Your Voice Team Keeping its Campaign Promises #2

As the famous poem goes, “We have miles to go before we sleep” before we can fulfill all of our promises to our residents. Nine months after our start on Council, however, we want to update you on the successes the Your Voice Team has achieved for our borough. We will also highlight what we feel is yet to be accomplished.

Next up:

Developing a data center ordinance

Before the June 2026 council meeting, Your Voice emailed a request to include in our agenda a motion to impose a moratorium on data center construction in our borough.  Doing so would, we noted, would give the borough time to develop a zoning ordinance that would protect our residents from the negative impacts of data centers. A central point in our request was to form a committee to work on the new ordinance and to include our residents in the process.  Your Voice is committed to transparency because we know that residents will trust us if we include the public in major decisions that will impact their quality of life.

 In a rare response, a proposed data center moratorium and development of ordinances to regulate them was included on that month’s agenda and was unanimously approved by the council

In the three months since we obtained the 6-month delay, the issue of data centers has exploded as one of the few bipartisan issues in the country.  In August, Governor Shapiro issued an Executive Order laying out strict requirements that data center developers must meet regarding energy affordability, community engagement, workforce and economic development, transparency, and environmental protection – and giving local municipalities a greater say over development in their communities. Right next door in Falls Township, residents were blindsided by the large Amazon data facility that was approved by their council.

We believe our proactive response will save our residents from the most negative impacts of data centers and maybe even get something back from any proposed construction.  

Our team though has not yet been successful in creating a committee to write the best ordinance nor in including the public in the process. However, we will continue to fight for your right to be included and insist that our Council president, solicitor and interim part-time manager know that you demand a transparent process that includes you, the residents.  And, do not let ANYONE tell you that there are no places in Morrisville large enough for a Data Center.  As our solicitor has said twice, a small data center only needs an acre and we have plenty of larger sized properties that could be repurposed, especially in the first ward.

For more details on issues surrounding data centers, please see the accompanying blog on data centers. Data Center Info: morrisvilledemocrats.org/stay-informed/data-center-info