Colebrookdale: $110 Recycling Fee, Data Center Zoning Vote

Colebrookdale Township property owners would pay $110 for recycling next year, up from $100, under one of three resolutions the Board of Commissioners takes up Monday, Nov. 16, at 7:30 p.m. The same agenda, created Friday, Nov. 13, per the file's properties, lists a 2027 street light fee resolution, a vote to advertise the 2027 budget and, under new business, "Resolution 11-3-2026 Curative Amendment for Data Centers," a title the agenda does not explain. None of the three resolutions is posted, and no budget figure or tax rate for 2027 appears in any posted agenda, minutes or notice.

The meeting is at the Colebrookdale Township Municipal Building, 765 W. Philadelphia Ave., Boyertown, per the township's meeting dates page and home page.

The recycling fee: $110, decided in October

The agenda names the item "Resolution 11-1-2026 2027 Recycling Fee" and gives no amount. The amount is in the board's Oct. 26 budget meeting minutes: "The Board had a short discussion and decided to increase the recycling tax to $110.00 for 2027 up from $100.00 in 2026." No motion or vote is recorded there, which is why Monday's resolution would be the formal step. The fee is billed with the township real estate tax, as we reported in our Oct. 26 recap.

The reason, per the same minutes, is the township's recycling contract: "The Township Manager has received the revised cost for recycling in 2027. That cost is $211,512.72. That is an increase of $758.57 per month. The recycling contract will go out for bid in the middle of 2027." Township Manager Todd Gamler "said he is worried the cost of the new contract may be higher and cause a shortfall for the beginning of 2028." The Oct. 12 budget minutes carry the same $211,512.72 figure and bid timing, with no fee decision yet. Neither set of minutes names the hauler or gives the 2026 contract cost.

The street light fee

"Resolution 11-2-2026 2027 Street Light Fee" is listed under the manager's report with no figure. The only thing the budget minutes say about it is one sentence from Oct. 26: "The Township Manager believes that the streetlight fund is ok currently." The street light assessment is a charge on properties along lit streets, set per foot of road frontage; for 2026 the board kept it at "$ 0.53 per front foot" by Resolution 12-2-2025, the Dec. 1, 2025 minutes show (p. 2). Whether the 2027 rate stays at 53 cents is not in any posted document. Last year the street light resolution came to a vote Dec. 1, alongside the budget; this year it is on the November agenda.

"Curative amendment for data centers"

The agenda says only "Resolution 11-3-2026 Curative Amendment for Data Centers." The resolution is not posted, no staff memo accompanies the agenda, and the township has said nothing publicly about why the item is there.

A curative amendment is the procedure in the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, Section 609.2, for a municipality that "determines that its zoning ordinance or any portion thereof is substantially invalid." The municipality first must "declare by formal action, its zoning ordinance or portions thereof substantively invalid and propose to prepare a curative amendment to overcome such invalidity." Within 30 days of that declaration the governing body must, "by resolution make specific findings setting forth the declared invalidity," which may include "references to specific uses which are either not permitted or not permitted in sufficient quantity," and must "begin to prepare and consider a curative amendment to the zoning ordinance to correct the declared invalidity." It then has 180 days from the declaration to "enact a curative amendment to validate, or reaffirm the validity of, its zoning ordinance."

The procedure matters to landowners because of what it pauses. Section 609.1 of the same code lets a landowner who wants "to challenge on substantive grounds the validity of a zoning ordinance" that "prohibits or restricts the use or development of land in which he has an interest" submit a curative amendment of his own to the governing body. Once a municipality starts the Section 609.2 process, the governing body "shall not be required to entertain or consider any landowner's curative amendment filed under section 609.1," and the zoning hearing board need not report on a validity challenge, where the challenge rests on "grounds identical to or substantially similar to those specified in the resolution." When the municipal cure is finished, "no rights to a cure" under those landowner sections accrue "from the date of the declaration and proposal."

Colebrookdale's zoning code is not its own alone. The township shares a joint zoning ordinance with Boyertown and Pike Township, enacted in 2010, as we reported in our joint zoning preview. For joint ordinances the code has a separate section, 812-A, under which "the governing bodies of all the participating municipalities may declare the joint municipal zoning ordinance or portions thereof substantially invalid and prepare a municipal curative amendment pursuant to section 609.2," with nine months to enact the cure where two or three municipalities are involved. The agenda does not say which section the resolution invokes or whether Boyertown or Pike is taking any parallel step. On Boyertown's Agenda Center, the newest council documents are the Nov. 2 agenda, which listed right after the hearing "Consider a motion to approve Ordinance Number 04-2026 to amend the" joint zoning ordinance and the borough zoning map, and the Oct. 5 minutes, which record two 5-0 roll calls, with two of seven members absent, to advertise the hearing and the ordinance; neither mentions a curative amendment, and no Nov. 2 minutes are posted. (The Agenda Center's newer Nov. 9 agenda is the Water Authority's.) The code pairs the formal declaration with a findings resolution within 30 days; nothing in the code bars one resolution from doing both, and the township's posted minutes end with the Oct. 19 regular meeting and the Oct. 26 budget meeting, per the agendas and minutes page, so whether the Nov. 2 meeting took any first step is not public.

The item lands two weeks after the board's Nov. 2 public hearing on a joint zoning amendment that would make data centers a special exception use in Colebrookdale's GI/Q General Industrial/Quarry district only, per the township's hearing notice and our preview. Pike cancelled its own Nov. 3 hearing, and whether Colebrookdale or Boyertown voted Nov. 2 is not on any posted record. The Nov. 2 agenda listed the hearing and, under the solicitor's report, "Approval of Ordinance 3-2026" without saying what that ordinance is; the Nov. 2 minutes are on Monday's agenda for approval and are not posted. Our data center tracker carries the three-municipality row and will carry the outcome. Colebrookdale was one of six townships drafting data-center rules this summer, per our report.

The budget: a vote to advertise, no numbers

"Approval of Advertising the Budget" is the last new-business item. The board held budget meetings Oct. 12, Oct. 26 and Nov. 9; the Nov. 9 agenda, linked from the township home page, listed general fund revenue and expense review and eight other funds, with no figures, and its minutes are up for approval Monday but not posted. The Oct. 12 and Oct. 26 minutes contain no general fund total, no revenue or spending line and no mention of the real estate tax rate. The 2026 rate is 5.5 mills, set by Tax Ordinance 5-2025, which the Dec. 1, 2025 minutes say "would raise the millage to 5.5 from 5 mills" (p. 2).

Last year's calendar ran differently on paper: the Nov. 17, 2025 agenda listed a "1st Reading of the 2026 Budget," and the Dec. 1, 2025 agenda a "Second Reading of the Budget," the tax levy ordinance, the budget resolution and the street light resolution. The Dec. 1 minutes record that "The 2026 Budget has been advertised and is ready for the Board of Commissioners' approval." If Monday's vote starts the advertising, the remaining 2026 meetings for adoption are Dec. 7 and Dec. 21, per the meeting dates page. The largest annual 2027 commitment in the township's posted minutes is the Eastern Berks Regional Police budget, approved Sept. 21 at $140,461.33 a month, roughly $1.69 million a year by our arithmetic, per our Sept. 21 recap.

Also on the agenda

• Approval of the Nov. 2 regular meeting minutes and the Nov. 9 budget meeting minutes; neither is posted.
• Bills from the general fund, recycling fund and payroll fund, with no amounts listed.
• Under the manager's report: "Comcast 3rd Quarter Franchise Payment," a "Recreation Fund Deposit," a "PA Solvency Fee" and a "BMMA Study Notice." The Nov. 2 agenda had listed a "Support Letter Request from BMMA." No amounts or documents accompany any of these.
• Under new business: a "Real Estate Tax Refund" and a "Hold Harmless Agreement," neither described. A hold harmless agreement is a contract in which one party agrees not to hold the other responsible for certain losses.
• Under the code enforcement officer's report: "Courtesy Notice 371 Mill St." The agenda does not say what it concerns; the Oct. 19 minutes show such notices going to two Red Oak Drive properties for dead trees (p. 2).
• Communications include a thank-you from the Hillegas family, three PennDOT items, the RATS 2027 meeting schedule and a township news magazine.

Also in Colebrookdale this week

The Zoning Hearing Board meets Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. in the township building's meeting room on an application by Paulmar612 Associates, LLC, for a variance to build an addition at 441 County Line Road with a 43.3-foot front setback instead of the required 50 feet, matching the existing building, per the posted notice. The notice says the public is invited to attend and participate.

How to attend

Monday, Nov. 16, 7:30 p.m., Colebrookdale Township Municipal Building, 765 W. Philadelphia Ave., Boyertown. The agenda has public participation as item 3, before the minutes, and again as item 21 for people not signed in. The township office is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 610-369-1362, per the home page. Residents who want the recycling, street light or budget figures before the votes can ask the office for the resolutions and the proposed budget, since none is posted.

Sources

• The Nov. 16 agenda, the Nov. 9 budget agenda and the Nov. 2 agenda.
• The Oct. 26 and Oct. 12 budget meeting minutes and the Oct. 19 minutes, from the township's agendas and minutes page.
• The Dec. 1, 2025 minutes, the Nov. 17, 2025 agenda and the Dec. 1, 2025 agenda.
• The Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, Sections 609.1, 609.2 and 812-A, as posted by the General Assembly.
• The township's joint zoning hearing notice, the Zoning Hearing Board notice, the home page and the meeting dates page; Boyertown's Agenda Center.