"Have We Tried?" Trainer Council Won't Write a Data Center Ordinance

Quick background: The old Congoleum plant on Ridge Road is about 24 acres, roughly 90% in Trainer and 10% in Lower Chichester. In July, Link Logistics (the industrial real estate company Blackstone founded) asked Trainer’s zoning officer whether a data center is permitted there. He said yes, by right. Trainer advertised that determination in September, but Lower Chichester got the same request and declined, on the grounds that its code doesn’t define a data center at all.

Council has said at every meeting since that it has received no proposal, approved nothing, and is waiting on the company.

Two hours in Trainer Borough Council and the most important thing anyone said was the solicitor, almost in passing…at the end.

A resident had just asked him whether Trainer had tried to write a data center ordinance. Not whether it could win, but tried.

The solicitor:

“A couple of things have to happen. There has to be a will to write an ordinance. Then they ask me my opinion of the ordinance, then that ordinance has to pass. So you have to want the ordinance first. It has to be written appropriately in a forcible way. It then has to pass. I don’t know that all of those things would happen.”

He was asked whether the borough has tried and the answer was no.

For the first half of the data center segment…the whole council told everyone that their hands were tied by law. Their reasoning is that they already have industrial zoning permitted…AND THEN the boroughs own lawyer (the solicitor) explained that the obstacle isn’t law, but political will.

What council confirmed about the data center

Council’s president opened with telling everyone that there are no changes…everything remains the same (whatever that means) and the borough is hoping to schedule a Trainer community meeting for residents in November or early December with Link Logistics (aka Blackstone). More to come on that.

After being pressed a bit by a resident later, President Gaspero insisted that the only thing Trainer Borough has done was give a preliminary favorable opinion on the zoning, by saying “it’s allowed.”

He also said that now the ball is entirely in their court. They have to give the borough a formal proposal, which he claims to havent received anything…he also proactively told residents that council has not taken any money, nor participated in back door deals.

On the ordinance question he said an ordinance wouldn’t do anything right now, that they might write one for future data centers, and then pivoted back to Pennsylvania having the strictest data center guidelines in the country. That last line got used as the justification several times.

All night they told us they hadn’t received a proposal and hadn’t approved anything. Then they told us it was too late to do anything about this data center, but an ordinance could still govern the next one. Too late for what? Nothing has been filed. The only way both statements are true is if something is further along than council is telling us…which is definitely probable.

And on the November meeting, President Josh Gaspero told people to “Go into a meeting with an open mind.”

“Just like pornography or alcohol”

The first commenter of the night, asked the solicitor once an application is filed, is it too late to write an ordinance?

The answer is yes.

Then the solicitor explained and compared it to pornography or alcohol sales by saying that you can’t make them illegal, but that we can restrict them. So restricting them to business and industrial zone and currently data centers are restricted to Trainers industrial zone. So…according to the solicitor, that’s as strong as it can be.

Solicitor was asked whether Trainer has noise limits specific to data centers, the answer was again NO.

Was also asked whether he had read what other municipalities passed and he says he has but then went into how legitimate and enforceable he deems them…so a lot of hypothesizing and not enough doing.

I have read three of those ordinances. Marcus Hook’s draft requires closed loop cooling, a 500 foot residential setback, 110% decommissioning security, a sound study, and twice states that infrastructure costs are not to be passed on to existing ratepayers. Concord’s draft sets hard noise limits at the property line, requires a curtailment agreement, etc. Marple’s requires 1000 feet from residential and 1000 feet from every other property line.

Trainer’s solicitor says their restrictions are as strong as it gets, but Trainer has none of that nor an ordinance draft…all they have is a zoning map.

Council filled a vacancy…with the president’s wife

Before any of this, in the first ten minutes, council took nominations for an open seat.

For this whole time, Council did not speak into their microphones and seemed to be whispering to one another…

The seat went to the first name and she was sworn in on the spot.

Nobody said anything about it for two hours because nobody could hear what happened.

Then, at the very end of public comment, a resident named Dalton who had applied for the seat stood to let everyone know that he put a bid in for councilman. The person that got appointed to the councilman seat…is President John Gaspero’s wife.

How the room was run

Public comment at the top was restricted to agenda items only and the data center was not an agenda item, so it waited until the end.

It got a bit tense, one speaker was told by Gaspero, “if you don’t obey or don’t listen to what we’re saying, you can be escorted out.”

Mayor Maher, responded to a 50 year resident worried about her home’s value, by saying that she hoped everyone will come “hear the company out” [at the community meeting] instead of spewing “nonsense.” The room pushed back audibly. Near the end she did walk it back by saying she meant the claims on Facebook that council had taken money.

Where my Right-to-Know stands

I asked Trainer Borough for nine categories of records…

All correspondence with Link Logistics, Blackstone, and counsel for the owner since January 2024; every request for a zoning opinion on the Ridge Road property and all internal communications about it; records of pre-application meetings; the full file on the previously proposed warehouse; any money that moved; utility and interconnection correspondence with PECO, PJM, Aqua, Chester Water Authority and DELCORA; any draft or model data center ordinance in the possession of the borough or its solicitor; solicitor invoices referencing data centers or the Congoleum site; and executive session agendas with the statement of reason required.

It was denied for failure to respond. I resubmitted. The resubmission has been extended 30 days.

Since they extended the resubmission, I appealed the first one to the state.

The resident who wanted it

One resident talked about driving his niece to college through West Virginia towns where industry had abandoned. He said he feels lucky to live somewhere with industry and opportunity, and he doesn’t want Trainer to miss out. He also floated an IT training center for local kids, or an apprenticeship in a trade with the data center.

Laborers Local 414 was in the room. Five or six of them and the man who spoke in favor was sitting with them.

The “jobs” and “opportunity” being offered to Trainer is a year and a half of good jobs which for the most part, the workers will commute in from somewhere else, IN EXCHANGE for thirty or forty years of an electrical load on a grid residents pay for, water drawn from a system residents share, and a noise floor that never ever goes away…all because Trainer Borough Council refused to take this seriously.

Also, the Borough has a projected shortfall of just over $150k. A borough borrowing to close a financial hole is not negotiating with Blackstone from a position of strength…the county needs to step in with resources and help. At least use their influence.

What to watch for

The community meeting with Link Logistics (aka Blackstone), November or early December…date not set.

EMAIL council to direct the solicitor to draft an ordinance.

I will keep everyone updated on my RTK appeals with the state.

If you live in Trainer, were in that room and want to get involved, or have a tip about this…I’m at nick@delcorising.com and I’ll protect your name.