Data centers and their accessory uses are permitted in the I-2 General Industrial District only as conditional uses, requiring conditional-use approval and a public hearing before development.

Conditional uses with at least 100,000 square feet of cumulative building area or impervious surface must maintain a setback of 300 feet when below 250,000 square feet and 500 feet at or above 250,000 square feet.

The required setback area generally cannot contain buildings, roads, parking, loading areas, generators, cooling equipment, substations, or other disturbance-producing features; only passive stormwater facilities and underground utilities are excepted.

Large conditional uses must provide a landscape buffer along adjoining residential zoning districts, sensitive receptors, and public roadways: 150 feet for uses below 250,000 square feet and 300 feet for uses at or above 250,000 square feet.

Required buffers must contain specified quantities and sizes of predominantly native trees and shrubs, provide year-round screening, achieve a minimum 12-foot screening height within three years, and be maintained or replaced by the property owner.

The Board may accept existing vegetation, topography, or an alternative buffering plan only upon findings that the alternative provides equivalent or superior mitigation of visual, noise, lighting, and operational impacts.

Cooling, ventilation, power-generation, and other operating equipment within 300 feet of a public roadway, residential zoning district, or sensitive receptor must be fully enclosed unless mechanically infeasible; otherwise it must be fully screened by vegetation, buildings, berms, or solid fencing or walls.

Roadside fencing may not be chain-link, with or without slatted inserts, and may not use barbed wire or similarly intrusive deterrence devices; security cameras are required for property fencing, and fencing adjoining residences or sensitive receptors must generally be located inside the landscape buffer.

Applicants must submit professional sound and vibration studies demonstrating compliance with the ordinance, including preliminary, interim, and as-built studies; the Township may require an independent peer review at the applicant's expense.

The draft establishes sound limits of 50 dBA during weekday daytime hours and 40 dBA during nighttime hours and weekends at adjacent sensitive receptors, while also stating 67 dBA daytime and 57 dBA nighttime/weekend limits at the use's property line.

Low-frequency sound may not exceed 55 dBC at a receiving residential property line, the dBC-dBA difference may not exceed 15 dB, and tonal noise requires specified one-third-octave or ISO analysis and adds a 6 dB compliance penalty when present.

A qualified professional must demonstrate that vibration from the data center and its equipment is not perceptible to human senses beyond the property line.

The owner must conduct an as-built sound study within six months after receiving a certificate of occupancy and before final escrow release for a land-development phase; violations of the applicable noise limits constitute ordinance violations. The standards do not apply to sensitive receptors created after approval.

Generator testing is limited to weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and backup or emergency generators may not operate, including for routine testing, when the applicable Air Quality Index exceeds 70 unless there is a bona fide emergency.

Backup and emergency generators must meet EPA Tier 4 or equivalent emissions standards, use natural gas or other non-diesel fuel when possible, and be located as far as feasible from sensitive receptors.

Public water and sanitary sewer must serve the use when available or reasonably extendable; availability includes facilities on the property, within 1,000 feet of the boundary, or legally extendable at the applicant's cost. Capacity certifications from the water and sewer authorities are required.

On-lot or other nonpublic water and wastewater systems are prohibited unless the Board first determines that public systems are not reasonably available.

For projects relying on nonpublic water with projected consumptive use of at least 20,000 gallons per day averaged over 30 days, a water-feasibility study is required addressing supply, groundwater and surface-water impacts, nearby wells, sustainability, drought conditions, and cumulative withdrawals.

Projects proposing at least 100,000 gallons per day of water withdrawals or at least 20,000 gallons per day of consumptive use, averaged over 30 days, must provide proof of Susquehanna River Basin Commission review and approval.

Conditional uses relying on nonpublic water must suspend groundwater or surface-water withdrawals for cooling or industrial purposes during a DEP or SRBC drought watch, warning, or emergency; they must also conduct continuous groundwater monitoring, submit quarterly withdrawal and discharge reports, and mitigate attributable impacts to wells within five miles.

If projected electrical consumption exceeds 5 megawatts per year, the applicant must provide certification from the electric provider that sufficient capacity is available and that service will be provided.

Energy-generation systems intended to supply a data center during normal operations are excluded from the data-center accessory-use definition and must be treated and approved as separate uses under the applicable zoning regulations.

Applicants must submit an Emergency Response Plan approved by the Township Emergency Management Agency, covering fire suppression, containment, ventilation, evacuation, emergency access, responder training, inspections, outages, and recovery; battery storage must comply with NFPA 855 or an equivalent standard.

Applicants must provide expert evidence that the use will not harm adjoining properties through hours of operation, noise, light, litter, dust, or pollution.

Building facades facing a road, residential district, or sensitive receptor must include at least two specified design elements every 150 horizontal feet, such as material changes, height changes, or five-foot step-backs or recesses.

Lighting must be fully shielded and downward-directed, may not flash or use beacons, and may not exceed 0.1 horizontal footcandles at any property boundary; nonessential exterior lighting must be reduced by at least 50 percent during reduced-activity periods.

A professional traffic study is required and must analyze the most intensive feasible ITE land-use code unless the applicant accepts a permanent limitation to a lesser-intensity code.

Any future expansion, modification, or repurposing that would exceed the traffic intensity approved under a lesser ITE code requires a conditional-use modification, a new traffic study, and Board approval after a public hearing; it cannot be authorized solely through administrative or land-development approval.

Applicants must notify all property owners within 750 feet of the proposed site at least 30 days before the conditional-use hearing, at the applicant's expense, and submit proof of notification.

A data center and its associated accessory uses are deemed abandoned after 12 continuous months without operation; decommissioning must begin within 12 months and remove structures, equipment, fencing, foundations, and impervious surfaces, with disturbed areas restored or otherwise approved by the Township.

Data centers and their accessory uses are authorized as conditional uses in the General Industrial (I-2) District, allowing them to seek approval in that zoning district rather than requiring a zoning-text amendment for each project.

A data center may include same-tract accessory infrastructure such as generators for temporary backup power, electrical substations, utility lines, cooling equipment, water facilities, wastewater treatment facilities, pump stations, and security structures.

The additional I-2 requirements apply only to conditional-use facilities with at least 100,000 square feet of cumulative building area or impervious surface, leaving smaller facilities outside those added requirements.

Existing vegetation and topography may satisfy all or part of a required landscape buffer if the Board of Supervisors finds that they meet the buffer’s screening and performance objectives.

The Board of Supervisors may approve an alternative buffering plan, including preserved forest, enhanced woodland buffers, berms with vegetation, or hybrid designs, when the applicant demonstrates equivalent or superior mitigation of visual, noise, light, and operational impacts.

Cooling, ventilation, power-generation, and other equipment that cannot feasibly be fully enclosed under manufacturer specifications may instead be screened through landscaping, existing vegetation, buildings, berms, or solid fencing and walls.

A project may use nonpublic water or wastewater systems when the Board determines that public water and sanitary sewer facilities are not reasonably available, allowing development without connection to public systems in those circumstances.

The Board of Supervisors may modify specified setback, buffer-yard, and site-layout requirements when at least 50 percent of the proposed use’s annual electricity consumption will come from renewable sources, provided the modification does not reduce noise, vibration, or environmental performance requirements.

An applicant may elect to base the required traffic study on a lesser-intensity ITE land-use code instead of the most intensive possible code, subject to permanently limiting the approved use to that traffic intensity.

The maximum noise limits do not apply during a power outage, although the required sound studies must still evaluate and report anticipated noise when emergency generators operate.

Noise and vibration standards do not apply to sensitive receptors that are created after the data center or conditional-use approval.