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An Ordinance of the County of Allegheny, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, amending and supplementing Part 7 of the Administrative Code of Allegheny County, entitled “Properties,” through the creation of a new Article 707, entitled “County-Owned Property Usage,” in order to prohibit the usage of County-owned property for certain purposes relating to data centers.
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WHEREAS, the Home Rule Charter of Allegheny County, Article IV, §2(k) vests County Council with broad authority over County-owned property by providing that it is the power and duty of Council to “[b]y ordinance, lease, convey, vacate or abandon, or permit the use of County land, buildings or other real or personal property”; and
WHEREAS, in a recently published interview, University of Michigan School of Information and Public Policy Associate Professor Ben Green noted that “The public broadly is quite negative about data centers. Overall, their concerns are very legitimate. The public is concerned about rising electricity rates caused by data centers. They are concerned about the enormous water use that data centers require. They’re concerned about public handouts in the form of tax breaks that are going to data center developers, and they’re also aware that data centers don’t bring meaningful economic development, especially in the form of jobs. I think the public is quite right to be concerned about data centers. My research and other research have shown that these are a bad deal for communities on the local level.” (Mineo, Why are communities pushing back against data centers?, The Harvard Gazette, April 9, 2026); and
WHEREAS, in that same interview, Professor Green continued: “[t]he standard definition of a hyperscale data center is that it is more than 10,000 square feet with more than 5,000 servers. But even that is way below the current standard of the data centers that are being built today. Just a few miles from where I live in Ann Arbor there is a big project, part of OpenAI’s Stargate Project in Saline Township, Michigan, where the plan is for it to be over 2 million square feet and use 1.4 gigawatts of energy. That is equivalent to the energy use of a million households. What is important here is not just the scale of an individual data center, but also the number of data centers that are being developed at rapid pace across the country, which is fueling a massive expansion in energy and water demand. Estimates suggest that within a couple of years, the electricity needed for data centers is going to be around 10 to 15 percent of total nationwide electricity demand. This means that the data center boom is putting severe strain on efforts to move the country toward renewable energy sources, often by prolonging the use of fossil fuel plants that had been slated for closure.”; and
WHEREAS, according to Clean Energy Group, large data centers also take a toll on water resources: “[d]ata centers need lots of water to cool their servers. A 100-megawatt (MW) data center can use up to 2 million gallons every day. Because the water is evaporated, this water use is considered consumptive and not returned to the water system. Water is also necessary to cool the power plants that provide electricity to data centers. In Loudon County, Virginia, data centers make up 10 percent of all water use, and their demand spikes during the hottest months, when rivers are already running low. To cool the Hyperion hyperscale data center in Louisiana, Meta requested to withdraw a total of 5.6 million gallons of water every day from local sources.” (Morgan, Three of the biggest harms from irresponsible data center development-and what communities can do to fight back, www.cleanenergygroup.org, November 20, 2025); and
WHEREAS, the Environmental Health Project also highlights concerns about large data centers’ emission of noise pollution, light pollution, air pollution (which can include nitrogen oxides, methane, volatile organic compounds, and fine particulate matter), and impact upon energy costs for homeowners (Pavlinich, The Dangers of Data Centers, www.environmentalhealthproject.org, February 27, 2026); and
WHEREAS, the Pennsylvania Constitution recognizes the importance of esthetic and environmental preservation of publicly owned natural resources in Article I, §27: “[t]he people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”; and
WHEREAS, although interpretation of Article I, §27 is very much still a work in progress by the Commonwealth’s various courts, the provision at its core attributes a value to the community for pure water and environmental preservation; and
WHEREAS, although zoning authority is reserved to the various municipalities under the terms of the Pennsylvania Constitution and it is the judgment of Council that those municipalities are best situated to evaluate the benefits and detriments of land usage proposals within their borders for themselves, it is also the intent of Council, consistent with its Charter-given authority over the uses of County-owned property, to establish prohibitions regarding data centers that shall apply to such County-owned property.
The Council of the County of Allegheny hereby enacts as follows:
Section 1. Incorporation of the preamble.
The preamble to this ordinance is hereby incorporated in its entirety herein.
Section 2. Amendment of the Allegheny County Code of Ordinances.
Part 7 of the Administrative Code of Allegheny County, entitled “Properties,” is hereby amended and supplemented through the creation of a new Article 707, entitled “County-Owned Property Usage,” and comprised as follows:
Article 707
County-Owned Property Usage
§ 5-707.01. Definitions.
The following terms shall have the following meanings for the purposes of this Article:
A. “Data Center” shall mean a building or buildings which are occupied primarily by computers and/or telecommunications and related equipment where digital information is processed, transferred and/or stored, primarily to and from offsite locations. This use does not include computers or telecommunications related equipment that is secondary and customarily incidental to an otherwise permitted use on the property, such as servers associated with an office building. This use shall also include cryptocurrency mining, blockchain transaction processing, and server farms. A Data Center may or may not include Data Center Accessory Uses.
B. “Data Center Accessory Use” shall mean ancillary uses or structures secondary and incidental to a Data Center use, including but not limited to: administrative, logistical, fiber optic, storage, and security buildings or structures; sources of electrical power such as generators used to provide temporary power when the main source of power is interrupted; electrical substations; utility lines; domestic and non-contact cooling water and wastewater treatment facilities; water holding facilities; pump stations; water towers; environmental controls (air conditioning or cooling towers, fire suppression, and related equipment); security features, provided such data center accessory uses/structures are located on the same tract or assemblage of adjacent parcels developed as a unified development with a Data Center.
§ 5-707.02. Data Centers and Data Center Accessory Uses.
A. Establishment, construction, or operation of any Data Center as defined in §5-707.01.A. shall be prohibited on any parcel(s) of property owned by Allegheny County or in any building owned by Allegheny County.
B. All Data Center Accessory Uses as defined in §5-707.01.B. shall be prohibited on any parcel(s) of property owned by Allegheny County or in any building owned by Allegheny County.
Section 3. Effective Date.
This Ordinance shall enter into effect immediately upon final approval.
Section 4. Severability. If any provision of this Ordinance shall be determined to be unlawful, invalid, void or unenforceable, then that provision shall be considered severable from the remaining provisions of this Ordinance which shall be in full force and effect.
Section 5. Repealer. Any Resolution or Ordinance or part thereof conflicting with the provisions of this Ordinance is hereby repealed so far as the same affects this Ordinance.