Patton Township Updates Zoning to Address Data Centers

Patton Township’s Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved a zoning ordinance amendment that effectively ensures large-scale data centers cannot be constructed within the municipality.

Since 2005, Patton Township has had an intermunicipal zoning implementation agreement with College Township in which Patton takes College’s multi-family zoning and College takes Patton’s industrial zoning, Patton Township Manager Amy Farkas said.

The measure approved by the supervisors on Wednesday updates Patton Township’s ordinance to define data centers as a conditional use within the industrial zoning district and mirroring the regulations set forth in College Township’s zoning for the facilities, which were implemented earlier this year. That means anyone seeking to build a data center in Patton Township would need to instead find space where they are permitted in College Township, or elsewhere.

Because Pennsylvania law does not allow municipalities to deny lawful uses, they cannot place restrictions on them beyond standard requirements unless they are addressed in their zoning.

“We’re covered by this intermunicipal zoning agreement,” Farkas said during a review of the proposed amendment at a Planning Commission meeting earliier in August. “So to make sure we’re extra-covered our solicitor recommended we amend our industrial zoning ordinance to [College Township’s] language so that if someone comes in here and wants to put in a data center it would actually go in to College Township’s industrial zoning district as a conditional use.”

Farkas said that there isn’t much space in the industrial zoning district that exists within Patton Township’s borders.

“This just helps so that if someone comes in and were to propose a data center it would go over to College Township and follow the same regulations,” she said.

She added that no data centers have been proposed for the township, and that a recent webinar by Penn State experts for municipal leaders explained “there are a lot of challenges to data centers locating in Centre County” because the power grid would not be sufficient.

College Township in February became the first Centre Region municipality to address data centers in its zoning.

The township council approved making data centers a conditional use subject to specific standards in the Rural Residential Zoning District and defining them in the zoning code as “buildings or premises primarily occupied by computers and/or telecommunications equipment where data is processed, transferred, and/or stored.” The zoning allows the township to apply reasonable conditions for approval beyond standard requirements.

“This actually applies more requirements and applies a different process to the approval of data centers…” College Township Assistant Township Manager Mike Bloom said at the time. “But it’s also not a solicitation of these types of facilities. We’re prepared should one end up on our doorstep.”

As AI data centers have grown in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, residents have raised concerns about their impact on energy costs, water use and the environment.

Elsewhere in the Centre Region, Ferguson Township residents have urged tight restrictions on any such facilities, or if possible a way to prohibit them, should they be proposed.

Ferguson Township officials are exploring options for addressing data centers and said in May they also would look into a potential shared zoning use with College Township.