Falls officials are initiating a preemptive strike on regulating additional data centers in the township by declaring part of its zoning ordinance “substantially invalid.”
The move came this week when board members approved a resolution to review and rewrite a portion of its zoning laws to deal with data centers — something that’s not even mentioned in most zoning books, including the township's.
Board members took the action after a meeting July 14 at Pennsbury High School in Fairless Hills that was attended by hundreds of residents and anti-data center activists. They criticized the township’s approval with Amazon Web Services to build a sprawling data center campus and the Keystone Trade Center on the site of U.S. Steel’s former Fairless Works
along the Delaware River.
Data centers are a relatively new, massive land use with unique challenges, including requiring large amounts of electricity and millions of gallons of water per day to cool machinery.
The local Amazon data center has requested to draw up to 4.4 million gallons of water per day from the river. It's also to havve almost 300 gas-fired generators in case of a grid outage. The noise level of a single generator is 65 decibels, the noise of a passing city bus.
Residents said they're concerned that they will underwrite Amazon’s venture through higher water and electric bills. Amazon said spikes in utility bills won’t happen, but skepticism persists.
The zoning review was conducted because most older township codes, such as in Falls, don’t contain “data center" on the books. But declaring a part of its zoning invalid doesn’t mean Falls is attempting to ban such places.
Under Pennsylvania's “fair share” zoning laws, if an ordinance doesn't clearly define, regulate or allow a legitimate business use, a big developer can file a hostile lawsuit, bypass the township and build wherever they want.
Usually called a “curative amendment,” township Solicitor Lauren Gallagher called it a “protective measure for any substantive validity challenge” filed within the 180 days Falls has chosen for review and changes to its zoning.
The Amazon project in Falls, however, is a done deal, passed in March 2025.
In an interview earlier this summer, board Chair Jeff Dence said township officials were caught off-guard by the sudden appearance of critics, activists and residents asking questions about the Amazon projects effects on quality of life and the Delaware’s ecosystem.
“Through the whole [data center land development] process, we didn’t have anyone show up at the meetings,” he said.
But things have changed, and not just in Falls. Municipal officials throughout Bucks County — and throughout the state and country — are also reviewing and updating zoning regulations in efforts to restrict data centers.
“We heard the people,” Falls Supervisor John Palmer said at their meeting July 27.
Township officials said in a statement that they'll spend six months reviewing zoning regulations to include data centers and develop clear definitions of data centers, “as well as infrastructure and utility requirements for constructing a data center in Falls."
JD Mullane can be reached at jmullane@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Falls Township moves to update zoning to curb data centers
