JOE LINTNER | COLUMBIA SPY
The Columbia Borough Planning Commission will meet Tuesday, July 21, at 7 p.m., with a review planned for the proposed ordinance to prohibit data centers in the the light business zoning district.
Item 8(a) on the agenda calls for the commission to review "a new ordinance to prohibit Data Centers in LB": the light business zone that includes the former McGinness property along Manor Street. The issue has already divided borough council and residents and drawn hundreds of attendees to public meetings this year.
Columbia Borough Council voted 4-3 on July 14 to advance the ordinance, which would remove data centers from the list of permitted uses in light business zoning districts, a move that could block a data center from being built on the long-vacant former McGinness airfield property. Council members Byers, Cooper, Ziegler and Geesey voted in favor, while Kauffman, Zink and Murphy voted against.
The motion was introduced by Councilman Ethan Byers and seconded by Councilman Tom Ziegler.
If ultimately adopted after review by the county and municipal planning commissions, the ordinance would designate data centers as "Not Permitted" in light business zones and shift them to "Conditional Use" status in general industrial zones instead.
Byers has said he pushed the change now rather than waiting for a broader rewrite of the borough's zoning code. He said the one-page ordinance had already been reviewed by borough solicitor Evan Gabel and drew on language used in the borough's past zoning ordinances, and that he had briefed councilors Jeanne Cooper and Tom Ziegler, who lead the community development committee overseeing zoning and planning.
Byers said he had been considering the change for weeks as delays piled up around re-advertising the McGinness property, and that data centers had come to dominate public discussion of the site's future. He said he wanted the property sold without the complications a data center project could bring, warning that a legal appeal could tie the sale up for years.
Byers had originally hoped to raise the change at a workshop session ahead of a separate, more comprehensive ordinance covering the same topic. When that workshop was canceled and the broader ordinance was pushed to a future meeting, Byers said he decided not to wait. He said he had asked Council President Eric Kauffman twice to add the item to the agenda — first for a July 7 workshop, then again on July 9 for the regular meeting — and that both requests were turned down before he brought the motion directly to the floor.
The move didn't go unchallenged. Councilman Kelly Murphy raised concerns that the motion hadn't gone through the proper legislative process, and Byers pushed back, arguing that as a councilman he himself represents part of that legislative process, and that crafting legislation isn't the sole responsibility of any one council member.
Supporters of blocking a data center at the McGinness site are treating the council vote as an early win, but the matter isn't resolved. The ordinance still needs to clear review at both the municipal and county planning commission levels before it can come back to council for a final vote. Tuesday's Planning Commission meeting is part of that required review.
LancasterOnline has noted that state law limits how far municipalities can go: Pennsylvania requires local governments to permit all legal land uses in at least one zoning district, so Columbia cannot ban data centers outright. The borough currently allows them in three districts: general industrial, light industrial, and light business, and council could choose to limit that to one or two, but not zero.
The backstory:
The zoning push follows months of controversy surrounding the McGinness site. In May 2026, Saadia Holdings LLC, a New York-based company, submitted a $6.35 million bid (the only bid received) to purchase the former airfield property, with plans that included a data center. News that the deal involved a data center drew hundreds of residents to a four-and-a-half-hour meeting at the Columbia Borough Fire Hall, where residents raised concerns about noise, water and power demand, and impacts on property values.
Council ultimately rejected the bid on procedural grounds, because Saadia's offer didn't guarantee full payment within the 60-day window required by state law for sealed-bid sales, since the company wanted to wait for borough approval of its site plans first.
Local advocacy group Lancaster Stands Up, which has organized residents around the issue, called the rejection and subsequent zoning vote the result of a months-long community effort to protect the borough's land, water and power resources.
Given the scale of public interest in the McGinness property and the ordinance since May, residents opposed to and in favor of data center development in the borough are expected to turn out for public comment. The commission's action Tuesday is advisory within a multi-step process; the ordinance must still pass through the Lancaster County Planning Commission and return to Borough Council for a final vote before it could take effect.
[Sources: Agenda, Columbia Spy, LNP/LancasterOnline, WGAL]
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