Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Dave, with me as an alternate, do you need me active today?

Chuck, I heard Mark laughing. I don't see him on my screen. We have at least three.

Dave, with me as an alternate.

We're good. Thanks.

Okay.

All right. We are live streaming. Here comes Dr. Harris.

Let's call the Franklin Township Planning Commission meeting September 3rd to order at 702. First order of business. Any public comment? Stacey, are you able to know everybody that's on the meeting? Do you need anybody to identify themselves?

No, I've got it. Thank you. Great. Any public comment?

Being none, let's review the August 6th Planning Commission meeting minutes. And when appropriate, I'll take a motion to approve the minutes. Okay.

Anyone willing to give a motion? I got it.

I make a motion to approve the Planning Commission meeting from August 6th, 2026. I'll second that. Any discussion?

Thanks. Being no discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, like sign. Great. When we move on to the data center ordinance before we get into the meat of the draft, I wanted Nate's and Melissa's comments on the two planning Commission members. Questions and comments about. You know whether to have an ordinance such as just as more general industry. then specific to the data center. I thought that would be worth discussing before we dive into the draft.

Sure. I'm happy to start that conversation, Nate. So Nate and I got the opportunity to meet probably about a week after the last planning commission meeting. And at that point, we had discussed actually a similar topic as to whether or not we felt that it would be beneficial to the township to either update the light industrial district itself or if we have this ordinance as it was previously created and as you'll see tonight as it continues to be created. that we will be regulating data centers under Chapter 17. So that's something we continue to push forward on. We had a conversation with the Chester County Planning Commission, the individual that was with us last month, And she felt that this was the way that a lot of the townships are handling their data center ordinances, which of course doesn't always give us the okay to do everything. However, it's nice to see that pattern going along. As you'll see tonight, there are some very specific areas of data centers that may not totally touch other areas that we would be regulating in the light industrial district. There's very specific noise regulations. We had Pannoni look into that. I'll point out some of those charts and Nate can maybe get into it a little bit as well. the cleanest way for us to do this and you'll see it in the updated version tonight is that we take it would be chapter 27 that would be amended to include data centers as a use permitted by conditional use that's something we discussed at the last planning commission meeting and then we will take uh it will be a reference to chapter 17, to part 17 in that section. That's going to be the cleanest way, I think, for us to handle it. We appreciated the comments and I think a lot of them were incorporated, but the way that the ordinance is going to be adopted into our code, this just seems to be the easiest way that a lot of these townships are doing it. So we just want to continue that path forward.

Yeah, and then I'll just opine slightly on that, Melissa, real quick too, is that I think what we've also found as we're adopting these in various municipalities, I think what we also have uncovered sometimes is that we then, you know, after we kind of tackle this, yes, we then make to the noise ordinance elsewhere or the industrial district or whatever it is that we kind of have a new perspective on that we back and we go back. We kind of been trying to focus on this task to get this off the plate rather than getting involved in multiple aspects of things and then getting kind of overwhelmed and not getting out the main task, which is this for the time being. So that was kind of our approach to this, at least when we talked and just talking to a few other municipalities as well.

So if I could summarize, you're recommending that we go through, the two of you are recommending that we go through this draft, but anticipating that we will probably want to be updating some other ordinances in the near- Potentially, yes.

Hey, before you guys go further, I know Zoom is a very quirky thing. I'm getting a security alert about one of our attendees with a phone number ending in 7-1-1-2. Can you identify yourself if you feel comfortable? Interesting. They left. Okay. They left. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

All right. Did anybody have any questions for Melissa or Nate before we get into the draft?

Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, probably easiest for Melissa to maybe kind of step through. I think, again, when Melissa and I sat down and looked at this, God bless Melissa, I think after a little while of making some edits and tweaking and going, I think we both kind of were like, wait a minute, what are we doing here? And we kind of went back and said, wait a minute, let's – And not to disparage anybody else, I think it was a little bit of a rough start in that some of that stuff, it was just kind of a lot of stuff kind of glommed on together and it didn't kind of really sync up and match up and things were kind of not making some sense. So I think, again, code stuffs can get a little bit wonky. So I appreciate Melissa, but kind of gave us a little bit of a fresh start. So again, new document that she mentioned. So, you know, maybe she can walk through very similar overall, but again, I think it reads a lot cleaner. So these are a few things filled in. I'm sure you guys want some feedback and questions, but that's kind of how we got here. Kind of a, maybe a false start for a minute or two, but then I think we were able to, Melissa, again, was able to kind of reestablish a baseline here.

So I would comment that in the past, We've been instructed to not make changes often to our code because of the cost that the township incurs for the advertisement, for the professional fees and everything that's involved. So a lot of times we'll wait to pass changes so that we can put them with other changes. My concern would be if the point is to move this quickly to the forefront, then I'm concerned that the changes to LI are not going to happen.

You know, I'll defer to Jeff and obviously the board on how they kind of want to handle those kind of things. You know, again, trying to kind of stay focused on the task at hand slash, You know, this kind of hangover, everybody's head in Chester County right now. So I know Melissa, I think from a timing standpoint, kind of hoping to keep this going. But I know Melissa and I have not dived in, Chuck, yet on kind of edits to LI or existing noise stuff. Again, we kind of kept it to this part right now. But I don't know, Jeff or Melissa, do you have thoughts on that?

I think for right now, we are looking to get this out. However, we do still want to go through the proper processes. And that's why we're having multiple planning commission meetings and multiple Board of Supervisors meetings and potentially a joint meeting. I know that's something that Jeff will want to talk about maybe closer to the end of this meeting. So there is a hope to get this out as soon as possible to protect the township. But at the same time, we agree with you, Chuck, we don't want to be making a ton of edits later costing the township money in advertising. So there's a delicate balance as to how we're handling this. But I think for right now, we're hoping to at least get a draft in front of you so we can get your thoughts.

Sounds good.

Jeff, you okay with that as well? yeah i'm fine with that melissa kind of teased a little bit but um between dr hoffman and myself we can talk about whether we're going to have a joint planning commission board meeting in october the october meeting like the old days yep well yeah jeff asked me my two cents on it too and you know it can be good and bad but i think something like this it can be productive because i think

it kind of breaks down some friction and some barriers and you have one larger conversation, which I think helps facilitate as opposed to having multiple separate conversations that, you know, make things a little bit more, you know, slow things down a little bit. So.

Yes, but just one, one, the planning commission to figure it out, is it October or is it November? But I, I feel it's important that we have one at some time in the near future.

Well, let's get a feeling of where we are with this draft.

Yeah. Yeah. So Melissa, do you want, I can scroll through. Can everybody see my screen? You need me to zoom in? Does everybody have a copy? What's the best way here? Can you zoom in some? Yep. Yep.

nate i think my plan for right now is i'm going to give kind of high level ideas to what the changes are since we don't have we're not sharing a red line copy and i'm not doing that to hide anything from the planning commission that's simply because there was a lot of changes and the red line is very difficult to follow so i'm going to go over just some basic changes that nate and i had talked about and then i've actually been in communication with some other township solicitors regarding specific sections and the county And also we had an individual from Jeff, I think it was Pico that we had talked to about an agreement as well. So communicating behind the scenes here. We had gone through some of these whereas clauses. I actually removed a few whereas clauses simply because they weren't necessary. They got into kind of the more meat and bones as to what we would talk about later in the ordinance. So I think that was something that Rachel had discussed that maybe we don't need to get into that. So I had removed four whereas clauses. The remainder will stay. We had talked about the structure of how the ordinance is going to look. There will be a change to chapter 27 that allows data centers by conditional use. And then that section will reference a new part. I think it's going to be section 27-1721. And that will be this data center ordinance. So to give you an idea as to what this will look like in ECO, there will be a separate dropdown. From there, and I'm just going to get through all of these very basic edits first, and then we can go through questions that you guys have. From there, there were some definitions that were changed regarding data center. I pulled the definition from the county model ordinance. There was some odd language in the last one that I don't know how comfortable Nate and I were with it. So we kind of fused the two. There's a fusion of what Guy had included and then what the county model ordinance has as well. We did that with data accessory use as well. And then we are going to go down to the noise and vibration, which is probably the biggest section that was changed. This is something that we had talked about a little bit with Nate had discussed it prior that he has some, some really great folks over at Pannoni that know the noise stuff in and out. This is way over my head.

And guys, I'm going to be honest too. It's over my head. I mean, it's, it gets into the weeds pretty good, but I think I chatted on this last month, too, maybe, but we kind of tasked them with helping us here in Chester County, and actually we've been kind of using this in other places in the state now, kind of helping us get a framework of something that they felt was that that data center industry would be able to adhere to, that the municipalities with the correct professions would be also able to apply without it being generic and applying to the high school football game, right? Like, so trying to find some sort of, you know, and that's where this came from. So I will never pretend to be an expert in this, and I'm not going to be able to answer specific questions. I can get questions answered very quickly from our team if there are any for what that's worth. So I just want to chime in real quick, Melissa.

No, that's helpful, Nate. I appreciate that. So we had taken some of the charts that Nate will scroll through very quickly. That Nate's team had created and then we had. input franklin township's existing data into them so that's things like receiving land use the noise related to receiving land use the timing on that the decibels permitted those sort of items we had narrowly tailored to franklin township itself so these aren't charts that we pulled out of nowhere this is nate's team that was narrowly tailored to franklin township and his ordinance as existing So there's quite a few different charts on here, quite a few different types of measurements.

From there, I believe in NATO... And just to chime in again, because without getting into this whole crazy noise world, right? Low frequency, all these different variables of how the noise is handled is also covered in here. So just want to put that out there if you're seeing some of the discussion out there in the world. So that's included as well as you know, again, how to model, how to measure all those different parameters are in here. So feel free to dig in. And if you guys want to feel free to even just after this follow up with questions as you dig in a little bit, and I'll put it in front of our guys real quick. And we can certainly circle back on anything. And ultimately, if needed, I can always bring them on you know, a more extended discussion, they'd be happy to jump on, even though we'd be getting into the weeds pretty good with these guys.

I actually just had one question. I saw something like two pages up that defines the noise floor or ceiling rather as being 10 decibels lower than the standard if the noise is a continuous one. By the nature of the data centers, I think the noise will always be a continuous one. So just... don't want to make it so restrictive based on its normal use.

Yeah, understood, Zach. I think that's a good point to bring up. And I did actually pull some of that italic language from the existing Franklin Township noise ordinance.

I was going to say, is that where that was? Yeah, okay.

Yeah, so it's under Table 2. I think that may be where Zach's referencing.

But it was something in our code currently. Yeah, right there. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so that language currently exists. So we just wanted to make sure it was consistent with the data center ordinance so we weren't treating them any different than we were for the regular noise.

Okay, no, I'm just saying, just from knowing the nature of how those things work, it's always going to be a continuous, which I guess is redundant, but yeah.

That's why the number needs to be lower because a continuous noise is much more egregious or annoying than...

Oh, no, for sure. I just want to make sure it's not so restrictive as to make it, you know, so them to say, well, it's impossible for us to run a data center at that noise level.

Yep. Nothing's impossible with money.

Question, do these sound levels exist in the ordinances today?

Yes, the levels that are listed under daytime and nighttime, they are what is permitted right now in the noise ordinance. So that was the part that was kind of tailored to Franklin Township.

I'm just thinking apples to oranges. There's probably not any other sound sources in the township that are of the nature that it's a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week continuous noise.

Probably the only thing that we have is as annoying as the Colonial Pipeline Station. We do get phone calls about that occasionally.

How about the Pico substation too, or no?

No, the Colonial substation on Parsons Road.

Yeah, okay.

So it's not the same, but I just wanted to tell you we do have another source for noise.

Yeah. This continuous 70 dB for industrial zone was my concern. But knowing that if it's continuous, we are going to put a restriction of 10 dB less down to 60 makes me more comfortable.

Correct. And again, I think Melissa's larger point, which is we're not greedily treating this differently than other industrial districts, right? Yep. Right. Just because it's a data center, we're not... making it something so ridiculous they can't meet. Yep. Is that at the property line? Yeah, somewhere in here. I believe that's where it speaks to measuring it, Chuck.

OK. OK. That wouldn't be a fair measurement next to the noise generator.

Technically, it's always at the property line. I mean, that's the nature of the measurement. No different than some light pollution, things like that as well.

How does it get measured? Is it a million-dollar machine from Pannoni?

Exactly right.

We've worked that into the code. Okay. Well, I'm a little familiar with this just from my time in the military. 60 dB is basically the sound level you would have in a supermarket for the music that's playing overhead. That's 60 decibels.

It's also equivalent to a car driving at 60 miles an hour on a freeway heard from a block away. Sounds like a waterfall.

So, I mean, that's a pretty low noise ceiling.

Again, it's relative, right? Because, again, there's noise, there's vibration, there's the low frequency, there's the continuous nature of it. So there's all those different variables, Zach, as part of it, too. No, and again, I know you don't want to get too deep in the weeds. I just kind of wanted to throw out. Yeah, but look, again, there's no magic number, right? It's kind of all over the map a little bit out there in the world, too. Yeah. All right. What do you want to hit next, Melissa? What are you thinking?

So the next item, and I think we're at, it's just under the charts. And I'm just going to touch on this for like a sentence. It's called tiered mitigation and enforcement. This is something that I actually had a conversation with the solicitor in East Whiteland Township at the behest of the county. The county was very impressed by their data center ordinance They're currently still reviewing it, but Rachel had actually pushed me to think about considering this specific section. It's just a tiered enforcement option that we could go through, and I will give everybody a little bit of time to read into it and look at it, and we can discuss it, but I just wanted to let you know where it came from and why we included it.

And my understanding, I think, Melissa, is like this gets geared more towards a lot of the ancillary accessory type stuff where they're doing testing on the backup generators or diesel generator or things are going off and on and periodic and things of that nature. So again, it's just like another enforcement mechanism, not necessarily just the continuous hum of the facility, but these kind of things that might be on and off at different times of the day. And I think that's one of the concerns that's out there. And this is one of the first ones we've seen written like this.

Correct. Yeah, it's the idea of how often the noises are exceeding the noise ordinance and how these data centers can mitigate that with turning things off and on. So it gives them tiered options. If they continue to violate, we move up the tiers. So that's something that we would be able to have in our back pocket. So moving forward from that, I just want to make sure I am on the same area as you, Nate, since I'm looking at the red line here. So there was some reorganization. Again, that's why we're not sharing the red line. Air pollution, heat and glare were all kind of interchanged in different sections. We summarized it and we essentially just said that it already had to comply with the performance standards that exist in the township code. I think that's the safest way moving forward. And you'll see a lot of the other changes in this ordinance are going to do the same thing. They're going to refer back to other areas in the code. And again, that just ensures that we are not putting more stringent standards on these data centers than what already exists in the code. It also allows for easier compliance. I know as Nate probably reviews these plans, it's easier for him to probably go back and look at the existing sections. Nate, did you have something you wanted to add?

No, no, no. I think you're spot on there. Right, where we can utilize existing code regulations we want to, right? It's when we take these codes and we start making all these little special, unique changes, Apple-only certain things is where we lose the initiative, in my opinion. So when, again, we're kind of, again, in the industrial use bucket, yes, we need specific noise for this data center, but some of these things we can apply existing code regulations and be consistent. And again, Melissa did a really nice job kind of pulling that to be consistent, whereas before it was different language, different sections, and that's where we really lose the initiative, in my opinion.

Thanks, Nate.

Go ahead. So it always needs to comply with both? Yes. Well, as cited here, right? So like, again, here, instead of creating its own air pollution standards for this use, we're referring to the existing code.

Yes. But does that mean that anything... Does that mean that all sections? So when you review, do you have to review for both LI and...

for data centers or is sound only would it only apply to data centers because there's a sound section correct the latter right so this sound section is only going to apply to this conditional use for the data center um okay i mean look that's that's how that's that's how it's drafted that's what that's what we're running with for the time being You guys continue to think on that a little bit if you want, but that's what we have.

Yeah, I think the noise one draws directly to ordinance 27-1608-2A, which talks about those levels that you had in the table above, and B, which adds the modification for continuous sound. So, Chuck, we would just go straight to the performance standard ordinance that applies to everyone else, but noise in that regard.

I'm just worried about the gaps.

No, yeah. No, I think that's what we want to make sure we have covered. So that's, again, that's certainly fair. We don't want to be misconstrued or confusing that.

Okay. I think we're going to continue down the line here just to explain what other changes were made. Battery storage, that actually already existed. So there was no changes to the battery storage section. Am I correct?

Am I correct in thinking that that only applies to data centers and we don't have it for any other LI uses?

Correct.

So the next section for emergency management, this is something that we had talked about with the Planning Commission the last time we were here. So Nate and I had kind of tailored this section. I know there was a concern about what would occur if a natural disaster happened and this data center had damage to it. Would it be part of this emergency management plan, this emergency response plan? I did reach out to the county and see if they were able to give me some sort of example as to what they see they were unable to give me that. So, based on what we have here, this is the general model ordinance standards for an emergency response plan, there was not much that was updated. We did include a section an additional section for provisions of annual fire safety inspections. from a qualified professional. And then we also asked that the applicant coordinate with not only Chester County 911, but local emergency management coordinators in the area as well. So that section generally remains the same. Most of what was already in the existing ordinance would apply in a natural disaster. So we didn't feel the need to kind of get into the nitty gritty of what happens if there's a tornado, what happens if there's a flood. Everything is still going to apply for the emergency response plan. So the next section here is energy systems and supply. There were significant changes here. It was really to eliminate repetitive language that was used throughout. There was some language that actually conflicted with one another, so we removed that as well. The language that currently exists is a bit more summarized. One specific item that I had followed up with Rachel from the county on after our planning commission meeting was the Chester County Planning Commission Transmission Security Agreement. That is something that they are seeing happen more and more frequently here. I picture it as like a will serve letter in this case. That's essentially what this is. And as I had stated in the beginning here, Jeff and I reached out to PECO. So PECO kindly provided us with a transmission security agreement example as to what they used in a recent example. So we were able to see generally what it would look like. And it really is essentially a will serve letter. It's not much more than that. So we were able to see what the county would be looking for. So we included that language in that the applicant would need to get a transmission security agreement and they would need to make sure they send it to the township during the application process. So that was kind of one of the biggest changes in this area.

Question, is there a reason we're adding in a requirement to have a minimum of 10% of the power come from renewable sources? If they're pulling over 50 megawatts?

Yes. So that was suggested in the county model ordinance. And I did not see that included originally. So I wanted to make sure we at least had the language in there. If we eventually want to strike it, that is totally fine. But at least we have a baseline of the county model ordinance language.

I'd like to come back and talk about this after the fact.

Sure, absolutely. Yeah, we definitely can touch back on any of your questions.

Yeah, I'm torn on that one.

Sure, yeah.

Yeah, I don't mean specifically that. I mean Section 9. Okay, absolutely. Section 9.

Another item that was removed, and you won't see in Nate's version that he has up, there was a section about nuclear power. We removed that. That's not something that the county is seeing in these ordinances. So we removed any reference to nuclear power. I had spoken to Rachel about that, and that was a suggestion from the county. Section 10 that Nate has up here, it was previously called Wooder Infrastructure. We're calling it Wooder now. Kind of delineated. The data centers that are going to use public water data centers that are going to use non public water that's something that the county suggests that we that we do just to see what kind of strain it's going to put on the systems, whether it be public water or non public water. That was almost the only change here, substantive change. The other items that were changed was that we essentially removed some of the language relating to wastewater disposal and we just made it its own section. It was kind of all intertwined last time and it was a little confusing to follow. So now we have a totally separate section about wastewater. That section was created from the model ordinance as well, along with some language that other Chester County townships and some Delaware County townships are using as well. That's something that we've kind of been referencing some local townships on just to see how everyone else is handling the strain. And then I think we move on to... this environmental impact analysis and studies. This was a combo of a few sections that we had to move around to adjust some of the environmental items. Not much of the language was changed. It's just simply that it is consolidated now. So we're still talking about Pindies and we actually added the historic and cultural resource assessment into that section as well. Um, the next was compliance with the comprehensive plan. Let me get there as well. Um, this is a section that we pulled out. It originally was under this environmental section and it just didn't seem to fit there. So I essentially just pulled this out. So now it's its own section. None of the language has changed. It's just its own section. Um, and then. The expansion and intensification of use. Let me get there myself. That was an existing section as well. There's questions as to enforceability, as to creating some sort of vested right in permits. I'm suggesting we keep that language in there. However, I'm not totally sure how enforceable this section is going to be. It's something that we're seeing in a lot of ordinances. I don't know how many solicitors are digging into whether or not it's going to be enforceable. I think a lot of us are just, you know, trying to find the best way to protect our clients. So this is being included and we can talk about whether or not we feel that's appropriate for Franklin Township as well. And the final section, this is actually a consolidated section as well. At our last planning commission meeting, we had suggested maybe taking some of the language from the solar energy system ordinance and consolidating it with the decommissioning language for data centers. So I did my best to kind of consolidate those languages. decommissioning is going to look similar especially administratively for the township that will help the township if and when these things do decommission um we'll have an ideas to kind of follow up on that um outside of those items the only item that is not i don't believe it's included in the version that nate has because it was just a a question that i had um In our original data center ordinance draft that was put before you last month, There was a section that discussed a traffic impact study. Some of the planning commission members here had said maybe they felt like it was worth it. Maybe they felt like it wasn't worth it just because there is not a ton of traffic that occurs with these data centers. There's not a lot of employees. Do we feel that a full traffic impact study is needed? I removed that language. However, I still have it. So if we feel that we absolutely want a traffic study for these data centers, we can include it in the ordinance. It is just not included currently. So that's something I just wanted you guys to note as we go through. So those are the changes. Nate, if I missed anything, feel free to chime in.

No, no, but I do think, yeah, again, a lot of it was just, I think, consolidating some things that just weren't aligning. So I think that just made a lot more straightforward. I know when I was going through that last draft, you know, like we were saying this here, but then we were saying this over here, and this term was different than that term. So this is getting it a lot more straightforward. I'm not saying this is foolproof yet. Obviously you guys will probably have some comments, but I think this is a much better jumping off point now, so.

Great. Thanks, Melissa. Nate, it does seem a little more similar to our current ordinances, the way it's set up than the previous one. Do we want to talk about the traffic impact study now before we forget about it? The concern I remember stating was the traffic's gonna be in the construction works. And whether can a traffic impact study be done for the construction, whereas traffic impact studies that we do now are based on the completion of a development.

Right, I think you're correct in that assumption, right? Like in theory, the worst of this traffic will be during construction, typically during the operation, that traffic is fairly minimal. So if we were to include it, I think we would need to revise it such that it was more specific to that aspect. Well, look, it might not hurt to include something about clarifying, you know, the full employees and all that. But the focus is probably more on how are we getting things in a rural context to, you know, power trucks and all these kind of things getting here, workers, all that kind of stuff. You know, I kind of think there's a little bit of value in that, Melissa, too. Would be would be my preference to include something. But obviously I'll defer to the PC here.

I agree. It could be because a lot of. A lot of these facilities are going to be built off site and brought on. So traffic could be, if we don't control it, could be extremely, it could affect us to the extreme.

Unless anybody objects, I think I would suggest, Melissa, we try to work in some sort of traffic study. Again, maybe more of a focus on construction traffic, construction vehicles, things of that nature, with less of an emphasis on the actual development, because I think that's probably maybe a wasted effort overkill, but that's where I would go.

I think we specifically need to say during construction.

Right. Mark, Zach, Jim, do we want to have them put it back in?

I'm not familiar with how big of a challenge these traffic studies are. If it's not like moving a mountain, then I'd say let's put it back in just so that we can dot the I's across the T's.

It's better to have it there than not. Yeah, of all the things these developers do, the traffic study on a project like this is probably the least... Yeah, let's add it back in there just so that we can dot the I's across the T's and hopefully...

If there's a gotcha, it's going to catch it for us.

I would put it back in because during construction, there's going to be an immense amount of traffic. And you have to at least count that in because these may take a year to build.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to be looking at two conditions of a traffic study, construction and operation.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, I think ultimately what the traffic study will show is that most likely is during operation, there's minimal negligible impacts during construction. Oh, yeah, we've got to take this tractor trailer down this road and make a right turn. And hey, we're going to have this many workers on site. You know, it's going to cause these issues. We need a temporary traffic light to get people into the site, whatever it might be. You don't know. So.

So, Nate and Melissa, for the next time we have for our next draft, if that can be in there.

Absolutely. I'm going to take notes as we're chatting here, so I just took that note.

I thought maybe if you would tell us what section first you wanted comments in, and if there's members that wanted to comment in sections before that, speak up, but otherwise let's not just go start with the whereas statements. If there's nothing to talk about, get down to the sections that you guys want us to have some input and speak up the rest of the PC if you have stuff before that section.

Great. Yeah, I think at this point we got a few questions on noise and vibration. I will say sections one through four are not different than what they were before. It's purpose and intent, definitions, authorization, and building placement. And I believe building placement still needs to be considered.

Yeah. I got to fill in the blanks for you on a couple of those things. And that's one of them, right? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So I don't know if that section is necessarily ready to get into details just yet. So that would bring us to section five, which is noise and vibration.

So that's section four that you want to set aside? Correct. Correct. Okay. Nate, just so you know, you go back to LI and we have two things that are called industrial and non-industrial. And we don't have a definition for either of them. Good to know. So that was going to be, yeah. What are your edits to make overall? And to be very clear, I used AI. So I understand the, you know.

No comment, no comment. But that's a good catch, and that might be something. And, again, if we're doing all these edits and there's something easy, we can always slap something easy in Melissa, right, if we've got something else in an LI district or something, right? Okay. But, yeah, so that's on my list to kind of fill in these blanks here for Melissa.

And vegetative buffering, I'd love to see it just be a woods. Be more specific. Well, we're probably talking about a pretty big setback, and we're also talking about buffering. Instead of a bunch of landscaping, I would like to see it be planted so that it will ultimately become like all the rest of our roads around here. It just ends up being a set of woods. That's my own personal thought process. I don't know how that works.

I saw on the Susquehanna County ordinance they had a 25-feet. thick of vegetated buffering.

Yeah, I mean, what Chuck's talking about is going to be certainly something more substantial than that, but not unheard of. It's also one of those things, Chuck, as you know, too, right? I'm not saying anything you guys don't know, but you're going to install something on day one. It's going to take until year X to be substantial, too, to a point, right? So there's only so much you can do, but certainly can get something a little bit more dense than the typical you know, one row of Arborvitae nonsense is absolutely something we can look towards. Okay. That's a nice thing about unconditional use. True, too. But, I mean, I think we just tee it up here and make it somewhat, you know, have a little bit of teeth in it so that, you know, it's, yeah, like Chuck said, it's like, yeah, there's a data center over there, but you don't even know it's there, right? I mean, that's in a perfect world, right?

Well, I had before.

Okay.

Yeah. All right. Did we have any other sections about or any other questions about Section 5 at this point? If not, we'll move on.

Could we potentially remove the allowance for Arborvitae?

Don't even allow those to be planted at all, you're saying?

Yeah.

I'll bounce it on my landscape architects a little bit. There's pros and cons, obviously.

But come up with something like the landscape buffer has to be from ground level up.

Yeah, we'll take a look at it. I mean, our providers only do so much. I mean, again, they have some positives, but yeah, not all positive.

Feed the deer. Mm-hmm.

Okay. And if we are good with the noise section, we will move on to section six. And that is the air pollution, heat, and glare. And essentially that section just refers to another section of the zoning code.

I do have a question about the noise section.

Oh, sure. Of course. Go ahead.

Within our ordinance, and I'm pulling it up to look at it right now, For LI, there's various flavors of industrial use. There's residential slash industrial, commercial slash industrial, and just straight industrial. Would a data center use be straight industrial, commercial industrial?

In regards to the noise you're talking about?

Yeah, because there's different limits within 2760. That's not going to apply.

For noise for data centers, this is what's going to apply, not that.

Straight up. Okay.

Could I feel like you mentioned that earlier? And we might have mixed up on that. For the data centers, this noise section will apply. Any other industrial use, that section will apply.

I was asking because it just lined up exactly with 27-1608, the numbers you have there now.

Yeah. Go ahead, Melissa.

I'm sorry. No, you're fine. I think what we tried to do was take the – The way that the charts are laid out is the receiving land noise. So if the receiving land is mixed use, if the receiving land is residential, that's how the decibels are adjusted there.

So the sound level at the boundary of the neighboring land.

Correct. So we want lower decibels if there's a dwelling and maybe a little bit higher if there's another industrial use. We'll permit it to be a little higher. So you'll see if the receiving use is residential, it's 50. But if it's if the receiving use is industrial, it's 70. And that's the chart.

Thank you. I've misunderstood that.

Yeah, no problem. All right, so at that, we will move back into Section 6, which is just that air pollution, heat, and glare. And again, that's just referring back to a section in the code. So that would apply to anybody who is developing this property for this section of the zoning code. So we're essentially using our own standards here. Does anyone have any questions about Section 6? Okay, hearing none, we will move forward to Section 7, which is battery storage. You'll note that there's a blank in there. That is something that I think Nate and I need to continue to look into. I'm not quite sure how long it needs to be for an internal electrical fire that's lasting a certain amount of minutes.

You know, it's funny. I was on a call with a fire marshal in another community today, and in the back of my head it was to ask them. I did not do that, but I'll bounce it off them.

That sounds good. Thanks, Nate. I appreciate it. Outside of that, does anyone have any other questions about the battery storage section?

I'm just glad it wasn't there for you to get input from us. How many minutes?

Chuck's looking on Chuck to chat GPT right now to find out.

All right. With that, we will move on to section eight, which is the emergency response plan. That essentially lays out what that emergency response plan needs to look like. It also requires that the applicant demonstrate that there are procedures for certain items like fire suppression, containment, ventilation, and for signage, requiring emergency contact signage for emergency services as well.

So question on this one, if Their installation requires some super special firefighting equipment. Who's responsible for purchasing and acquiring that equipment?

You're saying if they, for lack of a better way to explain it, you need a special truck with a special ladder of a certain length.

Or a special firefighting foe.

Right, right, something like that. I got you. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. I mean, I guess the ERP also, if they're going to prepare, that's going to evaluate that and be reviewed by the county. You know what I mean? So I think part of it will be part of that analysis. That's interesting.

Because if it's the fire department who's responsible for picking that up, that ends up costing all the taxpayers. Mm hmm.

Yeah, so there is actually a section in here. It doesn't go exactly to your question, but it requires that the applicant pay for any special training needed for specialized use of equipment or specialized training needed to put out fires in data centers. But we could potentially add a section.

If you just almost slide in, like any specialized training and or equipment, maybe something as simple as that, unless you kind of cover that piece pretty good.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, so can I just sort of... I think if there was an actual emergency on this site, if it was actually built out to the scale we're talking about, that would not even be a... It would be led by what's going to be Station 26, but that would be a county-level response. They would have to bring in the county hazmat.

They would... So in theory, you're saying those resources are almost county wide and county based.

Yeah, that would not be a local. The nature of it, if there was an actual fire big enough to require that kind of response, that's more than the local here can deal with. And that would have specialized equipment that wouldn't make sense in any other context. But that's stuff that the county has for their hazmat task forces. Gotcha.

We clarify that.

ensure county has adequate resources. And then another suggestion, and I don't know how well this fits in there, but in my mind, it might be good to require that the site has an on-site emergency water supply for the event of an actual meltdown-y kind of emergency because that will quickly overwhelm the public water supply. And even, I mean, having been through a big fire in Oxford two years ago, just a simple commercial fire that took out two buildings wound up draining the entire emergency water supply and hydrant supply system for Oxford, Lower Oxford, Upper Oxford, and Nottingham. And that was a relatively simple fire that didn't have lithium batteries and whatever else. So requiring some sort of, like I said, emergency on-site water supply for fire suppression might not be a bad idea if water is the appropriate extinguishing agent.

Kalon or the equivalent might be the preferred for a computer center where there's not going to be anyone in the room.

Yeah, I think that's all good points to point out, and I will just point to, and Nate, this is Section 8A2 and 8A3. We are asking that the applicant include detailed procedures for what they would do for fire suppression, and then Subsection 3 is they have to provide us with an evaluation of access roads, hydrants, and ensure suitable access to emergency equipment within the site. We can specifically say and address on-site water use in the event of fire suppression or something along those lines, but maybe that would be a good area to fit it in since it is kind of along the same lines.

And it wouldn't, I mean, it wouldn't necessarily be water. I mean, they might use PKP or Halon or God knows what, but something.

Some sort of that emergency equipment. The first step.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. I just did a quick check on that. Yeah. It's not going to be water.

Well, so it depends on the nature. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Sprinkler system. Even the AFF requires water to – sorry, the foam requires a water supply to disperse it. Right.

So you have – in a data center or in a computer room or whatever, you have your initial sprinkler system that is set up. Sprinklers aren't really designed to put fires out. They're designed – to keep the fire under control until the firefighters get there. So, you know, so that's, I mean, they're not going to use water to do that. However, if they can't put the fire out by the time emergency services get there, we're going to need probably a ton of water. Do you agree with that, Zach?

Yeah. No. And like I said, my bigger thought, and it's not necessarily the data center or like inside the data center computer banks themselves. I'm actually thinking more about a battery fire. Lithium batteries don't get extinguished. Like you can put 100,000 gallons of water on a lithium battery fire and it just cools it down.

So Zach and Chuck, what we want Melissa and Nate to do is say that in this section somewhere, put adequate resources to...

Yeah, I would just have some sort of specific language so that it's not dependent on this, you know. Because I can tell you, Westgrove does not have the equipment. to extinguish that kind of a scale of electrical fire like that. I mean, basically we rely on water. We don't have the specialized stuff beyond that that would be needed in an environment like a data center or a battery storage facility. And again, just to be clear, I'm not speaking for West Grove Fire Department. I'm just saying I know what the equipment is.

What happens on a EV?

Well, they would use water and just do their best to cool it down. But I mean, that's a much smaller scale.

No, I'm just curious. Yeah, so you just keep cooling it. So the larger the scale, the more water you got to put on it to keep it.

Correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

Was there anyone else that had a question on this? I thought I heard maybe multiple people talking at the same time. No? Okay. We'll move forward then. We're now at section nine. This is the energy system and supply. So this was language, again, that we had pulled from the county model ordinance. And I believe there were specific questions about this regarding the 10% power from renewable generation. So we can discuss that.

So I want to start with A. Got it. The definition The fact that when we talk data centers, we're only talking data centers according to what I understand this to say. We're not talking about the generation of power for the data centers. That's the intention of this section, correct?

Correct.

Okay. So we're saying backup power generation will not be considered an accessory use?

No. Yeah, it won't be part of data center use. I do believe it's included under the data center accessory use. It's just not included under the data center use.

That's where I wanted to go with this. Yeah, we might need to tighten that up, Melissa. Versus the definition, because I don't feel like Jive.

Yeah, because I think Chuck's got a good point, right? We talk about power generation up here. and then accessory, including backup energy generation. So I think the intent, and maybe we just gotta make sure the language is consistent, Melissa, from the county was that power generation that's part of the data center is part of the data center. Backup is an accessory. So if you got something additional, I think that was kind of how it was set up, but to Chuck's point, we should double check and make sure that language is being consistent.

Yeah, so I think the backup generation, and Nate, I agree with you, the backup generator is, or whatever, energy generation is going to be used as accessory use. But that backup generating... energy generation, like you highlighted here can't include an energy generation system that's used to supply other things. So we can't have a data center that also includes a Pico substation and the Pico substation will not be a data center. So that's kind of how we're thinking about it here. And maybe that language just needs to be a little bit more clear throughout. Um, but I think that was the idea to make sure we're not, um, these data centers aren't able to include like a mini city of power in their data center use.

Yeah. They're not going to bring in a power turbine and basically a jet engine running a generator as bring your own power.

Correct. Yeah. And I think maybe that's, I just need to narrow in on that language a little bit. Yeah.

Cause I think, I think the language gets a little wonky when I look at it too. It's like power generators, right? Electrical substations are, Right. And then even down here, we start getting into backup. It just gets a little, it might be a little clunky. Okay. So we might just want to kind of think that through and talk to the county if we need to. Got it. I agree. That's a good point, Chuck.

Yeah. So what is the intention? Are we saying, because just by taking it out doesn't mean it won't happen.

Well, I think the question then becomes.

Does it fall under the data center? Yeah. ordinance or does it fall under a power plant ordinance then?

I think that's cleaner. I think the separate them is cleaner. But then we do need to discuss because a lot of the nasty actually seems to be the power generation.

But keep in mind, well, again, they're all going different directions, right? A lot of the power generation issues have been related to backup power, right? So they're connected to the grid pulling off power, but then they've got these backup diesel generators that are attached that run in other scenarios or when the power's down, and then they've got a turn on and off every so many hours, you know, all these kinds of things. So my understanding, at least in the industry so far, ancillary accessory backup power generation has become part of the problem where it wasn't really addressed anywhere. So all of a sudden you've got this data center and you've got 40 diesel generators on the back end that cycle on once for an hour every day, or in a power, you know, where they can't get enough power from Pico. That was my understanding, Chuck, of how that was and how it was originally written, as opposed to, like you said, and I think what Jim said, having creating a new power supply option, right?

Okay, so that brings up to the point that if they have emergency generation power, it's not only during an emergency, it's when it hits 90 degrees. Because that's the way, that's the reality of our grid. I mean, there are hundreds, if not thousands of companies in the PICO area that turn on their emergency generation whenever Pico runs short, which is a lot.

Right.

Probably.

But my point, I think that's still in the kind of like the backup power accessory use world, right? As opposed to, again, putting in a full diesel substation that we're selling power to somebody else, right? Like that's a completely different use. Right.

Okay. I just think, okay, so this just needs to be

very clear which type of power we're talking about. And the backup power, we absolutely need to have verbiage and we need to be nailed down on that just as much as we do the actual data center.

Okay. I think we can dig in on that a little bit further.

I felt that 0.5 megawatts was where we should start our discussion about a data center size. And it's on the small side.

Do we size anywhere in this document, though, already, Melissa?

No. That's a concern. There was some mention of five megawatts in there.

50 megawatts is the tripping point to requiring 10% renewable.

But Chuck, when you say 0.5 megawatts, you're talking, you're speaking to what?

Okay. 0.5 is what's called an edge, which he's talking to data center, complete usage. I'm not sure. So the, the term edge data center, which would be something that typically may be in an office building. It's, it's physical footprint could be as small as a thousand square feet.

I mean, is that, is that what we're really trying to regulate Chuck? You know what I mean? I think that, That's something that like, and I think I, I think I maybe brought this up at the last meeting. I mean, I was literally at a Comcast facility here in my township and they're like, yeah, no, those are all, that's our data center. Like those are all our back. And you wouldn't even know it. It's just an office building, but it's, it's a, it's a, it's a room in their office building. You know what I mean? But like, are we looking to regulate that small? Or again, we're talking more of these quasi hyper scale type size.

So what township do you live in? East Goshen. Okay. So East Goshen, South Franklin. We don't have an office building that size. We don't have anything close.

Right. Therefore, I know it's small, but... Are you getting back towards the definition of the data center of where to put the floor on that?

Yes. Okay. And I think that's critical because of the conversations we're having. We all need to understand. Zach, one time you said you know, something of this scale. We have small properties that this would be involved in. And that's going to be the direction of these data centers. They're not going to, Loudoun County is done and over with. Loudoun County said, bring them on. Yeah. I mean, they said, bring them on. Now they've said, no, no, no, no, no. Everybody else, this is a gelling point across the country where nobody wants these things. So what they're going to do is they're going to start making them micro. They're going to make them small and they're going to put them everywhere. We need to be prepared for that. We don't need to be prepared for the 500 megawatt.

I mean, we do, but I mean, is it something where, I mean, I don't, do we need to overthink? I mean, do we, do we, again, we'll think on the size and maybe a little bit Melissa and I on the definition there. Do you want, I mean, Is it overkill to be then coming up with different sets of regulations for different sizes, or are you suggesting that we'd still run with the same regulations, but just be clear that, hey, even if you want to do a small one, you're meeting these requirements?

Yeah, because we're telling them that they have to come up with a plan that meets all our criteria based on their size. So it's going to be easier for the 0.5 to meet it than the 50. Okay.

OK, I like where your head's at. All right. I think we can do that. But your point being is by creating that floor, you don't get this kind of micro small scale facility that still is disruptive. That someone, you know, says does not meet this ordinance because, like you said, it's part of an office building or something like that.

OK. Yeah, we don't need to have something like, well, that's probably I'm not going to make an analogy. Never mind. I'm just not going to.

All right. You going to make some notes there too, Melissa? I was making some notes too.

Yeah, I was just doing that. Does everybody else agree with that?

I don't think there's any downside, Chuck.

I think putting bounds in is a good idea. We just need to make sure we're not going to stop someone from setting up a home server for their personal entertainment. Or doing movie editing and stuff.

Chuck's back there downloading Bitcoin. He's using like a megawatt a day over there or something probably, right?

Now he's going to be out. No, I would have a whole different conversation if that was the case. But that is, it's interesting you say that. So if somebody is, that is Bitcoin mining. It is... essentially data center however they're never going to come into the township and say we're building a data center they're not going to say that and therefore i'm afraid that they're going to just step around our our ordinance but i don't want them to yeah i mean the reality of it too is something like that you're not piping in the water you're not trucking and stuff i mean again it's different to a point you know it depends on how successful they are If they hit a couple of, you know, if they're doing, if their computers are better than other computers, then they're going to just keep buying more and more. They're printing money.

So I think there's enough interest, Nate and Melissa, for what Chuck's saying to address the smaller silos.

Sure, absolutely. Happy to do so. Nate and I will brainstorm as to how best to address that. And did we want to get to any other comments outside of Section A there?

I don't think it's the township's role to require what percent of renewable energy, but that's my personal thoughts. How are we going to monitor it anyways.

Yeah, I kind of agree with Dave on that one. That one just rubs me the wrong way. I appreciate the intent.

It's a nice thought, but it's going to be impossible to enforce.

Understood. I will make a note on that one as well.

I'd be curious what the county's hearing on, like they're saying, enforcing that or how does that even get confirmed? I'd be curious if anybody has any input on that, because I don't know. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, I mean, it wouldn't it it would just constrain where the power generation was not necessarily local on site, solar, whatever. If you have there are plenty of companies out there that advertise that, you know, 40 percent of their generation capacity is wind or solar or something. And that would meet the.

Yeah, they're paying different rates from a different place. And it's all.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so we will, let me look into that, but it sounds like we as a group may want to just remove it. Section C there. So let's, Nate and I will dig into that a little bit more. The next section that we are at is section 10, which is water. And like I said, this was kind of just rearranged. That's why it looks a little bit different, but most of this substance was already there.

So I would make the statement that if we're going to try to control water, we need to understand why Artesian was able to pull all that water from the Wilkinson farm and send it to Delaware. Because whatever verbiage they have failed mightily. Yep. So I don't know how they got around it, but I'm pretty sure we don't have the verbiage here to stop that. They're going to put in some deep wells and they're going to pull water out of the aquifer.

I think we just need to clean up some of the language at the end of the second bullet you had on the previous page. It just doesn't read well. No data center shall be approved without sufficient water. That poses adverse impact. I think I understand the intent of the words.

But I think it's providing a water feasibility study regarding groundwater capacity, soils, hydrogeologists, things of that nature, and providing that to the various entities to review. I mean, that's kind of how that's been written. But yeah, it's funny you mentioned the Artesia one. That was the whole thing.

Well, yeah. I mean, water is going to become a new battleground at some point. And this is just one more thing. Is there a way that we can simply stipulate that you can't draw more water out than your property line?

I don't know. That's how it really works in a weird way. Like how you can find the aquifer to a property limit, right? You're trying, you know, the aquifers.

So no, what you would do is you would do a reverse stormwater analysis. How much water comes down on the property and, That's how much you can take out.

Yeah, but I don't think that's that's not really how it works on the.

Well, no, it doesn't work that way. You can put something down. You can draw everybody's water out. That's my point is.

Right, right, right.

My point is that you in my mind, you don't have the right to. In my mind, you only have the right to pull out as much as lands on your land.

Yeah, I just yeah, I don't know that that's how it works in the whole that, you know, in the state of Pennsylvania like that. Again, I don't know enough about wells to be that intelligent about. But let me make it even maybe more simple. Is it something where if you're proposing this use, you connect the public water? Yeah, why not? Right? I mean, public water, you know, for firefighting supply, you're going to have to do, you know, like you're telling me you're going to use wells and do fire suppression and you're going to be having pumps. Why not just say if you want to do it, you're connecting the public water system?

But do we want to do that? Because if they pay for water to go three miles down the road, then we're opening it up for others.

That's up to the water authority to say, no, we're not going to do it.

I'm saying, do we want to... You're saying, are you encouraging more development by providing more water opportunities? Yes.

That's my thought.

The other way around, I mean, all of us are on private water with very few exceptions, not all, but that puts everybody that's not on public water at severe risk.

Right. It takes that out of the equation completely, right? So if you're the farmer next door and you're on your wells and you're using that for everything, all of a sudden it becomes this whole issue right whereas they're connecting the public water that's a aqua artesian chester water authority will serve issue and yeah they might have to pipe in a mile or two miles from wherever their main is. And yeah, it might provide some alternatives to people that need to connect to public water or have issues with wells. I don't know. I mean, look, the public water supply well issue from a development standpoint is actually probably more of a sewage disposal equation than a water supply issue, in my opinion, in Chester County. But, you know, I get what Jeff's saying too. But my point being is if we kind of require a public water connection, it just takes a lot of these well variables out of the equation altogether.

Jeff, I don't think that whoever that would be supplying that water would be willing to take on another development. They wouldn't be encouraging it, is what I'm saying, is that they would have to be paid handsomely by this facility to provide the water. And I think they would be stretched. Therefore, they wouldn't be encouraging additional usage. For example, on the corner of the street, the intersection in Chesterville, there is gas. PECO will not sell it to anybody other than the greenhouse people because PECO doesn't have enough gas to sell. They can't bring enough into the state. Therefore, they just, even though there's a gas line there, they're not encouraging people to use it. Does that make sense?

I hear what you're saying, young man.

Yep.

I think it's a good point by Jeff. Someone else is going to say that. Well, if we're requiring public water, now are we encouraging more development because now there's more water supply available? That might be brought up by the board or public, you know, in the future. So just to be aware of that. But Melissa, let's take a look at that. Again, I think trying to regulate the well issue is going to be, frankly, just a lot more complicated. And again, it might just be a little bit more straightforward if we just kind of cut that part of it out and require the public water, which also provides benefits for, again, firefighting, emergency services, things of that nature, too.

I also think to the argument that public bringing in public water might encourage more development. But if we allow them to use private wells, the current residents are going to be pretty unhappy as well because their wells will be dry. I tend to lean that way as well. Right. It takes that.

potential issue out of play.

Mitigates impact to the existing residents, yeah.

All right. So if we have no further questions on the water section, we'll move on to section 11 that Nate already has up, the wastewater section. Do we have any questions here?

My question would be... Can anybody explain what the concern is? I'm thinking there's four toilets in the place, so I know I'm missing something.

The concern I had was the wastewater for cooling.

Cooling.

In theory, right?

Yeah, in theory, if it's not a contained system and you've got water coming in and water going out, that's got to go to a wastewater system.

Potentially. Potentially. Yeah, if it's not a closed-loop system.

Right. Well, you have to have a closed-loop system because this is definitely going to be a development encourager because we would be literally telling them, develop your own sewer system, which we don't have.

Well, I mean, again, depending on the scenarios, we're seeing less and less of this. out there in the world, right? They're getting to this way where again, it's all self-contained water, not naturally just water, generically speaking water. So I think it's becoming less and less of an issue, but I think you gotta have something in there because at a minimum, you're gonna have a need for something. You guys don't have a municipal authority, so it's gonna be some sort of on-lodge, free-field scenario, which frankly would not be able to accommodate the inflow of water anyway.

Yeah, so it's just starting to get away from you. Keep going back to the fire thing. What if there's a fire and it requires a half a million gallons of water to put it out? Where does that water go?

Well, in an emergency situation, all bets are off, I would think, but yeah.

Well, I mean, sure, it's easy to say, but if they're doing a giant suppression and the water from putting the fire out is going downhill to someone's backyard...

Yeah, I mean, look, that gets back to emergency services and how they handle those types of situations. Yeah, it's an interesting question. If they don't have their contained system and they've got to get rid of all, you know, hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, and you guys have no municipal authority and there's no nearby, like, yeah, that's going to hamstring things a little bit, you know?

And I think we are... It's actually back in the water section. We are recommending... strongly recommending at section F that they demonstrate the use of the best available technology, which is that closed loop cooling system. Um, so we're already asking them to demonstrate that they can do the closed loop cooling. And if they can't do it, they kind of have to explain why they're not doing it. Um, so we're encouraging it and it seems to be, that's the way the technology is moving forward. But, uh,

And the reality is there's no public authority in this area for sewer, right? So I don't want to say we don't need to overthink it, but we almost don't need to overthink it. It's like, I don't know. If somebody were to come in and say, yeah, we've got to dispose of 100,000 gallons a day, we're going to create an authority or we're going to create a private entity or something is almost what they would have to do.

Yeah, and I don't think Franklin Township is really a viable target for the super, super big data centers that are going to be pulling and moving 100,000 plus gallons of water a day.

No, and I think at the end of the day, we're talking literally on-lot sewage for the 12 employees is what we're going to be talking about, you know?

So back to my original question, I mean, is this really a thing?

I think you have to include it because you're going to have employees and sewage regardless.

I mean, I like the section where it says that you're not allowed to discharge into streams and whatnot. That makes total sense to kind of tell them no.

I mean, that's not completely accurate. You can get a small stream discharge permit from the state, things like that. But I think ultimately all this. is going to be, like you said, maybe they've got a dozen employees or 10 employees, whatever the square footage is, and they're going to end up doing some on-lot systems or a small spray field. Who knows? You know what I mean? I don't think it's going to end up being anything else.

But this will cover that then. Can't we just let LI cover that then? So why is this any different than LI?

I don't know that I've looked at what LI says, if it says anything regarding wastewater.

We have to control wastewater somewhere.

But I don't know that we specifically address it, is my point. Really? In LI specifically? I bet you we probably don't. I mean, we do generically in the code, right? Because you're required to get a planning module from the state or on-lot septic from the county, right? Yeah. That's all this really is speaking to. I think it's overwrought slightly because of the impression that you're going to have all this water you've got to get into the wastewater system but that's also really not what's going to happen in this area if that makes sense i don't know so it might be more than we need i guess is what i'm saying but it might not hurt you know it it could hurt in the fact that if we make it this

ordinance too egregious and start requesting things.

This won't be the thing that's going to get us killed. It's going to be multiple other things. This is the least of the problems.

Yeah, but you can die of a thousand pricks.

So to try to keep it moving, Chuck, are you suggesting that... Take it out. Take it out. And Nate, that kind of hurts me.

Maybe what we do is maybe we simplify it slightly and boil it down more towards like typical, like Chuck was suggesting, almost typical industrial type project, right? You've got to demonstrate your sewer capacity and needs with the state or the county septic and kind of leave it at that, right? Like, Because in theory, we think it's not going to get this. That's not going to really happen in a large volume. Is that kind of what you're getting at, Chuck?

That's exactly what I'm getting at.

That's fair point. I like where your head's at. Does that make sense, Melissa? Yeah. We can talk offline, but just make it a little bit more straightforward and boil it down a little bit more.

Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, we definitely can do that. Okay. So the next section we have here is 12, and that's the environmental impact analysis. And this was another section that we didn't really touch from last time. It was just more organizational changes.

Yeah. And also keep in mind, right, any property that's doing this is going to need all their state permits, right? So you're going to need your your NPDS permit and your chapter 105 permit, and you're going to do your wetlands analysis. I mean, as soon as you're over an acre, all that stuff hits. So again, it becomes a little bit belt and suspenders, but you know, that's all out there in the world too, for any project that's going to be over an acre, all that's going to be required, pendies and all that fun stuff.

This is also where we threw the language about descriptions about on-site activities during construction and post-construction. So we added that into what the environmental impact analysis will need to include. We also added a section about historic and cultural resource assessment. This is something that Nate and I had kind of noodled with a little bit as to how we wanted to include it because there is something similar in the county model ordinance. I don't know if the planning commission has a strong feeling one way or another, if we should be, you know, asking the data centers to look for these specific historic cultural resources on the property.

So he's not here tonight, but Paul is the one we should lean on. for an opinion. He did make a comment about this. I don't know whether it was in the meeting or it was just separately to me. He was questioning this section. So Mr. Lagasse is right now. I know he's just completely overwhelmed with our celebration for two 50, which occurs next week. So he'll be, he'll be up and running again. I, I would think he'll probably be at the next meeting.

Okay. Or maybe Jeff too. Jeff, did we lose Jeff? No, Jeff's down there. Maybe Jeff, after that, maybe you can even just ping him and ask him to look at this specific section and maybe just opine on that for Melissa. Okey-doke. Thank you, sir.

Great. Okay. Well, we'll keep moving here then. We're at section 13. This is just asking for compliance with the comprehensive plan. um and it sets forth different conditions that can be considered during conditional use all right if we don't have any concerns there for right now we can move on to section 14 and we just have two more sections left so we're moving section 14 this is something that i had addressed before this is language that was included in the original ordinance and similar languages in the model ordinance as well this is what i had referenced that i'm not quite sure how enforceable this is under pennsylvania law at the moment however i Because this is such a new and emerging area, I don't have an issue continuing to keep it in. I appreciate the fact that we are trying to prevent a use of a vested right for these data centers. So we don't have data centers that continue to grow throughout the years. However, as we've discussed multiple times in this meeting, I'm not quite sure Franklin Township is the target for those kinds of data centers. But it's language we may want to continue to include in there. So I just wanted to give you my caveat as to why I feel a little iffy about this language, but I have no issue continuing to keep it in.

So, Melissa, Nathan, question for you. Is it within or without the realm of reasonability to have a data center provide a quarterly, biannual, or annual report of metrics of water usage, power usage, noise, vibration, things like that, just to ensure they're still staying within the limits as defined by the ordinance? Or is that not a viable, reasonable thing to include?

I think it's a balance.

Kind of the checks and balances putting in there.

Yeah, it's a balance as to we do have the ability to ask for some sort of reporting. However, the township also has enforcement authority. So it can go out and review the vibrations. It can go out and review the heat from the property lines, as we're saying would be measured anyway. We don't need to be on the property to measure those items. So it's a balance between, yes, we can probably ask for some sort of reporting, just how in-depth can we ask for that annual reporting, especially when, if they are using a closed loop system, if they are using public water, we would need to somehow tailor it to be in the best public safety that we are including at public safety and public interest. So we would have to kind of tailor as to how that would be best.

Gotcha. The other part of that is if you request these submissions annually, semi-annually, whatever, it puts more strain on the office, on the Franklin Township office personnel. All of a sudden,

Who's getting it, who's tracking it down, who's filing, it gets a little, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we've discussed things like that in the past, and ultimately we've said, you know, we don't want to have a staff of 20.

Yeah, I like where you were going with it, Melissa. I was just trying to figure out how we can, you know, just have a simple metrics report or something like that to simplify the status tracking.

Is that something that, Other planning commission members would like to see added or no, should we continue to move forward as written at the moment?

I would not. My thoughts are not to spend time on that right now. Maybe when we get to a joint meeting discussion and the board of supervisors wants to increase the staff to 20, then maybe we'll want to put that wording in there.

Yeah, I would say not included now.

Fair point. Understood. But I'm in favor of keeping section 14, even with your advice that it may or may not be defendable.

I am also.

Perfect. All right. Well, we have made it to the last section decommissioning.

There is a severability clause someone here, right?

That'll be added to the final ordinance as of right now. I don't even think this has signatures on it. So I would need to format the final document to have the severability clause in it. That usually comes at the end. Once I add severability, I add the effective date, and I add all the signatures of the Board of Supervisors, that'll be all the way at the end. So for the decommissioning, like I had mentioned, this was something that we took similar language from the solar energy ordinance that you guys had passed recently and just tried to have it be a similar decommissioning process. They're two different systems, but at least give the township staff. an easier way to look at both. So we're not requiring multiple different items for different things. So this gives thought to the conditional use process if the board wants to impose conditions for compliance or for additional appropriate financial security.

I think there's a decent amount of crossover between the solar ordinance and this.

So I'm going to push back. I felt like I pushed back on solar. And I am curious if this has ever been actually brought to court that you need to guarantee everybody else that whatever you do with your property is you're going to return it back to the way God intended it. That might be the wrong terms, but back to, you know, just pure virgin soil. We don't require that for any other use. And I said the same thing with the solar. I think this could be one of those things that really becomes a problem in defending this as a separate standalone you know not a standalone but having this only be for for data centers now I understand there are some aspects that we may want to cherry-pick and put in here like removal of batteries removal of equipment but the remove this actually says that you need to remove your buildings

This takes it back down the grass, and it requires it to be funded and escrowed and all that. I'll be the first to admit, this is something I've never been involved with in this aspect, so I don't really have the knowledge on that. I just don't know enough about that part of it, guys, to be honest with you.

Well, I mean, I think the fact that we're talking about limiting this to the LI zone would make that more defensible because it's probably going to be more... potentially environmentally damaging to the land than a house or a gas station or a parking lot.

Gas stations are extremely... Yeah, bad example. Well, no, that's a good example. Good example, actually. Good example for the conversation. So, Zach, I agree that there have been things in the past and there still are things that are built every day that all of a sudden they become a brownfield, that somebody else has to come in and rescue. Well, taxpayers typically.

The state of Pennsylvania and DEP and the EPA are the ones that end up paying for it, which is us. Right. This is an opportunity to try to change that.

Yeah, I get that. It's a good conversation to have, absolutely. But I think that we have a better chance of making this stick if we don't tell them to take the buildings down. If we tell them to remove the nasties from the site before they leave, not including taking a building down.

Okay. I mean, that seems like a removable compromise.

That's the reason in the solar ordinance, too. It was not to get the property back to God's intention, to use Chuck's analogy. It was to get rid of the nasties in the photo cells. So if we power out that, then let's get rid of the batteries, etc., but not necessarily the building. That's something you can kind of rework, Melissa, you think?

Yeah, absolutely. No problem at all.

Feels like a good middle ground, guys.

Yeah, and maybe somewhere in the definitions defining broadly what is considered a hazardous material for this purpose would be a way of being inclusive to what we're talking about.

Sorry, I'm just taking some notes on this.

Okay.

I mean, the example I come up with is if Pico suddenly decided they didn't want to have the substation in the middle of the field, we wouldn't expect them to just take the power lines down and leave it the way it is.

I mean, I think that's, in theory, the problem we're trying to, in theory, address, but I hear you.

Yeah, because they may have transformers that have PCBs and whatnot, and we would like them to fix it, but currently we don't. I like the idea, but I think it's important that we all understand we're kind of rowing into uncharted waters.

All right. Is that the last section, Melissa? That's it. So what do we want to unless we're specific, I mean, I think we covered, it feels like we covered some of the territory. Schedule, process, game plan wise. Melissa, do we have calendar wise concerns on where we're trying to hit target wise? Oh, you know, I'm sorry. That was, I'm confusing. Another client had a very specific timeframe. We've got a little bit more flexibility, no specific timeframe, correct?

Yeah. Before you ask that, Nate, I think it's worth discussing if we're going to have a joint meeting and when, because Would October 1st be enough time for you guys to have another draft ready? But let's talk first. Jeff, was there a particular impetus from the board to say, hey, let's have a joint meeting? Where did it come from?

That's actually coming from me, because I was thinking at some point it would be nice to talk together. instead of going back and forth between meetings. I just think at some point, whether it's October, November, even December, to get you guys in the room all at once.

Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. I think the question I would have more specifically is, does the PC want to see one last draft before we do that? Or do you want to see that draft at that time? I think that's the critical path item for getting us to either October or November is where my head goes.

Great. And I'm fine if it's November. I just want to have the talk now.

I think it should be sooner rather than later.

I think we may. Go ahead, Chuck.

I think it's sooner rather than later. I think we've kicked this around and now we've got some questions that we want their feedback.

I think what we went back to Nate and Melissa with are not significant that we need to review it one more time.

We got some good bones. We want to make some edits here. Melissa is very good at taking some notes here. We want to make some cleanup edits. If we can get a revised document out in advance of the board meeting, that will facilitate further discussion with the board and help move this along maybe a little bit quicker. Is that kind of where everybody's heads at?

Yeah. Antia, what's your thought?

I mean, When you come to the board, it would be good if you guys have already seen the document, just so if we have questions, when we're sitting down to discuss it with you, you've read the whole document beforehand and you guys are more well-versed. So when there's pointed questions, you guys know exactly what we're talking about. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, I don't get the feeling from the board that we're in a really big hurry. We know it needs to get done and we'd like to see it done sooner you know, without us dragging our feet. But I don't think there's a big push to, you know, sit down in October when maybe we're not quite ready to do that.

Well, that's what I was saying. If it's not October, maybe November or December. But I just want to have that conversation now.

Nope, I agree with you, Jeff.

So we should have another, if I understand, we should have another meeting to review before we have a joint.

Yes. That would be my suggestion.

I mean, again, I think any meeting we have from here, guys, is probably pretty quick at this point, I think. You know, I think we've covered a lot of the bases at this point. Even if we have to meet, frankly, maybe it's something where we get this out to everybody. You know, do we need to even meet again? I don't know. Maybe something where you guys get us that eyes on it, again, in advance of a November meeting might be all we just need to do, too. I don't know.

Well, make sure the board has that as well. So if you want to sit down in November with the board.

Well, would we be making a recommendation to the board for acceptance prior to that joint meeting? Or is that something that would happen then?

I would say no, because the board hasn't seen it yet.

I anticipate we're going to have... PC only meeting October 1st to review draft version three. There'll be minimal changes to four that we could meet as a joint on November 5th. Maybe, but probably not even recommending approval maybe till January, but it might be a little pushing for December.

Just to talk and exchange ideas and be in the same room. Yeah.

Well, I guess my question is, I don't know, and this is like a weird parliamentary thing, like I don't know if that obviates the need for us to even have a recommendation to the board if we're going to basically have a joint session and they can decide at that point whether they want to do it or not absent a recommendation from us.

I feel confident saying that sitting down with you guys and going over it is not going to... make us want to go ahead and approve it you know what i mean like we want to go over it look at it with you maybe they have maybe some other board members have suggestions on things that need to be changed and then until all of that is done and we come up with a final draft the board's not going to approve anything okay

And simply procedurally, just because this is going to be such a hot button topic for everybody, I would like to make sure we have belt and suspenders. So let's make sure we do have a recommendation from the Planning Commission. And then it goes to the Board of Supervisors. We can always have that joint meeting. But I want to make sure we have a recommendation from the Planning Commission just so we don't have any procedural issues here.

But we don't need a recommendation for the Planning Commission to have a joint meeting.

no you're right jeff you got okay that's what i was trying to get you're right so we can have a joint meeting as long as it's you know at a normal meeting time that's that's publicized that's fine um but before this ordinance formally goes to a board of supervisors agenda for a vote let's make sure we have a planning commission recommendation yes

So, Melissa, the next time I would need information from you and Nate would be no later than 10 a.m. on August 28th.

How about September?

Okay. That would be wonderful, Dave. Six days ago. Now. So that would be September 23rd, then. Okay. I was jumping ahead a month, losing a month of my life. Feel doable, Melissa?

Yes. I am looking at my calendar now to make sure I don't have anything crazy going on.

Make sure you're not in court that week for the week or something, right?

Yeah, that's what I was checking for. But I think we should be good. And, Nate, I'm generally available the week before, so we can always check as well.

Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, I'm past all the – I'm pretty – after Labor Day, I'm back to the grind full-time for a while. Okay, awesome. Me too.

All right. Hey. So the next item on the agenda, it's been so long, do we accept the letter of extension or do we recommend to?

I just started doing this so the planning commission is updated. We got an extension letter and the board has accepted it till December 31st, the end of this year. So it's just a way for all of us to keep track of the time period. We've got no new information, nothing. It's been silent.

OK. How about any public comment? I'm so happy we're keeping these to less than two hours.

I try.

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

You have a motion.

Thank you, Mark. So moved 847. For the long weekend, everybody.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

Thanks, Melissa. Very good job. Thank you so much.

Thanks. Have a good one, guys. Thanks, everyone.