Data centers are allowed only as conditional uses in industrial zoning districts, requiring conditional-use approval and public hearings before construction.

A data center must take access from a public road and provide secondary access suitable for emergency response.

Primary building facades must meet detailed design requirements, including horizontal offsets at least every 150 feet, limits on materials and colors, articulation across at least 60% of the facade, and an articulated main entrance.

Fencing may not use barbed or razor wire and requires Board of Supervisors approval.

A data-center lot must contain at least five acres.

Data centers and freestanding accessory uses are limited to 35 feet in height, including applicable rooftop appurtenances.

Data-center buildings, accessory uses, and truck-idling areas must be set back at least 250 feet from property lines, except for listed utility lines, fiber-optic lines, and security stations.

Data centers must be at least 1,000 feet from residential uses, residential districts, and sensitive receptors, with a reduction to 500–999 feet allowed only if specified environmental, noise, visual-screening, and thermal protections are demonstrated.

Roof-mounted equipment must be set back from the parapet by at least the equipment's height above the roof.

Building coverage is limited to 40% of the lot and impervious coverage is limited to 50%.

Projects must meet the current USGBC LEED BD+C: Data Centers rating system or an equivalent standard approved by the municipal engineer.

Applicants must submit a professional-engineer-certified Energy Usage Plan addressing electricity demand, energy sources, storage, backup power, renewable energy, efficiency, emissions monitoring, and utility interconnection.

The Energy Usage Plan must address solar arrays covering 50–80% of unused roof space, battery storage for 50–100% of onsite backup-energy needs, support for new renewable generation in the PJM region, and energy and emissions monitoring.

A proposed data center requiring more than 50 megawatts and connecting to the grid must procure at least 10% of its power from new renewable generation in the PJM region through a power-purchase agreement or similar arrangement, rather than relying only on renewable-energy credits.

Any energy-generation system supplying a data center during normal operations is treated as a separate conditional use and must comply with applicable municipal, state, federal, and utility requirements.

Large nuclear reactors comparable to Three Mile Island or the Limerick Generating Station are excluded from the permitted small-modular-reactor definition and may not be located on a data-center campus.

On-site substations must generally be beside or behind the primary building and outside required front yards; substations near nonindustrial districts or sensitive receptors must be set back at least 800 feet from the property line.

Substations visible from a public road require opaque landscaping and screening walls.

On-site power lines of 34.5 kV or less must be buried.

Diesel backup generators must meet EPA Tier 4 emission standards and undergo annual testing, with testing reports submitted to the Township.

Fossil-fuel emergency generation may be used only during emergency outages or short-duration maintenance and readiness testing; routine testing is capped at 100 hours per year and limited to 9 a.m. through 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Backup fossil-fuel generators may not be used for peak shaving or to supply power to the grid.

If public water is available, private groundwater wells or direct surface-water withdrawals may not be the primary cooling-water source.

Data centers must use closed-loop cooling systems unless the applicant demonstrates that an alternative uses less water and energy.

Applicants using public water must provide certified documentation of public-system capacity; applicants using nonpublic water must provide a qualified-professional water-feasibility study.

Required state and regional water permits must be obtained before Township approval, and applicants must submit a drought-response plan.

Applicants must analyze wastewater capacity and disposal; untreated wastewater may not be discharged into stormwater systems or surface waters.

Applicants using public wastewater systems must provide certification of conveyance and treatment capacity, while private systems require a wastewater-feasibility study.

A professional-engineer-certified Thermal Impact Mitigation Plan is required, addressing waste heat, seasonal off-site impacts, streams, heat-reduction measures, waste-heat reuse, and monitoring.

Applicants must submit preconstruction and postconstruction noise studies prepared by an acoustical engineer, including vibration, octave-band, low-frequency, equipment, and property-line analyses.

Sound at property lines may not exceed 50 dB or, when higher, the applicable preconstruction baseline ambient level; increases above baseline are violations unless specifically authorized as a condition of approval.

Data-center lighting must comply with current dark-sky standards, be fully shielded, and produce no spillover beyond the property line.

Air, dust, smoke, glare, exhaust, heat, and humidity from operations must not be perceptible at or beyond the property line.

Parking must include one space per employee on the largest shift plus five visitor spaces, and the Township may require an additional 25% of spaces to be reserved.

Equipment must be housed in metered, grounded, pre-engineered metal structures with at least a 30-minute internal electrical-fire rating and automatically closing fire baffles.

Battery storage and other energy-storage systems must comply with NFPA 855 or similar standards and include fire-suppression systems designed for battery storage.

A qualified-professional Emergency Response Plan is required, including fire suppression, containment, ventilation, evacuation, emergency-agency review, responder training at the applicant's expense, and annual fire-safety inspections.

Data centers must provide 24-hour emergency-contact signage and adequate public-safety radio coverage inside all onsite buildings, including enhancement systems when necessary.

An Electronic Waste Plan is required for the safe removal, recycling, or disposal of servers, hazardous materials, batteries, electronic waste, and related products during equipment updates or decommissioning.

Before the conditional-use hearing, applicants must submit environmental and community impact analyses addressing operations, traffic, materials, wetlands, floodplains, cultural resources, emergency services, water, sewage, waste, schools, municipal finances, stormwater, emissions, critical-impact areas, and comprehensive-plan consistency.

The Township may consider cumulative impacts from data centers, power facilities, substations, and other high-intensity industrial uses within five miles, require additional studies, or deny approval.

Any expansion, intensification, operational-capacity or cooling-technology change, increase in water or energy demand, or addition of auxiliary or accessory infrastructure requires a new conditional-use approval.

A decommissioning plan is required, and decommissioning must begin within one year after operations cease or abandonment is noticed.

Applicants or operators must provide financial security or other guarantees for decommissioning and site restoration if the facility is abandoned.

Before the first Planning Commission meeting, the applicant must hold a public meeting and maintain a public project website beginning at least two weeks before that meeting through final land-development approval.

Conditional-use applications require extensive project, ownership, utility, environmental, emergency, stormwater, wetland, floodplain, traffic, access, and maintenance information, including an NPDES application for earth disturbance over one acre.

Applications require seven copies, digital PDF materials, Township and county reviews, professional-services agreements, application fees, review fees, and an initial escrow deposit.

Incomplete submissions may not be accepted or processed.

Applicants must disclose beneficial owners, lenders, equity investors, funding sources, and foreign capital or foreign-controlled interests; applications may not be deemed complete, processed, or scheduled for a hearing until the disclosures are submitted and verified.

Changes in controlling ownership, management, or responsible parties must be reported within 30 calendar days, and current ownership and responsible-party information must be maintained throughout construction, operation, transfer, and decommissioning.

Operational reports, monitoring results, compliance filings, and application materials are subject to public disclosure under the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law, and applicants may not restrict their disclosure to the Township.

Data centers are allowed as conditional uses in the Township’s industrial zoning districts, creating a specific approval pathway for development there.

Data center accessory uses are allowed, including administrative and security facilities, fiber-optic and utility lines, and domestic or non-contact cooling-water and wastewater treatment facilities.

Data center auxiliary uses necessary for operation are allowed, including backup energy generation, electrical substations, water towers, pump stations, HVAC systems, and cooling towers.

A data center campus may include multiple data centers and the accessory uses, auxiliary uses, systems, equipment, piping, conduit, structures, and appurtenances needed to construct, support, operate, repair, maintain, or protect the campus.

Energy-generation systems that directly supply a data center during normal operations may be located with the project, including solar, wind, fossil-fuel, fuel-cell, and qualifying small modular nuclear systems. Each system is treated as a separate conditional use and remains subject to applicable regulations and approvals.

On-site electric substations may be placed to the side or rear of the primary building, do not have to be in a front yard, and do not require a buffer between the data center building and the substation; screening is generally required when visible from a public road.

The required 1,000-foot separation from residences, residential districts, and other sensitive receptors may be reduced to 500–999 feet if the applicant demonstrates compliant noise levels, visual screening or aesthetic improvements, and no harmful thermal air changes affecting nearby sensitive receptors.

Backup generators and other backup power systems are authorized for emergency outages, natural disasters, similar emergencies, and reliability testing. Fossil-fuel systems remain subject to limits, including Tier 4 standards for diesel generators, annual testing, a 100-hour annual testing cap, weekday testing hours, and no peak shaving or power supply to the grid.

Power-storage systems, including battery energy-storage systems, are recognized as data center infrastructure and may store and manage power for on-site use or support the local, regional, or overall power grid, subject to applicable safety requirements.

An applicant may use an alternative cooling system instead of a closed-loop system if it demonstrates to the municipal engineer that the alternative uses less water and energy.

Data centers may use nonpublic water sources if a required water-feasibility study demonstrates adequate supply and no adverse impacts on nearby wells, surface waters, or groundwater.

Data centers may use private wastewater-disposal systems if a required wastewater-feasibility study demonstrates adequate disposal capacity and no adverse impacts on surrounding water resources.

Applications may proceed with public water or sewer service when the applicant provides certified documentation that the relevant public authority has capacity to supply, convey, or treat the required water or wastewater.

The ordinance establishes a specific conditional-use application process with prescribed application information and plan requirements, review by Township officials and consultants, and submission to the Planning Commission and County planning agency.

Data center buildings and freestanding accessory uses may be up to 35 feet high, may be developed on lots as small as 5 acres, and may cover up to 40 percent of the lot with buildings and 50 percent with impervious surfaces.

Parking is set at one space per employee on the largest shift plus five visitor spaces, although the municipality may require up to 25 percent of the required spaces to be held in reserve.