PENN TWP — The township plans to hold a public hearing in the near future for consideration of a proposed ordinance to regulate data centers potentially looking to come into the municipality.

Although no date for a hearing has been set, it is expected to take place in August, before the next board of supervisors meeting on Aug. 11.

“The goal is to have it in August,” said township zoning officer Philip Mangis. “That might be subject to change, but the goal is August.”

The board of supervisors voted to publicly advertise the public hearing for the ordinance during its monthly meeting on Tuesday, July 14.

According to Mangis, the township is in the process of putting together a draft of a data center ordinance to put up for consideration and is nearly finished doing so.

“There's a few things that I need to add to it for it to be finalized, but it has been almost fully drafted,” Mangis said. “We have a solid draft in place, ready to go.”

Because the ordinance hasn’t been publicly advertised yet, Mangis couldn’t discuss the specific contents. However, he did say the township referenced similar data center ordinances crafted by other Pennsylvania municipalities.

“There have been a few model ordinances and a few other municipalities have already approved data center ordinances,” Mangis said. “I looked at a good variety of them in this state, especially for townships that are similar to us, and I crafted around them.”

No developers have proposed any data center projects in Penn Township to Mangis’ knowledge. That still hasn’t eased concerns of Penn esidents.

“During meetings, people have voiced their concerns,” Mangis said. “Some have voiced that they do not want data centers. Others want strict regulations. As the zoning officer, I cannot tell someone what they can and can't build. I can only go off of what our ordinances and our regulations say.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, some Penn Township residents brought paper copies of other townships’ data center ordinances as suggestions for Mangis to use as reference in crafting the one for Penn Township.

“I understand that you can't just say ‘no,’ but you could make ordinances and zoning to the point where (data center developers) are not going to even try to be here,” said Penn Township resident Barbara Chapman. “And I would really appreciate transparency... like no nondisclosure agreements between the township and whatever companies, because that would be a deal-breaker.”