Data centers are allowed only as conditional uses in the Industrial District and must comply with applicable performance standards and conditional-use procedures.

A data-center site must contain at least 20 contiguous acres.

Impervious coverage is limited to 75% of the site and gross building coverage to 50%.

Buildings may not exceed 70 feet in height, and roof-mounted equipment is generally limited to 20 feet above the roof.

Data centers, accessory uses, and equipment must meet setbacks of at least 400 feet from sensitive-receptor lot lines, 150 feet from publicly maintained streets, and 100 feet from other lot lines.

Parking lots must be at least 50 feet from public roads and property lines, while parking, loading, and driveways must be at least 100 feet from tracts containing sensitive receptors.

Parking must include at least one space per employee on the largest shift plus five visitor spaces, with the municipality able to require an additional 25% reserve.

At least one off-street loading space is required, and loading areas must be screened and generally located beside or behind the building.

Primary access must be from an arterial or collector roadway, and a maintained second emergency access route is required.

Data-center accessory uses and equipment must remain within the Industrial District and may not be placed in another zoning district, even as part of a unified development.

Buildings must satisfy detailed façade, material, color, articulation, entrance, and visual-massing standards, and off-site-visible elevations or renderings must accompany the conditional-use application.

A landscape buffer at least 30 feet deep, with specified native plantings and a berm averaging at least five feet high, is required along boundaries adjoining sensitive receptors.

Mechanical, cooling, ventilation, power-generation, and power-supply equipment must be enclosed or fully screened under specified screening standards.

Perimeter and security fencing may not exceed eight feet; roadway fencing may not be chain-link, and barbed or razor wire is prohibited.

Cooling systems must use closed-loop water circulation unless an alternative is demonstrated to use less water and energy and is approved by the municipal engineer.

Private groundwater wells or direct surface-water withdrawals may not be used for cooling when public water is available within 3,000 feet.

Applicants using public water must document that the public authority has sufficient capacity; nonpublic water sources require a professional-geologist feasibility study addressing supply, aquifers, drought conditions, withdrawals, and impacts on nearby users.

Data centers may not adversely affect other parties' water rights or supplies, and operators must remediate municipality-determined impacts at no cost to affected property owners.

No building permit may be issued until all required state and regional permits have been obtained.

Applicants must submit a drought-response plan demonstrating compliance with applicable drought requirements.

Applicants must connect to public sewer when it is located within 3,000 feet and pay for necessary upgrades; private wastewater disposal requires a feasibility study, and untreated wastewater may not be discharged to stormwater systems or surface waters.

A professional-engineer-certified Thermal Impact Mitigation Plan is required, addressing heat discharges, heat islands, mitigation, monitoring, and feasible waste-heat reuse.

Applicants must submit pre-construction and post-construction noise studies, including octave-band and low-frequency or infrasound analysis; post-construction studies are required one to twelve months after the first certificate of occupancy and annually thereafter.

Noise at property lines adjoining sensitive receptors is limited to 45 dB(A) and 55 dB(C) at night and 50 dB(A) and 60 dB(C) during the day, or the lower applicable baseline level.

Data-center-generated vibration may not be perceptible beyond the property line, and mitigation is required when monitoring or studies identify noncompliance.

Applicants must obtain utility-provider verification of electric capacity and infrastructure adequacy and submit a professional-engineer-certified Energy Usage Plan with at least quarterly energy-efficiency and emissions reporting.

Normal-operation energy-generation systems are treated as part of the data-center use; substations must be on the same industrial-zoned property and screened from sensitive receptors, and power lines of 34.5 kV or less must be buried.

Diesel backup generators must meet EPA Tier 4 standards, undergo annual testing, and be used only for emergency outages or limited testing and maintenance; fossil-fuel testing is capped at 100 hours per year, and peak shaving or supplying power to the grid is prohibited.

Exterior lighting requires an approved lighting plan, full-cutoff fixtures, maximum illumination of 0.5 foot-candles at non-sensitive property lines and 0.1 foot-candles at sensitive-receptor property lines, no strobing or colored lighting, a maximum 3000K color temperature, and a 35-foot mounting height.

Electronic-waste, emergency-response, and fire-safety plans are required; battery energy-storage systems must comply with NFPA 855 or similar standards and use battery-specific fire suppression.

The applicant must pay for additional emergency-services equipment made necessary by the data center and fund specialized first-responder training.

A Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program study dated within two years, required agency clearances, and compliance with measures protecting threatened or endangered species are required.

A decommissioning plan is required; decommissioning generally must begin within one year after cessation or abandonment and be completed within 18 months, with financial assurance equal to 110% of decommissioning costs.

The applicant must hold and advertise an informational public meeting before the first Planning Commission meeting at which the proposal is discussed.

Before a building permit is issued, the applicant must maintain commercial general liability insurance of at least $5 million per occurrence and $10 million in the aggregate, naming the Township as an additional insured.

Projects exceeding 750 estimated average daily trips are major traffic-impact projects subject to conditional-use procedures, and related applications must be filed and heard together.

A complete conditional-use application, including the required Major Traffic Impact Study certification, must be submitted before the Board of Supervisors begins its hearings; the certification cannot be waived or submitted later.

Allows data centers as conditional uses in the Industrial District, creating a defined approval pathway subject to the ordinance’s performance standards.

If a project also qualifies as a major traffic-impact project, its traffic-impact and data-center conditional-use applications may be filed and heard together.

Allows commonly owned or unified-project parcels separated by a public road or public-utility land to be treated as contiguous for tract-area and land-mass calculations.

Allows data-center tracts of at least 20 contiguous acres, up to 75% impervious coverage and 50% gross building coverage, subject to stricter stormwater requirements.

Permits buildings up to 70 feet high and rooftop equipment up to 20 feet above the roof, subject to setback and screening requirements.

Allows loading areas on one façade of the principal building and requires only one off-street loading space.

Allows a broad range of accessory facilities on the same tract or unified development, including substations, utility lines, cooling systems, water and wastewater facilities, security facilities, storage, and temporary backup-power equipment.

Permits normal-operation energy-generation systems serving a data center, including solar, wind, fossil-fuel, fuel-cell, and nuclear systems, subject to applicable regulations and impact limits.

Allows electric substations serving a data center on the same industrial-zoned property; they generally must be placed to the side or rear and screened from sensitive receptors, but need not have a buffer between the substation and the principal building.

Allows backup generators and other backup-power systems, including natural-gas, diesel, hydrogen-fuel-cell, UPS, and battery-storage systems, for outages, natural disasters, similar emergencies, and reliability testing.

Allows emergency fossil-fuel generators to be used for routine maintenance or readiness testing for up to 100 hours per year, limited to 9:00 a.m. through 3:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; peak shaving and supplying power to the grid are prohibited.

Allows battery energy-storage systems as data-center accessory uses when they comply with NFPA 855 or similar standards and required battery-storage fire-suppression requirements.

Allows an alternative cooling system instead of a closed-loop system if the applicant demonstrates to the municipal engineer that it uses less water and energy and is sufficiently quiet.

Allows existing vegetation and topography to satisfy all or part of required landscape buffers and equipment screening when approved by the Board of Supervisors based on municipal recommendations.

Allows the Board of Supervisors to approve placing data-center equipment between the principal building and an arterial or collector street during the conditional-use process, despite the usual prohibition.

Requires utility providers to verify available grid and substation capacity and adequate infrastructure sizing, establishing a process for obtaining electric service for the facility.

Requires connection to public sewer when it is within 3,000 feet, with the applicant responsible for necessary upgrades.

Allows use of public water for cooling when it is available within 3,000 feet; projects using nonpublic water must provide a professional water-feasibility study.

Provides operating exceptions from maximum noise limits for emergency alerts, emergency utility work involving public health or safety, snow removal, and emergency road repair or maintenance.

Allows up to a one-year extension to begin decommissioning when the owner demonstrates that the property is actively being marketed for a compatible replacement use.

Provides that the data-center-specific rules control over conflicting provisions elsewhere in the zoning ordinance.