Before construction, every data center must obtain a Data Center Permit from the Township Board of Supervisors. The application must be reviewed at a public hearing within 60 days after the application is administratively complete.

A conditionally approved Venango County Subdivision and Land Development Plan must accompany every Data Center Permit application.

Permit applicants must submit plans for review by the Township Secretary, Fire Chief, and any consultants selected by Township staff or the Board.

Applicants must provide utility-provider or professional-engineer verification that electrical capacity, equipment, cooling systems, and voltage conditions will adequately support the facility without negatively affecting the surrounding region or other service needs.

After construction, the applicant must provide written confirmation that the electrical work passed a third-party final inspection.

Public or private central water and sewer facilities are required. If public capacity is insufficient or central systems will not be used, the applicant must demonstrate that all needs can be met without expanding Township services or facilities.

Data centers adjoining residential uses or sensitive receptors must provide enhanced landscape buffers. A 300-foot buffer is required between a data center site and the ordinary high-water mark of a waterway designated under the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

Enhanced buffers must meet specified planting and screening standards, including minimum numbers and sizes of evergreen, canopy, ornamental, and shrub plantings, at least 50% evergreen shrubs, and an uninterrupted year-round screen at least 12 feet high within three years.

Impervious surfaces are prohibited within required buffer strips except for access drives, sidewalks, and associated improvements. Landscaping and landscape-management plans, including financial security for maintenance, must be submitted with the permit application.

Buildings may not have blank exterior walls; façades must include specified breaks, materials, roofline variation, entrances, and fenestration covering at least 30% of each individual façade.

Cooling, ventilation, power-generation, and emergency-power equipment is treated as Data Center Equipment subject to buffer requirements. If such equipment is closer to a public road or residential use than the principal building, it must be enclosed.

Rooftop equipment must be screened on all four sides, set back from parapets by specified distances, and placed as far as feasible from residences and sensitive receptors.

Outdoor lighting must be fully shielded or aimed downward, must not project onto neighboring residences, roadways, or the sky, and must not exceed 0.1 footcandle at residential uses or 0.5 initial footcandle at nonresidential uses. LED lighting may not exceed 3000K, and luminaires may not be mounted more than 20 feet above the illuminated surface.

Noise from a data center may not exceed 55 dBA CNEL at or beyond property boundaries containing sensitive receptors or 65 dBA at or beyond other developed-property boundaries. A sound lasting no more than one cumulative minute per hour may exceed the limit by up to 10 dBA, subject to stated emergency and public-safety exceptions.

Permit applications must include preliminary, interim, as-built, and post-construction sound studies covering exterior rooftop and ground-mounted equipment. Post-construction studies are required within six months after commercial operation, and violations must be promptly remediated.

Data center equipment must be housed in metered, grounded, pre-engineered metal structures with at least a 30-minute internal electrical-fire rating and automatic fire baffles. Applicants must demonstrate compliance with NFPA 75 and NFPA 76 and provide required specialized training and firefighting equipment to local emergency services.

Data centers must ensure that air, dust, smoke, glare, exhaust, heat, and humidity are not perceptible at or beyond the property line. They must also comply with specified EMF and EMI standards, submit an EMF management plan, and meet vibration limits of 200 micrometers per second RMS in any one-third octave band.

Applicants must submit a qualified water feasibility study addressing projected demand, water sources and uses, recycling or discharge, nearby wells and streams, safe yield, groundwater impacts, and mitigation. Groundwater sources require a licensed professional geologist's hydrogeologic report and aquifer testing.

Applicants must submit an emergency-response plan and responder-training plan for review and approval in consultation with local emergency responders. Training must occur before commercial operation, plans must be updated every five years or after significant changes, and in-building radio enhancement systems must be installed if needed.

A professional Environmental Impact Assessment is required with the permit application, addressing emissions, truck traffic, noise, glare, stormwater, archaeological resources, comprehensive-plan impacts, alternatives, unavoidable impacts, and environmentally sensitive areas.

Applicants must provide a Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Inventory report dated within two years of the permit application and comply with agency measures concerning threatened, endangered, and special-concern species.

All building roofs must be solar-ready. Uncovered roof areas must use light-colored roofing with a solar reflective index of at least 78 for the life of the building.

Data centers must use the best available cooling technology at the time of permit application, based on power efficiency, minimized potable-water consumption, commercial feasibility, environmental impact, and compliance with the ordinance's noise limits.

A decommissioning plan must be submitted with the permit application and approved as part of the permit. It must address removal, utility disconnection, restoration, responsible parties, costs, and financial security, and must be updated every five years or after major ownership or operational changes.

Owners or operators must post financial security for decommissioning equal to 110% of the estimated decommissioning cost, without credit for salvage value. The security must remain in effect for the facility's life and be adjusted every five years or sooner if required.

A facility is subject to decommissioning after 24 consecutive months without data-processing or storage operations unless the owner demonstrates good-faith efforts to resume operations within a reasonable period not exceeding 18 months.

Permit applications must include a construction transportation plan covering construction timing, vehicle routes, traffic volumes, operating hours, safety controls, road-condition video, road-protection measures, staging, emergency access, agency coordination, and a designated transportation coordinator. The Township may require bonding for affected Township roads.

Violations are treated as public nuisances. After 10 days' notice to correct, the Township may enter private property to abate the violation, recover enforcement costs through a property lien with a 10% penalty, and impose fines of up to $1,000 for each violation, each day or portion of a day, and each violated section.

Data Center permits must be reviewed at a public hearing within 60 days after the Township receives an administratively complete application.

A permit application may be accompanied by a conditionally approved land development plan under the County SALDO, rather than requiring a fully approved plan before the Data Center permit application.

If public water or sewer capacity is insufficient, or the facility will not use public systems, the applicant may propose alternative water and sewer arrangements, provided the facility meets its needs without expanding Township services or facilities.

The Township may grant waivers or modifications when strict compliance would cause exceptional hardship, subject to conditions, safeguards, and findings that the relief will not create an unacceptable public-safety threat or conflict with other laws.

Noise limits do not apply to a Sensitive Receptor established adjacent to a Data Center after the Data Center permit was issued, protecting the facility from later-created receptors imposing those limits.

Noise limits do not apply to emergency alerts, emergency utility work involving electricity or water when public health or safety is involved, snow removal, or road repair.

A Data Center is not deemed to have ceased operations until data processing or storage has stopped continuously for 24 months and the owner or operator fails to show that good-faith efforts are underway to resume operations within a reasonable period, which may be up to an additional 18 months.

The Township recommends, rather than requires, that a Data Center developer, owner, or operator enter into a Community Benefits Agreement before operations begin.

Before abatement action for an ordinance violation, the owner or operator receives 10 days to correct the violation; summary-offense fines are capped at $1,000 per violation, although continuing violations and violations of separate sections may be charged separately.