Windsor Township enacts data-center zoning limits

Windsor Township now has data-center zoning on the books. The Board of Supervisors adopted Ordinance No. 2026-01 at a public meeting on Aug. 11, 2026, amending the township's 2009 zoning ordinance to say where a data center can be built and what its owner must prove first. The rules took effect five days after the vote, so they are already in force. Windsor, a township next to Hamburg in northern Berks County, is the first municipality in this summer's Hamburg-area cluster of data-center zoning efforts to adopt a final ordinance, by our count.

A data center is a large building full of networked computers that store and process data for cloud, artificial-intelligence, and cryptocurrency operations. The heavy electricity and water those buildings draw is the worry that runs through every one of these ordinances, and zoning codes written decades ago rarely mentioned the use at all. We previewed the Aug. 11 hearing as part of a six-municipality round of data-center work; this is what Windsor actually passed.

Where a data center can go

The ordinance allows a data center only in the township's Industrial (I) zoning district, and only as a "conditional use." A conditional use is one the zoning code permits after the elected supervisors hold a public hearing on the specific project and attach conditions to it. That means no data center can be approved over the counter: each proposal comes back to the board for its own hearing.

The ordinance also sets size and spacing rules for any such project:

• A minimum lot of 10 acres, at least 300 feet wide and 500 feet deep.
• Front, rear, and side setbacks of 100 feet each.
• Buildings no taller than 50 feet, covering no more than 30 percent of the lot, with total paved and built area capped at 50 percent.
• At least 1,000 feet from any existing home, school, or institutional building, and at least 500 feet from land zoned residential.

What a builder has to prove

Most of the ordinance is a checklist a data-center applicant must satisfy as part of that conditional-use hearing. Among the requirements:

• A hydrogeologic study showing the project's water demand will not harm existing wells or water users within 3,000 feet, plus monitoring wells and testing of nearby wells.
• An environmental impact assessment covering air quality, noise, groundwater, stormwater, and habitat.
• A noise mitigation plan with an acoustic study, and a plan to reuse or dissipate waste heat.
• A disclosure of the center's electricity demand and power sources.
• Buildings certified to the LEED silver green-building standard, with electric-vehicle charging and solar panels.
• For a center larger than 50,000 square feet, a landscaped buffer around the site, including a 60-foot-wide earthen berm raised 8 feet high where no natural tree screen exists.

The ordinance also limits truck operations, barring idling in public streets and requiring queuing space and security checkpoints at sites with more than 50 loading docks.

How Windsor compares

The standards track the template the Berks County Planning Commission has been urging on municipalities: define the use, allow it only by conditional use, and require proof that power and water can support it. The commission's advice sheet suggested sample limits such as a noise cap and a 1,000-foot buffer from homes, and Windsor's 1,000-foot separation from existing residences lands in the same place.

By our count, Windsor is one of at least 17 of the county's 72 municipalities that have taken up data-center rules this year. The earlier rounds are covered in our first report on the zoning rush and the six-township second wave; Reading instead adopted a temporary pause. The other Hamburg-area municipalities that took up the issue this month, including Tilden and Upper Bern, were still drafting or advertising their ordinances as of mid-August. To find and follow your own board's meetings, see our guide to local meeting schedules.