Hampden Township commissioners voted 5-0 Thursday night to reject a draft ordinance that would have opened the door to development of data centers in its Industrial and Office Park zoning districts.
They had some clear guidance.
The vote came after two hours of public comment from nearly two dozen speakers who - while coming from a variety of different directions -all reached the same conclusion:
The proposal on the table in Hampden does not do enough to protect residents from potential consequences of hyperscale data center development.
Residents called on the board to preclude any potential for data centers in the Office Park district, which in Hampden would place it close to residential neighborhoods dotting the Wertzville Road corridor.
“If we have them at all, it should absolutely be in an industrial zone and not an office park. Not in the middle of our neighborhoods,” said Kristi Smith, a resident of Hampden’s Kingswood subdivision.
They also argued, no matter what zoning district is involved, the ordinance should require much greater physical separation between any data center and adjacent buildings.
The proposed draft, for example, only required “building separations” of at least 200 feet from any occupied residential building.
Critics said Thursday that kind of separation has led to noise and other issues in Loudon County, Virginia’s famed Data Center Alley.
“We can do better than that. We have to do better than that,” Smith said.
Data centers — in layman’s terms — are big computer server farms that provide key infrastructure for ever-growing information storage and sharing needs.
Several miles to the west, Middlesex Township supervisors have opened consideration this summer of what would be - if approved and built - south central Pennsylvania’s first hyperscale data center.
That so-called “Project Bolt” is planned for a site with ready tie-ins to existing PPL Electric transmission lines. Critical discussions are still ongoing about water supplies.
Water usage questions may also have been the number one concern heard in Hampden’s more abstract debate Thursday.
A large data center - depending on the specific cooling processes used - can use up to five million gallons of water daily. To put that in context, Harrisburg residents and businesses use about eight million gallons of water a day.
While the proposed ordinance required data center operators to certify that they have an adequate water supply, it also let them have the option of drawing some of that water from non-public sources, such as a private well or a creek.
A number of Thursday’s critics - citing horror stories from developments in other parts of the country - expressed concern about overtaxing Cumberland’s undergound aquifers and, by extension, the Conodoguinet Creek - a public water source for many West Shore municipalities.
“You know, Silver Spring, Middlesex and other townships have or will likely be considering similar ordinances for data centers,” said East Pennsboro Township resident Amy Berkheimer.
“Each one adds more pressure on the same water system that I’m talking about: The Conodoguinet Creek.
“We already see the creek struggling. Low flows in drought, declining water pressure, and a creek that looks nothing like the one many of us grew up with due to massive development of land,” Berkheimer said. “Once that water is gone, we can’t get it back.”
She and others urged the board to dramatically beef up the ordinance’s requirements for water feasibility studies.
The over-arching sentiment was the Hampden board shouldn’t open any doors to data centers until the necessary public protections are locked in.
In fact, no members of the public spoke in favor of the ordinance as presented.
At the hearing’s start, Commissioner Jamie Keener noted Hampden officials have received informal inquiries about data center development.
“There’s no specific plans that are before us at this time and none have been presented as sketches,” Keener said.
“But there has been some preliminary discussions with some folks that may have an interest in the office park area” near Interstate 81’s Wertzville Road exit.
The township’s effort then, he said, is a pro-active one intended to set up some good rules of the road in the event such proposals come in.
“Whether we could stop it or not, we at least want to protect what we have in Hampden Township by putting some guidelines and some regulations in place that would help us to make informed decisions, not only for those adjacent to the property, but those that could potentially be impacted,” Keener said.
Thursday’s vote isn’t necessarily a forever rejection of data centers in Hampden.
But in the face of the wall of opposition to the initial proposal, by the end of Thursday’s public hearing none of the commissioners was ready to move forward with the existing draft.
It was not immediately clear after Thursday’s meeting how quickly the board will return to the data center question.
Responding to a PennLive inquiry Friday morning, Hampden Commission Chair Nate Silcox said no timeline has been set for next steps.
“We’ll review the information conveyed and keep residents informed of if and when anything might be considered in the future,” Silcox wrote in a text message.
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