Hazle Twp. planners formalize data center recommendations for supervisors
Hazle Township planners submitted 21 recommendations for regulating data centers, including limits on locations, generators, battery storage, environmental impacts and decommissioning. The recommendations will inform supervisors as they consider a curative zoning amendment, while NorthPoint Development’s previously denied Project Hazelnut remains under appeal.
Hazle Township planners formalized 21 recommendations for a proposed data center zoning amendment, but did not include a public request that data centers require special-exception approval and a hearing before the zoning board. The draft would allow data centers in designated I-1 industrial areas near high-voltage lines, while imposing additional review requirements on battery storage, ancillary power systems and certain industrial uses.
The recommendations call for tighter limits on diesel-generator testing, enhanced fire and emergency-response standards, independent environmental and acoustical monitoring, wildlife protections, stronger buffering and landscaping, and a larger financial bond for eventual decommissioning. Township supervisors are not expected to vote on the curative amendment until December, ahead of a Dec. 7 deadline under state law.
The rules could affect Project Hazelnut, NorthPoint Development’s proposed 15-building data center campus on 1,350 acres. Hazle Township supervisors previously denied the project, and Luzerne County Court upheld that decision; NorthPoint’s appeal is pending before Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court.