Lowhill Township Board of Supervisors heard updates June 11 on the Act 537 plan and the township’s data center ordinance and zoning amendment.

During the engineers comments, township engineer David Alban, with Keystone Consulting Engineers, reported progress on the ACT 537 plan.

“We did go out and field-view, I think, 100 properties that we successfully completed,” he said.

Alban said KCE still has not heard back from 91 property owners so he is looking at doing a follow up.

“We’re going to send letters out to the people that we need to follow up with,” Alban said. “If we can’t get them, then we’re going to probably start another round of randomly selecting properties and kind of repeating the process until we get what we need. We need 180 properties. We are at 100 successfully right now. We need 80 more.”

Alban said when letters were originally sent out saying officals were going to come out to inspect people’s septic systems, the consultant sent out more notifications than needed.

“If we do more than 180, it is even better for us,” he said. We need 180. That’s roughly 20%, and we had to randomly select these properties.”

Alban said KCE got a great response from the surveys sent out - a 35% response rate which is “awesome.”

“But we can’t just use that information because Department of Environmental Protection said we have to randomly select properties because property owners aren’t going to send those in if the owner has a failing septic and that is not the goal - to find people who have that. It is to document and update our Act 537,” he said. “We’re in the process of starting to write the plan, but we can only go so far until we have all the information.”

Chairman Curtis Dietrich said, “I remember one of the general requirements of the plan is that municipalities are required to develop a comprehensive and official 537 plan to provide for the resolution of existing sewage disposal problems.”

During Dietrich’s comments, Alban asked him if the township has a comprehensive plan and Dietrich responded they do.

Alban said that based on that and where the township sees itself growing in the future, if no pattern of system failures are seen, the recommendation may be that the current system is still suitable for the township and there’s no need to extend the public system.

Dietrich said that takes care of the resolution of any existing problems, but in terms of planning for future growth, he would like to make the recommendation that the planning commission take up the matter and have a discussion about future means and future growth.

“I think it’s important that we document that also and that there was a process to discuss [the issue],“ he said.

Township manager Mike Siegel reported the Dollar General store is ready to be recorded.

“They (Dollar General) have met my obligations for architectural design,” he said. “They have a copula on the top of the building. It has all the aesthetic values we wanted to see. Landscaping-wise, they agree to plant red maples and pussy willows in the front to attract the bee population in the nearby orchards.”

He said as far as the signage goes, he got a request in the afternoon prior to the meeting for Dollar General’s sign permit, but they will need a variance for the sign permit.

The one sign is larger than normal, but they’re allowed two signs on the building, and they only want to have one sign and that one sign would be smaller than the two signs put together, he said.

“I’m not allowed to issue that. They (Dollar General) will have to go before the zoning hearing board for that,” Siegel said.

He said the second sign that’s going out front is actually not going to be free standing. It’s going to be a ground mounted sign, and it won’t be of any type of video sign. It will be a standard metal sign, interior illuminated.

The only suggestion he said he would make to the applicant on that is that Dollar General is going to need a variance because it is larger than the allowed size.

Siegel also reported that the second part of the data center ordinance is complete as far as the draft version, and he will be sending it to the planning commission members for their comments.

“The second portion of the data center ordinance which is being done will incorporate permitted- by-right smaller data centers which I will explain to the planning commission how that’s going to work. It’s going to be unique. It’s going to be the only one in the eastern United States,” Siegel said.

He said Attorney Rocco Beltrami with Norris McLaughlin, P.A. Attorney At Law, and he sat down for two hours, and Beltrami loved the idea of what the township is doing.

“It will end any type of de facto issues because we’ve allowed data centers as a residential home under a smaller generator type box which will now include large amounts of power and no water and it will use our existing cell phone towers for wireless,” Siegel said. “It’s a unique thing. The technology is there. It’s being used in Texas and Iowa and its experimental. Hopefully, the hyper structures will no longer be an issue to our rural area. I encourage board members to listen in. I’m really enthused we are taking the lead on this and the septic and sewage issues as well.

Board members also discussed resident Deanna Niechwiadowicz’s concerns about the township considering putting up some sort of signage restricting the size of trucks on township roads.

Alban said he was familiar with doing the truck evaluations that Niechwiadowicz mentioned and the ones he has done in the past and asked board members if they wanted him to look into the matter of trucks on township back roads and give his recommendation.

Township solicitor Thomas Dinkelacker Esq. told the board, “You have the legal ability to restrict truck traffic on township roads. I don’t think you can restrict local deliveries. You can certainly restrict trucks of a certain size. Then you can get an engineering study that enforces that restriction, and then you can post your signs on both sides of the road beginning in the restricted area.“