FORWARD TWP — Changes could be coming soon to the township’s subdivision and land development ordinance.

At a special joint meeting of the board of supervisors and planning commission held Thursday night, July 16, the two groups agreed to draft a series of amendments to the ordinance to focus on industrial land development, specifically focusing on modern uses such as data centers and power-generating facilities.

Township solicitor Rebecca Black said the changes could become official in as soon as two months.

“I think it’ll be fairly quick,” Black said. “I think it depends on the ultimate changes that are made, but it’s something that Tom (Hartwig, township manager) and I are going to work on so that we can have something to present to planning at this month’s meeting.”

Data centers, and questions of how to regulate them, were a major subject of the meeting, although Hartwig said no formal proposals have been made so far to build a data center in Forward Township.

A theme of Thursday night’s meeting was the need to balance the needs of protecting the public from harm against the rights of developers and landowners to profit off from their land.

“The developer of these projects … they don’t want to make enemies of the municipalities,” Black said. “They’re going to try to do things the right way and make friends. We want reasonable restrictions. We don’t want to make it so difficult that you end up turning away something that could be a huge asset.”

Whatever alterations Forward Township makes, they will not include the addition of a zoning map or zoning ordinance — something the township has never had. A subdivision and land development ordinance does provide a level of regulation over land use, but does not give a municipality as much control as a zoning ordinance.

“The premise behind why our township is so much against zoning is that it’s putting restrictions on a landowner to a point where they may not be able to see the full potential or profitability of their land,” said township Supervisor Susan Oliver-Stough. “If a landowner can sell their land and make a significant amount of money in that sale … as long as it doesn’t harm the people next to that property, I think as a township, we should be supportive of that opportunity for the township and for the landowner.”