Our fight against the proposed data centers here in Lancaster has been ongoing since their public announcement in July. Since then we have been at city council and zoning board meetings, and we even took our fight to the state capital last month. We continue to push for regulation, transparency, and accountability that goes beyond just “good faith.”
Which led us towards the fight for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) that truly benefits our community and does not allow for big tech to further steamroll us. The city released their CBA draft to the public only two days before they voted yes on it, even though the public demanded for it to be postponed at least for a few days to allow the public to read it. So this is where we are now.
The CBA addresses a lot of the concerns many of us have about the hyperscale data centers, but it wasn’t all covered equally. I can’t cover all the details of the CBA in this post, so I’m just going to review my main takeaways from it. If you want to read the full agreement, you can find it at https://www.cityoflancasterpa.gov/data-center/.
We can break the CBA into three categories: good, inadequate, and missing.
Good: Noise from the data centers must not exceed the ambient noise levels that existed before construction, and backup generators can’t be tested on Sundays or federal holidays. The developers (Chirisa) have to submit a noise mitigation plan to the city that details how they’ll meet this goal. Water use is limited to 20,000 gallons per day per site. Energy must be derived from 100% clean energy, or the developers will have to pay into a clean energy fund. The developers have to create and maintain a website that the public can visit for updates on the project and a forum for questions and complaints. The enforcement section includes ways to ensure financial commitments are honored as well as legal remedies for other non-monetary commitments. Crucially, the agreement states that if the developers default on these commitments, they can’t just get out of it by paying a fine.
Inadequate: Climate resiliency is only mentioned directly in one sentence and relies on further plans submitted to the city by Chirisa after the adoption of the CBA. This was very high on the list of concerns, so I’m disappointed that the city and the developers didn’t put more detail into the agreement. Nuclear energy is included as an option for clean energy sources. The city can only make the developers verify they’re complying with the noise level complaints once every two years. The financial commitments the developers made totals $20 million, which is less than one percent of the total project cost. A community member pointed out at the city council meeting on November 20th that this is basically a rounding error in the project budget.
Missing: The point of a Community Benefits Agreement is to give the community a voice by including a wide coalition of groups that can represent the public in the negotiations. The CBA does not name any groups that were included in negotiations, so we can assume there were none included. The community was not given regular updates on the process of negotiations by the Mayor or City Council. We were only given the finished product two days before City Council voted to adopt it. There is also no oversight committee. We have to rely on the developer self-reporting and the city administration that might not have enough resources to make sure the developer is following the agreement.
City Council voted yes to adopt the CBA as presented at their special meeting on November 20th, but that doesn’t mean the fight against AI data centers is over. We must continue to keep our foot on the gas. The City of Lancaster has proposed an amendment to their zoning ordinance that addresses data centers, which has not yet been adopted. There isn’t an official date for City Council to adopt this, but it’s likely to be on an agenda this month. Continue to be on the look out for updates as we will need you!