Residents filled the seats and hallways of the town hall’s rotunda for a nearly four-hour Bethlehem City Council meeting on Tuesday to participate in a public hearing on data centers and proposed amendments to the city’s zoning ordinance.
The council passed the zoning ordinance amendments in a 7-0 vote.
Rachel Leon, the council’s president, said this attendance was “anomalous” for the council. Most of the residents came for the public hearing or to comment and left when it concluded, nearly three hours into the meeting.
City’s zoning ordinance amendments proposed
Cathy Fletcher, director of planning and zoning for Bethlehem, presented the zoning ordinance text amendments to council at the public hearing.
Fletcher defined data centers as facilities that house physical hardware to support digital systems and said the demand for data centers has grown rapidly.
She said municipalities must allow for all land uses, so data centers can’t be banned. She also said local governments can determine how land is used and the specific development requirements to account for a municipality’s characteristics. Specifically, she said the city can regulate height, scale and setbacks, noise, light, access and safety standards.
According to Fletcher, data centers fall under the industrial land use category and are permitted as a special exception in the industrial district that requires any proposal to go to the zoning hearing board.
She said data center impacts aren’t always predictable.
The zoning ordinance amendments will require all plans, studies, evaluations, assessments and strategies to send these documents at the time of application:
- Environmental impact assessment and proposed mitigation strategies
- Water utilization report and wastewater disposal documentation
- Energy management plan and a power usage effectiveness analysis
- Electronic waste and decommissioning plan
- Emergency response plan and documentation regarding hazardous materials
- Thermal impact mitigation plan
- Photometric study that shows compliance with Article 1318.25, the lighting control section of the zoning ordinance
- Full spectrum pre and post-construction sound study measured at the lot line
The amendments also alter design standards, including increasing yard setbacks from a 20 feet foot to 80 foot minimum and buffer yards from 15 foot to 40 foot minimum This makes a setback for residential districts at 1,000 feet and changes building height limits to include rooftop structures within the 80 foot limit.
Residents raise concerns about data centers
Laurel Chuss, a Bethlehem resident, lives 200 feet from a proposed data center. She shared her concerns about the center being so close to her house in the public comment section of the meeting.
“I’m heartbroken that regulation comes too late to protect my home,” she said. “No family should have to choose between unexpectedly moving or experiencing the negative lifelong impacts of living too close to a data center. I ask you to please protect other families in Bethlehem from my family’s current reality.”
Shelby Carr, also a Bethlehem resident, said she believes the city should enforce a ban on non-disclosure agreements for data centers.
She also expressed the importance of community meetings.
“I hope it’s not lost on you how desperately people don’t want a data center in our community and while we can’t outright ban them, we should be doing as much as we can to safeguard our community and its resources by crafting tough ordinances,” Carr said.
Resident Mike Pipestone said he would like to see more post-construction reporting done.
He said if the city gives away all water and power generated in the city, all that’s left is a smoking, intemperate mess, and that’s not doing right by the community.
“In this room today, I’ve heard all of our councilwomen show us the way forward with both courage and wisdom,” Pipestone said
He said voting for this amendment is a starting point and emphasized the importance of participating in midterm elections.
Resident Bret Becker also voiced his concerns about the water usage of data centers.
He said he’s worried about his property value decreasing because of data centers being built in the area.
“Bethlehem is preparing to allow one data center with no substantive guardrails,” Chuss said. “More will follow. Three data centers using three million gallons of water and now you’ve exceeded the water of Bethlehem steel with 300 jobs to show for it.”
Resident Michael Bianco recommended the council to experience a data center visit.
He said to stop data centers, development and fees can be made more expensive so it’s not attractive to develop here.
“The first thing I would say is to increase the fine because the purpose of a fine is to hit these people where it hurts for abusing our water, for abusing our land, for abusing our airspace and for abusing our communities,” resident Christian Maldonado said.
Council’s response to the amendments
Leon said there are currently no regulations on data centers in the city of Bethlehem.
“I’m very much in support of (the amendments) for the main reason that it’s currently, in our zoning ordinance, a wild west,” Leon said.
Colleen Laird, vice president of the council, urged residents to contact state legislators and go to planning commission meetings where proposal decisions are made.
Laird said a vote in favor of this ordinance would place restrictions on data center development in the city and a vote against would leave an unregulated industry in the city.
Councilwoman Hillary Kwiatek said she appreciates the tremendous amount of work that went into writing the amendments.She asked Fletcher if the amendments are legally defensible, and whether they establish impactful restrictions and requirements that don’t currently exist in the ordinance.
Fletcher said she developed the amendments with the legal bureau and feels this is as far as they can go legally regarding data centers.
Councilwoman Jo Daniels said the ordinance needs to be reworked and residents applauded when she explained why.
“I’m not against developing, but this here, you just gave them a slam dunk,” Daniels said. “The way it stands right now, the developers are holding the bag on this 100%. We can do better and I think this audience of people here that took time out of their evening expected better.”
She said she appreciates the work, but the standards and community protections aren’t strong enough. She also said there are more regulations that can be put in this ordinance and mentioned there are many communities in the U.S. who have “beautiful frameworks.”
Daniels said she’s concerned data centers will get approved and their business and operations will change without annual studies being done to ensure they’re maintaining requirements.
“Six months later, the business changes, the operations changed, they’re using 50% more water and now my shower is at a trickle,” Daniels said.
Councilman Michael Colón asked what an expected size of data centers would be accommodated by these amendments.
Fletcher said the answer would likely be small scale data centers, equivalent to one basketball court, and medium colocation, equivalent to two football fields.
Colón also asked what enforcement looks like if developers get accepted and then later violate ordinance.
David Taylor, the city’s zoning officer, said the city investigates complaints and gives a violation notice to the developer with 30 days to cease. If they don’t cease, the case gets taken to civil court.
Councilman Bryan Callahan said more research should be done to strengthen the amendments and residents applauded this idea.
“I live here too on this planet with all of you and completely feel the same way about what’s going on, but I want to make sure that we understand where the terms are and where our levers of power are and how we can plant a flag, draw a line where we can actually have an impact here locally,” Kwiatek said.
Next steps
The next Bethlehem City Council meeting will be held on Oct. 20.
Leon encourages residents to attend the planning commission meeting, where public comment and voting on the proposed data center at 2184 Industrial Drive will occur, on Nov. 12 at 5 p.m. in the Town Hall rotunda.
“The fight doesn’t end here and I appreciate that you all have stuck around this long,” Pipestone said. “It’s a very long meeting.”
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