Rush Township supervisors voted in favor of preparing an amendment to the Eastern Schuylkill Regional Planning zoning ordinance that would dictate where data centers, warehouses and short-term rentals could be located.

“Right now, the zoning ordinance that we have — which we share with three other municipalities (of the ESRP) — does not have anything in it placing data centers, warehouses or short-term rentals (or vacation rentals) anywhere in the region,” solicitor Chris Riedlinger explained.

Rush Township, along with Tamaqua and the townships of Walker and Schuylkill, are part of the ESRP.

“As a result of that, what I’ll call a deficiency, a developer — for example — of a data center could come in here and submit a plan and tell us where it’s going to go,” Riedlinger said. “It would go unregulated, because we don’t address it in our ordinance and we’re required to have a place for every lawful use.”

By adopting the resolution, he said, Rush Township and the other municipalities now have a 6-month “shield” that would prevent anyone from submitting plans for any of the three uses and thus, obtaining site-specific relief.

“In that six months, the ESRP will be drafting ordinance amendments placing data centers, warehouses and short-term rentals somewhere in the region — and adopting regulations relating to them,” Riedlinger said.

At that point — after the six months — anyone with plans for the three uses will be subject to the ordinance requirements, he said.

Riedlinger said that the ESRP met earlier this week to discuss the zoning ordinance amendments.

Early discussions, he said, hinted at the creation of an “industrial-type zone” for data centers in the vicinity of the Schuylkill and Walker Township boundary line along Route 209.

He said it doesn’t appear that data centers will be permitted in Rush Township.

Township engineer Bill McMullen said warehouses could be permitted with restrictions in the Tide Industrial Park in Rush Township.

“Rush Township from what it appears early on in the discussions will be the one of the four that sees the least changes,” Riedlinger said.

He stressed that there is no data center project being facilitated at the moment.

“Zoning law requires we have a use for them somewhere. We’re just determining where that use is going to be,” he said.

“There is no project that is out there that is in existence right now that we are working with or anything like that. We just have to place them somewhere and this is an attempt to do that. That doesn’t mean there’s going to be one built anytime soon.”