At its June 15 Business Meeting the Board of Supervisors will conduct a Public Hearing, and may consider, Ordinance 227-2026, to establish controls, restrictions, and regulations for data center uses. Township Code presently allows data centers, as conditional uses, in the Planned Commercial & Limited Industrial Zoning District, but the Township Code does not include controls, restrictions, and regulations that are specific to this use.

It is important to note that both Federal Law and State Law require all municipal zoning ordinances to allow for every legal use within a municipality’s borders. Municipalities that fail to do so may be sued, and risk a court determining where the “excluded” use is permitted to be located. The zoning ordinance of one Chester County municipality was recently challenged for excluding data centers. The developer is now seeking to relocate the data center in a residential zoning district.

Click here to view the Public Notice, and click here to review the ordinance.