From R.J. Fisher & Associates
Municipal Monday — Issue 20
Eleven municipalities in four counties have adopted data center ordinances this year, the newest in East Pennsboro on September 16. Silver Spring’s September 23 agenda listed $3.15 million in security reductions and a release.
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Why We Fly LiDAR When the Trees Are Bare
LiDAR sees the ground through gaps in the canopy, and with the leaves down there are far more of them. That makes late fall through early spring the best window for aerial mapping in Central Pennsylvania.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 19
Eight municipalities in four counties have already adopted data center ordinances, all between June 9 and August 18. Three Cumberland County municipalities are building land preservation programs at the same time.
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DEP’s Draft PAG-01 and the Fix for Small-Site Stormwater
Comments close Monday, September 21. A new Alternative 3 would let the township engineer’s stormwater approval stand for DEP’s. The gate DEP put on it shuts out townships running DEP’s own model ordinance.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 18
Nine municipalities in five counties have a data center file active, five of them new to the count. One township is asking to be heard in another township’s zoning case, a first in this series.
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Two Outlet Barrels, One Anti-Seep Collar, and the Backfill Underneath
The seepage path you need is a calculation off the length of barrel in the saturated zone. Getting it is another matter. There is a wedge of ground under and between two pipes that no machine can reach.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 17
Four municipalities in three counties put data center items on agendas inside three weeks. One is reviewing a live project against its own rules while the other three are still drafting theirs.
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What a Basin Underdrain Does, and Why Nobody Drives on the Soil
The underdrain does not drain the basin. Inside the outlet box the pipe turns up a foot, so the bottom foot of soil stays wet on purpose. Above it sit two feet of blended soil that can never be compacted.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 16
Eight municipalities across five counties have a data center or solar energy zoning file open, and one moved last week. Hampden opened an agenda with a landowner curative amendment hearing.
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What an Anti-Seep Collar Does, and Why We Look Before It Is Buried
Water that reaches the outside of a buried pipe follows the pipe, and given enough years it opens a channel through the embankment. The collar stops that. Once the trench is backfilled, none of it can be inspected again.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 15
Four data center zoning items, four counties, three consecutive days, each at a different stage, all inside the same week the Governor signed the executive order.
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Pennsylvania Changes the Order of Operations for Data Center Permits
Executive Order 2026-05 sets DEP permitting guardrails for data centers over 25 MW. Local approvals and comprehensive plan consistency now gate the permit, and no state clock runs while you are in front of the township.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 14
Data center zoning moves through three procedural stages in three counties in a single week, and the amendment worth reading writes data centers and battery energy storage into the same ordinance.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 13
Data center rules became data center filings — three Pennsylvania Digital items on one Middlesex agenda, all with an action deadline of the meeting night itself, while Lower Swatara starts its ordinance from a blank page.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 12
Solar joins the data center conversation from two directions at once — a county text amendment for principal solar systems, and a water authority asking for stormwater relief because panels count as impervious surface.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 11
A data center proposal covering roughly 250 to 496 acres at the former Pennsy Supply quarry puts a specific project behind South Hanover’s overlay ordinance, while Windsor and West Hanover hold the hearings flagged last issue.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 10
Seven municipalities across three counties are writing data center rules in the same six-week window — Windsor, East Pennsboro, Hampden, Lower Allen, West Hanover, East Hanover and South Middleton — as the wave moves from drafting to decisions.
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A Certified Floodplain Surveyor Under Our Roof
Matthew Fisher has earned the Certified Floodplain Surveyor designation from the National Society of Professional Surveyors — what the credential covers, and what it means when a flood zone touches your property.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 09
The first data center land development plans reach a Cumberland County agenda — Pennsylvania Digital’s PAX-1 campus in Middlesex — while six municipalities across four counties keep moving data center zoning toward hearings and adoption.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 08
The data center ordinance wave hits its decision round — an adoption vote in Hampden, hearings queued in Lower Allen, Windsor, and Silver Spring — while preliminary plans for the PAX-1 data center campus land on the Middlesex Township agenda.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 07
Three legal routes to data centers in a single week — a curative amendment, a moratorium, and conventional ordinances heading to hearings — plus the busiest plan-review week of the series, led by the 205-lot Georgetowne subdivision.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 06
Data centers reached the West Shore: Upper Allen moved to initiate a curative amendment, the first in this series, alongside a sixteen-project pipeline week and guarantees released as projects finish.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 05
South Londonderry held the first adoption-stage data center hearing, with three more set across the summer and fifteen named projects in motion.
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Reading a Grading Job from the Air
As of the May 1 flight, New View Business Park is about 71 percent complete by volume, with roughly 69,000 cubic yards of cut and fill left to move. Here is how that read works.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 04
The data center story crosses from drafting into deciding: the first adoption hearing and the first moratorium land the same night.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 03
Three firm public hearing dates are now on the summer calendar as the data center ordinance wave shifts from drafting to scheduling.
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Municipal Monday — Issue 02
The data center ordinance wave widens to eight municipalities across three counties, with the first public hearings now on the calendar.
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