C, there is a section that's saying the applicant essentially has to provide will serve letters. Is that something that the county is requiring at this stage? I know there were some issues potentially in some areas of Pennsylvania with obtaining the will serve letters. I'm not sure how Chester County is looking at that.

So, well, firstly, Chester County can't require anything. But instead of a will serve letter, it's our understanding that it's a transmission security agreement. So that you're sort of like paying to secure the capacity within the transmission system that you need and that the electric distribution company is saying, yes, that is that transmission is going to be available for you.

The people that have been experiencing the high electric bills, are they areas that don't have those transition agreements? Because you hear on the news that some places, homes, the electricity is doubling or tripling, supposedly because of a data center.

It's a... Rachel, maybe you could, I mean, my limited understanding of this as well as we're all screwed as part of the PJN network, right? Like it's not a Chester County problem. It's not a Pennsylvania problem. It's a mid Atlantic problem. And even if Pennsylvania were to ban data centers and they put them all in somewhere else in our electric district, we're all taking on the hits of this is the generic way I explain it. Rachel, I know we've been to some of the same conferences. Maybe you could put it in better, better language. I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's true. So like the data center that's being built in Bucks County, like our electric rates are going to go up because of that. And there's just, it's really like the simplest way to describe it is a supply and demand issue. There's just like so much supply that is needed that's not online in terms of electricity production. that companies who need the capacity in the transmission lines are just like, we'll pay whatever. And that's why there was the cap introduced by the governor. But yeah, I mean, our electric rates went up, I think 11% in June or something like that in PECO territory. So they will go up again. It's just until the generation gets caught up It's going to be that way.

So we can't require these companies to put that money forward instead of the residents for those increases. Nate's shaking his head no.

No, I mean, again, unless state and national laws change, right? It's not something we could implement on a local municipal basis. Okay. We're all screwed. The short version is we're all screwed.

We're all going to go down together.

Yeah.

Rachel, question for you. That transmission agreement basically states that they're going to have the power they need. Does that transmission statement mean that, yeah, the power they need is on there, ignoring the fact that everyone else is pulling power too? Like if they need one megawatt per day and the line is providing one and a half megawatts for the entire area today, and we're using one and a half megawatts, but the line does have one. Does that, does that statement cover the fact that, you know, they're adding another megawatt or whatever the number may be?

So this is the part that I'm a little fuzzy on, but it's my understanding that the electric distribution company is not going to give that transmission security agreement. If, the plans are not in place to make sure that that power is available. So the security agreement can happen before any of the improvements to the transmission system happen that would need to happen in order to provide the amount of power.

So I think in answer to your question... And I think that's also addressed in subsection D under J.

So the... transmission security agreement is supposed to consider current use versus future use.

Right. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And any other data centers that are going on or large load users that are coming online?

It's important to understand that what they're talking about is the size of the pipe. I know we're talking electricity, but if we transition to pipes and water. It's the size of the pipe. The size of the pipes that are required to get that power there is what they're responding to. They're not saying that there's enough water to fill the pipe. And that's where all of a sudden we all end up paying more for the power. So all they're saying is that the wires or the pipe.

The wires have the capability to carry the current. whether the current's there or not. Exactly.

But again, isn't that Section D? Applicants shall demonstrate there is sufficient capacity, interconnection, power, quality, reliability, and the existing local and regional infrastructure is sufficient to accommodate the proposed data center. It seems like that.

All that's saying is that it's only saying that the wires are there. It's not saying that you have anything on the other end that can create enough electricity to for this data center.

You can argue capacity is the ability to generate the electricity to support the demand.

You could, but I don't think that's the route they're taking. Dave, you're muted, bud. Yeah.

I will never be able to repeat that. It was so profound.

Poignant.

Are we having this discussion to guide Melissa in terms of some of this wording? It's good discussion, but.

Yeah, I think I think, again, a little bit, guys, there's only so much we can do locally. I think the terminology that we're getting from Bucks County, Montgomery County, Chester County about the language that is being utilized, I think, is the good recommendation without getting too far into the weeds on some of these maybe larger picture issues, to be honest, you know.

Fair point.

Great. Okay. Well, I'm going to keep walking through here because I think we are about a third of the way through. So we're going to, I have the hard pages. Nate, I saw your face, so I'm not sure. I felt like we were further than that. It feels heavy in my hand. So we will keep going here. So it looks like we had touched on the energy system and supply about that transmission security agreement that I can look into. The next aspect is nuclear. This, of course, is if they are going to use nuclear, they have to submit certain surveys. They have certain surveys that must be conducted within six months after the certificate of occupancy. And then in the event of failure, it walks through any radiation violation. So this is... I have not seen the nuclear item.

Yeah, Rachel, I got to double check. I don't know that I've seen language like this before. This caught me off guard when I looked at it. I apologize.

Sam, I've never seen anything like this.

We don't have to worry about it.

I have no idea what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission... like what their requirements are and like, does this overlap with those requirements? I have no idea.

Yeah. This, this is definitely one Melissa that I'm not, I haven't seen a lot of this elsewhere. So this one caught me off a little bit.

Yeah. I have not seen the nuclear either. This was the first time I saw it. So I wasn't quite sure if it was an update. Maybe that guy had been looking at, I know he had been taking some classes and such. So maybe it's something that I'm just not aware of.

Yeah, maybe try to get a little more info before we delve into that one too much. Okay.

Yeah, the very bottom of it says you have to comply with all the NRC requirements.

Okay. All right. So we'll move on from that because I need to figure out where I got that from.

And those are all federal regulations anyway, so I would assume that they would override anything that we would –

Yeah, I'm wondering if there's been language out there that we're seeing about these, what do they call them? Not even mini, but like hyper small nuclear. Yeah, the micros. All this kind of nonsense, right?

I think that's Mars, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so the next item is we're going to get in the water. As we all know, this is kind of one of the hot button topics here. I am not going to summarize each and every one of these sections, but if there are certain items that anyone feels that they would like included or they feel should not be included, I'm more than happy to address that.

I have one question. I think there's one sentence that could be better worded. Okay. So if you look at B, and you go to the end of B before you start with the little eyes, the next to the last sentence says, no data center shall be approved without sufficient water. I get that. And then it says, and or for use that poses adverse impact on existing wells in the vicinity. Can we simply say, get that for use? I mean, I don't think the use matters. I think that any data center that poses adverse impact on existing wells in the vicinity, and I think it'll read just a little more smoothly that way.

Great comment. Sure, absolutely. Happy to do that.

I just wanted to note that we, often see a wastewater section in addition to water, and I didn't see anything about wastewater in here.

Thanks, Rachel. Yeah, let me look into that. I'll see where Guy got that, and we will look into wastewater section.

Got it. You guys don't have any sewer authority in the immediate area, correct? Water or sewer authority? Nope.

sewer authority that I'm aware of is London Grove. Okay, so that's not Franklin and see CW Chester water and aqua have limited areas within the township for public water.

It does it does actually address it in subsection H for a little further down.

Mm hmm. How much water do these things, I know you're going to say it varies, but how much water can these things pull in a day that they need?

Oh, I think there's some looking at pulling six figures, you know, half a million gallons per day out of rivers, things like that. You know, pretty crazy numbers. Maybe one way you can look at it too, Melissa, is Section L, maybe instead of water infrastructure, maybe it's more of like a utility infrastructure or water and sewer infrastructure. Because to Zach's point, it does have a little bit of sewer towards the end there. So maybe kind of be combined there a little bit because the sewer impact is certainly going to be a lot different than the water impact, I believe.

Got it. So we will separate that out into a different section and then look on expanding that.

Yeah. I would ask the question under D, did that 100,000 gallons per day, did that come from Because it says river. We have no rivers here. Is that huge? I mean, it's coming out of a creek.

Yeah, I don't think that's a big number.

That's a small number? I believe so, yeah. So you could even pull that out of White Clay?

Like maybe out of a creek in theory.

But Nate, doesn't that... That goes to the Delaware River Basin or the Susquehanna? Whether you're in that basin or not and whether you can actually draw that much, you still have to answer that question. Correct.

I think you guys, would you guys still be in the Delaware River Basin in that area?

I think we're the Chesapeake watershed.

It might be in both. We might need to kind of take a look at that language because it could be in two different basins there. We are in both. But any time you're going to pull that water from a public water source, like a stream or river, it goes to that authority level.

Yeah, I think White Clay Creek is a wild and scenic river.

Wild and scenic, which also would complicate things. Yep. And it goes to the Delaware. It does go to Delaware.

We also have the Christina.

We have the Christina, we have the Delaware, and we have the Chesapeake. We have both. All of them.

Yeah, we might need to think that through, because I don't know if the Delaware River Basin, I would assume it's only that, but is it similar entities elsewhere, and how does that apply? I don't know off the top of my head.

Yeah, we have Elk, too.

Yeah, Big Elk Creek is a straight line to the Chesapeake.

Yeah, Elk is to the, yeah. So, Christina technically goes to the Delaware Bay, but it goes to the river, I believe.

The Christina enters around Wilmington. The Bay technically starts south of that. Sure. Sure. Sure. Version is we just got to be clear.

Yeah. If there's one or two or three different commissions that need to be involved in pulling from a stream or river, we just got to be clear on that and not just like one.

Sure. I believe we have three. Okay. I believe we have three. All right.

Well, we'll do some due diligence on that.

Perfect. I took notes on that. That's great. We will make some changes. um the next subsection is subsection m that's environmental and community impact again i think this may go back to what we were discussing at the very beginning of this meeting the actual impact so this goes into traffic this goes into economic impact they talk about pendies in here and compliance so i'm happy to take any questions if anybody has this is a pretty long section so if anyone has any questions i know it's a it's a long one so if we need to break it down we can

No, I mean, Melissa, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Dave, you go first. In the previous section, Nate, you'll come up with some suggestions of how many miles from the center we'll be monitoring wells?

Yeah, I'll talk to one of my hydrogeologists and just bounce it off them as well. Okay. Good question. Melissa, getting into this next section, you know, I guess my head goes to working so closely with Jeff over these recent years is, you know, costs to the township. I know that's always, you know, right to Jeff's heart. I would anticipate that any submission would be, again, a conditional use, land development, sketch plan, things of that nature, right? So in the normal cost of doing business, we would be getting reimbursement for those fees and those costs, right? Yes. However, when I looked at something like section, it just caught my eye when I saw section M, A, for example, right? You know, a township, you know, hydrogeologists should be involved. Like, how do we coordinate? Who's paying for that? And I just, it caught my eye. I just made a note of that earlier. Just something to think about.

i i agree with you um that was something that i noted there's there's a separate section that specifically uses the language and i apologize because i can't recall it off the top of my head there's a specific section that states um the township will have to be reimbursed for this and this section doesn't say that and that's why i'm like and this might happen before like it's car before the horse a little bit yeah yeah

But I'd like to see if it's permissible we have some sort of escrow account beforehand so we're not burning through $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 to review studies.

Yeah, that's what I was kind of thinking, just making sure we're thinking that through, Melissa, when this MA just might be worded differently than kind of the typical process in how this might happen. Great.

Yeah, let me make a note in that section here.

I'm sorry, Melissa, not to drive you crazy. But like, again, my head goes to like, the way this is written, it's almost like, oh, well, you've got to like call us and let us know you're going to be doing testing so we can have our guy out there. Meanwhile, they haven't even submitted anything yet, right? As opposed to, you know, submitting a report that we then peer review or something like that. So it's just a little wonky in how that's written.

Okay.

Does that make sense a little bit? It does. Okay.

So it sounds like we can either phrase it as maybe we get an escrow for the township to do some of this work and or... we put the onus on the applicant, and the applicant will have to provide studies, reports, whatever, for the township to review.

Right, right, right.

Got it. And Melissa, one thing I... I personally like the language.

Go ahead, Jeff.

Go ahead, James. I personally like the language, be allowed to participate and review all field studies drilling events, and gives the township expert the opportunity to choose to be boots on the ground, watching over their shoulder, or if they're comfortable with the expert... to review their findings.

No, no, I love the concept. I'm just trying to think of like how it gets executed. James is kind of where I get concerned.

Okay. One thing I like Melissa to consider, whatever that top line for that escrow number is, when that thing gets down to 50%, they need to replenish it. Because by the time we notify them at 50%, by the time we get to check, it might be down to 20 or 30% or 10%.

Jeff calls me one or two times and that money's gone.

I knew I went to school for the wrong study.

Okay. Can we base that escrow on the cost of construction or how would we base that, that total number?

Let me maybe look into that a little bit more. Yeah, let's think on that a little bit. This is maybe a novel area as to how we're creating this escrow. And if we can create an escrow for this, so let me kind of consult and Nate will probably reach out to you as well.

Yeah, I think we guys got to think outside the box slightly on this while also being in the same bucket as what we normally would do, if that makes sense. Yes. Okay.

We can just tag it to water usage. Percent of the, you know. Or 100%.

How much paperwork's required?

Further down in this section, under G, there's a term I did not understand at all. G, let's see, I... So G1, I guess, G lowercase one. It says a narrative description of the nature of the on-site activities and operations, including the market areas served by the facilities. These facilities don't really have any market areas, do they? I mean, it's the world.

I guess that's a good point. It's not necessarily. It would be just kind of putting it back out there. So good, good thought. Yeah. Okay.

I believe the hours of operation are always 24-7.

Probably wrong. 365.

Okay.

All right. Go ahead. Along that same vein, I think sometimes if if it's not a concern for us, we don't want this to get, if this were to ever happen, we don't want it to be so overwhelming for the township. So the number of employees on each shift, according to everything we've heard, there are really very few employees. It's not, I mean, people aren't getting upset about data centers because there's too many employees and they're clogging the roads. That's, That's not part of it.

Yeah, from a you standpoint, that's like one of the positives, right, Chuck? Like, you know, you're getting tax revenue and all this without the traffic, you know?

Right. So then why bury the bad information with a bunch of good information? Just ask them for the negatives. Don't ask them for the positives. They're not a concern. We don't have a concern. We don't want to review it.

And I think to that same vein a little bit, maybe what we do, Melissa, in my slight opinion, was section M and I guess section M, right, A through G, and then section kind of like, H through N, not to confuse it. It's almost like there's two different environmental things going on here that I think we could streamline maybe or organize better that it's making it maybe more confusing or just a little bit off in that how it's set up. So I think there's a lot of good stuff there, but I think those two sections, I know it's one section, but it's kind of like two different sections in there need to be maybe massaged a little bit to be streamlined. I think to Chuck's point, it could be a good use of our efforts too.

Yeah, Nate, that's helpful. I actually have a note to myself to ask Guy because it looks to me that the items under H actually, like I, J, K, L, and M, actually should have been like its own section.

Yeah, I don't know if you pulled maybe from different resources and never kind of, you know, but I think it needs a little bit of that judging just to get it all a little bit more copacetic.

I agree.

Okay.

Is there a section directly related to just construction?

Just construction. I don't think I saw anything for construction. How do you mean, Chuck? Like during construction?

Yeah. So the number of employees during construction is massive. The amount of traffic is massive. Those things are massive. And then once it's built, which is what the question we're asking, once it's built, how many people are there going to be? Really, we want to say during construction, How many people are going to be on site? How many trucks are going to be in our vicinity? How large are these trucks? Because there's a lot of pre-manufactured stuff that goes in. So those are the negatives that we want to know about.

Yeah, I know there was a subsection in there talking about trucks and truck pollution and truck storage, which gets a little bit to construction. But Chuck, I hear you're getting that. So again, I think as we work through those two sections, Melissa, you know, that's something we can kind of factor in a little bit? Absolutely. Because, yeah, Chuck, to your point, I mean, once it's built, typically, again, it's this noise vibration issue maybe is the biggest issue, right? But it's also during construction when it's going to be the most chaotic.

Yeah. Thanks, Chuck. You have something, Jeff?

No, sir. I'm good. Okay. Perfect. Let me flip back here and we'll see where we are. Okay, so I think that had pretty much gotten us through to N, which talks about screening and buffering, just vegetative buffers. And again, we'll talk about fencing. We'll talk about those things.

Yeah, I'll take a look at that as part of my setback aspect, Melissa. Great. what I'll probably do is I think I just, again, I might want to try to, I think the way it's worded somewhere was like this is going to supersede other sections of the code, but I do just want to check how our code is written. Sometimes just make sure we're not using different words and terminology, things like that.

Okay. Are you comfortable with that, Nate, if it does supersede or does that make things much more difficult for you?

That's what I want to look at. I want to look at how it's written elsewhere and how it's set up in our code because sometimes it does make it more difficult. So I just want to think through that a little bit. Got it.

All right. Are we heading out of the environmental concerns?

Too late. We're already past it. We're on screening, James.

Sorry. General question, Rachel, maybe you would know this. Has any other ordinances come up that discussed EMF or RF energy limits around these buildings with the amount of electricity and computing going on?

That's a good question. I do feel like I might have seen that in one ordinance recently, but it's not something I know much about at all.

I can bounce it off our noise guys too, James, see if they have any knowledge on that or see anything like that.

Rachel, if you find anything, can you email it to me, please? Sure.

Yeah, I just know with computers and everything, that's a lot of power and a lot of radio frequency energy that could be generated. And some people are a little sensitive to that. Good point. And it's something we're not really talking about too much because it hasn't been an issue too much lately.

Good.

Perfect. OK, so I think we got through screening and buffering. I'll do the next two together. It's just fencing and lighting. Those are pretty short subsections.

Yeah, and again, I think something with the lighting, I just want to make sure, again, the language is somewhat consistent with how we're doing it elsewhere in our code, right? Here we're going to say, for lack of a better term, dark sky compliant, lower caps. What does that mean, right? Versus maybe what our code says elsewhere. So that's where these things are getting away from us a little bit. So I'll take a look at that too.

Okay, great.

It's good conceptually. It's hard in executing.

Agreed. And I think that's also a difficult situation if we are not requiring that for other areas in light industrial here. So we'll have to double check on that one. The next section here is this cumulative impact analysis. It's essentially just additional items that the township can consider when evaluating the special exception. It's only a handful here. locations of other data centers, other pending projects, those items. So the township can consider if there's going to be future applications here. That's just, you know, the township could have considered that anyway. So this is just a specific item that the township can consider, kind of guides the conversation a bit more. And again, anywhere where it says special exception, we are going to change that to conditional use here.

Yeah, I like how your section R worded. I think that was good as well. Just kind of gives it, it's like, you know, again, any modification change, all that kind of stuff, I think that's helpful. Sorry, Chuck, did I interrupt you there?

I really like number three because you make the submission for a small one and then all of a sudden it keeps growing.

Yep. Perfect. All right, Nate, you touched on R. And then I think we are at S, which is just voluntary development agreements.

Do we, do we, I mean, does that language need to be modified more towards the match? Like, should that be more of a condition matching the conditional use regulations?

we may be able to do that i think something i need to talk to guy about this with is if we are going to consider that how are we considering a community benefit or environmental mitigation are we going to put a dollar amount on it are we going to require them to do something else are they going to plant trees elsewhere in the township like what it what really are we getting to consider here so i'd like to talk to guy a little bit more about his thoughts on that okay yeah it just starts getting wonky on

This is like a special term, right? Doesn't exist in our code. It's like, what does it actually mean? It's not defined. You know, are we better off sticking with our conditional use language that already exists in our code or what have you? So just something to think about. Got it.

Our ordinance guide recommends not including language around community benefits agreements in the ordinance because once it gets codified, it becomes more likely to become an exaction Whereas like the township, you know, there could be a process that happens between a community group and the developer, and it's not part of the ordinance. And then what results from it becomes a condition, but putting it in the ordinance is tricky.

Well, I think now that we're switching a little more clearly to a conditional use, I think that gives us a lot more flexibility to apply relevant conditions in this vein. So yeah, I mean, it kind of makes some sense. And I think Rachel, that helps back it up if that's kind of where the counties are recommending too.

Nate, I've got a heavy question here. How would something like this affect MS4 negatively or positively? Or neutral?

Neutral wouldn't be any different than any other development and its effects. It's going to need stormwater management. It's going to need NPDES permitting. It's going to need general permits or joint permits depending on impacts. So yeah, no real impacts other than any other land development would have.

And this is a silly question. What happens to... Is there any of that excess water that they pull that they have to discharge?

Well, it depends on what they're doing, right? So again, I think, well, this is going to get, I'm not pretending like I know what I'm talking about, right? But typically they've been using it for the cooling of the systems. I think there's a lot of it that goes into evaporation. And I think some of it will go back into the streams, right? So they're pulling it out, using it, almost like nuclear plant style, right? Pull it out, use it, put it back in. But I think they're getting the more self-contained systems Lately is what I'm hearing now, too, because of this pool of the water has become so problematic. They're getting to be more chemically based self-contained systems. So I'm not sure that's too helpful, Jeff, probably a little bit all over the map.

Great. And I think with with that we're on to our last subsection here. We're at D commissioning Which is a fairly robust section. If there's any specific comments that we'd like to discuss, but it does. It does really walk through the steps here.

What prevents What prevents an operator from just walking away? I apologize. I hadn't gotten to reading this section yet. What prevents an operator from just walking away and saying, I'm done with this and throwing their hands up?

I mean, I think that's kind of why the recommendation is out there by the counties for a decommissioning plan. Essentially what it's doing, it's going to create a, I believe a financial security that would be established to be able to essentially return the site to a I must say, pre-existing condition, but there's some sort of neutral condition that would be funded by the developer, held in escrow of some sort, some sort of bond that gets renewed, I think, every five years, I think is how it's currently worded. But I think that's to try to address that concern. I think, Rachel, I think the county was kind of pushing for those as well, if I recall correctly.

Yeah, definitely.

Just because I think it's such a changing an evolving thing. I feel like nobody even knows what we're getting. What did data centers look like 20 years from now? Are they going to take as much land? Are they going to take as much, you know, all these different variabilities. And like you said, everybody spends all this money and then 10 years from now, they're already moving on to the next thing. Well, what happens with this one over here? And I think that's where that kind of decommissioning concept kind of came in.

Rachel, what do you see from other municipalities and boroughs as far as the security agreements? Are they updated every five years, more or less? Is five the magic number?

We've seen it. One to five. I think one is way too frequently. And like, who's going to do that? But I think five seems reasonable to account for inflation and rising costs and things like that.

Yeah, I mean, five to ten is kind of where my head goes. One's crazy ten. 5 to 10 might be realistic, but yeah. It feels like 5 feels like a good number, right?

Is there any way we can model this slightly on the solar ordinance that we were working on? Because we had the same concern about an operator from a large-scale solar just walking away.

Do you guys have a solar? Do you guys adopt that, or is that still something? Yes, it's adopted.

Alternative energy. Is it called alternative energy or something? I'm just looking for it real quick, see if I can find it.

I don't know that I haven't had occasion to look at it or see it yet. So I apologize.

And I only bring that up because we talked about that pretty, you know, well, Melissa, the point being, maybe we can take a look at that.

We can take a look at that section, see if there's anything valuable that we can copy over. Again, I think a lot of times when we could be consistent in that language, as opposed to being unique and different, it just kind of helps with the viability of, helps with consistency, helps with application of things.

Okay. Use from the solar.

Yeah, if viable.

Got it. To go back to what I talked about in the beginning, I see an advantage to putting this in the general zoning because it'll make our general zoning more powerful. And it will, I feel like this could create gaps for other types of uses that are very similar and maybe smaller data centers, things. I feel more comfortable if it's in the general zoning and addresses the hazards in general zoning. I don't know if I'm the only one. I don't know if I'm the only one.

Chuck, when you say general, you're referring to kind of like how we have it. It's by district, right? And then we have that separate section that speaks to like the general that I think it's like supplemental or something like that, right?

Yeah, or specifically in L1, LI. Yeah. Either one of those. But instead of having a dedicated. I still feel like it would be more powerful. And in the long run, I think it would help our zoning. I think this is just a new use that we that we can run past our zoning and say, OK, something new. What happens? But it's not like this is the last thing that's ever going to happen. there's going to be more new things. So.

So Melissa, I think what he's getting at, which I'm kind of on similar wavelength, right. Which I'm not sure we've gotten that far with the document yet, frankly, is that, you know, we would, we would edit LI to allow this as a use. And in that section we would have the applicable limits and everything.

correct and then it would also then it would punt essentially to the either section 15 or section 17 where that data center use would then have their special requirements is that kind of where your head's at chuck as yes as long as we address as long as we do take a look at at the serious hazards that data centers present right and say okay this this hazard should not be allowed no matter what the use is my thought.

Okay.

Put the foundationals under Chapter 27, Part 11, LI, and put the nuance and details under Chapter 27, Part 15, or Part 17. That'll be more broadly applicable to other uses.

Correct. Okay.

Yeah, it makes sense to me.

Right, so you'd slide in the data center language, most likely under maybe even 17, right, where you've got these unique uses, right? Sludge storage facility, truck-free terminal, right? Does one of these become data center and you're directed there via LI, Chuck? That's kind of where my head was going, but, you know, when I looked into it initially.

It sounds like a good idea, but it sounds like something that you and Melissa and Guy might want to chew on a little bit.

Yeah, we'll talk about, and Nate, we'll get you in on that conversation about how best it is both from our understanding and from someone who is going to go into E-code and take a look at it. That's a good point too.

Yeah, sometimes, right. Yeah, that's a good point too. And let me know, Melissa, I'm in town too. So if you want to just get together one day and just noodle these things and figure it out, let me know what's easiest.

Okay, that's great. Thanks, Nate. Yeah, that may be helpful.

Sometimes this might just be the old school. We got to just kind of sit there and kind of go through it, you know?

Okay, and then add to chapter 17 question mark. Okay, just making notes to myself so I remember to add these notes.

I don't want to steal Dave's thunder or anything like that or necessarily put a pin on things here, but I do want to get kind of action-oriented and schedule-oriented, kind of where we want to go schedule direction-wise so that, you know, again, Melissa and I can be on point for you guys. Is the goal that you guys, I mean, and Melissa, maybe it's a little bit you too, timing-wise, do we want to get a revised draft in advance of the next planning commission? Is that doable? Are we under the gun timing-wise? Do we have some time? What do you guys think?

I'd like to see us, I'm sorry. No, go ahead, Jeff. I'd like to see us try and revisit this again at the September 3rd meeting. You're right where I am, Nate. I would like something. I'm going to work backwards a little bit. I'm going to need something from Melissa Rhinestadter no later than noon on August 26th.

That gives us one, two, three weeks, Melissa. Do we feel like that's doable? I don't know.

Are you going on vacation now? I just got back. As did I.

Okay, good, good. So let me ask this other question. I know our planning commission will be full of questions. So I'm going to ask them, Melissa, if they have questions or statements or whatever, to email them to me. So my question to you is, Melissa, how late do you want to get those from May?

Let me pull up my calendar here, and I will give you an answer to that. Could I have them by the end of day on the 20th?

Okay. So that means, Melissa, that you would get them from me by the 21st, unless everyone gets them to me that morning.

Yes, that is why I said the 20th. So that gives me Friday to take it in. And then the next couple of days, I can either touch base with Nate or with Guy to try to figure out how to best address those comments.

And I would suggest, I mean, I don't want to, again, I would suggest, again, I think Melissa has been taking notes. I can tell I've taken some notes. I like Don't feel that, I mean, I think we've gathered all this input, right? But don't feel like you have to rehash every single part of it. But if there's a, as you read through it, you catch some things, you want to double down on something you really, really believe in or want to make sure it's being followed through. But don't feel like you've got to, you know, I don't want everybody thinking this is like a homework assignment either. Sure it is.

It's a homework assignment. It's going to be graded, I'm sure.

Well, I think it's also going to be easier once we get this second version out for everybody to kind of QA QC that version, frankly, right? Like I just, I like to see everybody, all these people spending time, I don't say spinning our wheels because that's not fair, but I think if we can get a little bit tighter version this next time around, I think that'll be a little bit maybe more efficient use of everybody's time to drill down a little further, hopefully.

And then Rachel, if it's okay with you, I'll share stuff with you when I receive it from the group and Melissa Reinstadter. Doesn't mean you and Melissa can't talk or exchange emails, but I will try and keep you in the loop as much as I can.

I think Rachel, at the beginning, you said you had some notes.

Did we cover what you had for us to cover?

I think once the tightening happens that Nate is talking about, I think that that's going to take care of a bunch of stuff. I had a couple things in the whereas statements that were pretty out of the ordinary, like requiring open space in exchange for data center approval. Never seen that before. Not sure if you can do it. Okay. So... There were a couple of things like that in the whereas statements that didn't appear anywhere else in the ordinance.

Okay. Yeah, I'll take another look at that. It is a very long whereas section, so maybe there's some items that we can kind of take out here. But that's a good thought. Thank you, Rachel. I appreciate that.

This has been a very good initial discussion, I feel. Um, hopefully not to drag it on too much, but Nate, under screening and buffer, um, D does Arbovitae maybe used as a vegetative buffer need to be specified?

Well, that's why I want to go look at what our code says for some of the other sections to be more clear. Like that just might be, you know what I mean? Like, I think that's, again, you gotta keep in mind a lot of these ordinances, these drafts we're seeing are written for Like I think we said early on, communities that have no codification, right? Whereas we already have a lot. So that's why I want to kind of combine some of these and be a little bit more consistent.

All right. The response was longer than I wanted. Anything else? We'll take a look.

I just had one thing I'd like to say, Dave, on another subject before you adjourn the meeting.

Okay.

just to keep the planning commission up to date regarding woods edge their current extension letter expires the end of september i have spoken to mr joyce i do anticipate him submitting another extension letter that we will probably act on for the august 19th meeting it is my understanding that the owner of the parcel mike joyce have been in contact with new london township and have developed an escrow agreement and monies with them now. So that's been resolved, that little small portion of it.

Great. Thanks for the update.

I don't have anything more.

Any public comment? Any none? Do you have a motion to adjourn?

I'll give you a motion to adjourn.

Thanks, Chuck. If we need a second, the boisterous Mark Harris gave a second.

Yep, I did hear it.

Alright, thanks everybody. Good discussion.