Lancaster city data centers face zoning hearing, possible new regulations

• By Chris Reber / LNP | LancasterOnline

Lancaster City Council has taken the first step toward adding more stringent rules on data centers to the city’s zoning ordinance.

Meanwhile, the city’s zoning hearing board has also scheduled a hearing for next month on a resident’s appeal of the city’s finding that two proposed data centers in the city are allowed under the current zoning ordinance.

If council passes an ordinance amendment, it could apply to the proposed data centers at 216 Greenfield Road and 1375 Harrisburg Pike, according to Brigitte Meyer, a staff attorney with environmental advocacy organization PennFuture. Meyer said projects are considered under the zoning ordinance that is in place when the municipality issues a zoning permit or receives a land development application from the developer.

“If neither of those things have occurred by the time the new ordinance is adopted, the new ordinance will apply to the project,” Meyer wrote in an email to LNP | LancasterOnline on Wednesday.

As of Wednesday the city had not issued a zoning permit or received a land development application for either project, according to city spokesperson Amber Strazzo Righter.

City officials have issued written determinations that both projects are allowed because they meet the definition of “wholesale trade and storage,” a use allowed at both locations under the current zoning ordinance.

Draft expected in October

Council voted unanimously during its meeting Tuesday night to direct the city solicitor to draft a zoning ordinance amendment that would make data centers their own separate use. Council President Amanda Bakay said she would like for all data center projects proposed in the city to go through a hearing before council or the zoning hearing board.

Asked during public comment whether the amendment would affect the current data center proposals, Bakay said she did not know, specifically.

“What I can answer this evening for the general public to know is that we would make the zoning amendment fully enforceable to the extent that it would be allowed to be,” she said.

Bakay said a draft of the ordinance amendment should be ready for council’s committee meeting at 6 p.m. Oct. 6. Before the ordinance could be adopted, it would be subject to planning commission review and a public hearing before the full council.

Bakay also said Tuesday night that co-developer Chirisa Technology Parks is willing to include in a community benefits agreement that it doesn’t plan to cool the facility using “huge volumes” of water, and that the city is in the process of hiring experts to independently assess any noise or air quality impacts the project may generate.

Zoning appeal scheduled

As council considers updating its zoning ordinance regarding data centers, a city resident has filed an appeal of the city zoning officer’s determination that two proposed data centers in the city are “wholesale trade and storage,” and are therefore allowed at the Greenfield Road and Harrisburg Pike locations under the current zoning ordinance.

City resident Frank Arcoleo, who filed the appeal, told council Tuesday night that data centers should not have been allowed under that use, which he said is better suited for warehouses. 

“They are not the same thing, and should never ever have been called the same thing,” he said during public comment.

The hearing on the appeal is set for 4 p.m. Sept. 22 in city council chambers.

Any data center regulations that council decides to add to the city’s zoning ordinance will not impact Arcoleo’s appeal. Meyer said that would be decided using the ordinance that was in place when the zoning officer’s determination was made in February.

The city’s planning commission plans to hold its own informational hearing about how the zoning determinations were reached. The hearing is set to take place on Oct. 1 at a time and location to be determined. The commission invited the zoning officer and Mayor Danene Sorace to speak at the hearing.

Chirisa Technology Parks says it plans to have phase one of its Lancaster East data center campus up and running at 216 Greenfield Road in Summer 2027. Artificial intelligence and cloud computing firm CoreWeave plans to lease the facility and has pledged to invest $6 billion in the project.

A demolition permit has been issued for about half of the existing, 1 million-square-foot building at the Greenfield Road site. The city determined that phase one didn’t require land development approval because it is being built within the footprint of the existing structure.

Chirisa said in July that it had no current timeline for development of the Harrisburg Pike site.