Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

The audio recording, resolutions passed, and any attachments constitutes an accurate record of the Orange Township Trustee Minutes at the above dated meeting as determined by the Fiscal Officer. The following summary is provided as an overview of the meeting and a “road map” to the audio recording. Copies of this record are available by request at the Orange Township Fiscal Office, 1680 East Orange Road, Lewis Center, Ohio 43035.

Chairman Rob Quigley called the hearing to order at 6:03 p.m.

This meeting was held at the Orange Township Hall, 1680 East Orange Road, Lewis Center, Ohio 43035.

Motion by Mr. Quigley to appoint Mary Ann Ross as our Interim Fiscal Officer. Seconded by Ms. Knapp. VOTE: Quigley – yes, Knapp – yes, Taranto – yes.

ROLL CALL: Robert W. Quigley – present, Deborah Taranto – present, Lisa F. Knapp – present.

TOWNSHIP OFFICIALS ALSO PRESENT Tom Farahay Zoning Inspector Michael McCarthy Township Counsel Christine Trebellas Zoning Commission

The minutes were taken and prepared by Administrative Assistant Mary Ann Ross.

The purpose of this meeting is:

Regular Session:

LEGAL NOTICE

Notice is hereby given that the Board of Township Trustees of Orange Township, Delaware County, Ohio will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, March 18, 2015, at 6:00 p.m. to consider the following application:

Application #14-0374, Home High LLC c/o ICSP, requesting an amendment to the Zoning Resolution and Zoning Map, specifically the rezoning of 74.10 acres from Planned Commercial and Office District (PC) and Multi-Family Planned Residential District (MFPRD) to a Planned Commercial and Office District (PC) for a commercial office, data center and technology facilities to be known as Project Sandstone. The property is proposed to have one 40,000 square foot office building, two guard stations and up to five approximately 160,000 square foot data center and technology structures. The property is currently owned by Home High LLC and is located at the SW corner of Columbus Pike / U.S. 23 and Home Road, Orange Township, Delaware, Ohio 43015 and in Range 18, Township 3, Section 2, Farm Lot 6 with Permanent Parcel Numbers 31823002001000 and 31823002001001.

The hearing will be held at the Orange Township Hall, 1680 East Orange Road, Lewis Center, Ohio 43035.

Following this hearing the Board may have a meeting for general purposes to consider such business as may properly come before it including, but not limited to, consideration and/or approval of minutes, scheduling future hearing dates for this or other applications, discussions of general township business and like matters.

The application and plans are available for inspection for at least 10 days prior to the date of the hearing at the Orange Township Zoning Office, 1680 East Orange Road, Lewis Center, Ohio 43035. Zoning Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., except legal holidays.

The person responsible for the publication of this notice is Robert Quigley, Chairman, Board of Township Trustees, Orange Township, Delaware County, Ohio.

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

Robert Quigley, Chairman, Board of Township Trustees Thomas G. Farahay, Orange Township Zoning

Publish one time: Saturday, March 7, 2015 in the Delaware Gazette Send invoice to Joel M. Spitzer, Orange Township Fiscal Officer If there are any questions please contact Thomas G. Farahay at: 740-548-5430 x 3124

REGULAR SESSION

APPLICATION #14-0374, HOME HIGH LLC c/o ICSP

Mr. Quigley explained the procedure of the hearing.

Mr. Quigley asked Zoning Inspector, Tom Farahay to read the legal notice.

Mr. Farahay read the above legal notice and commented the notice was published in the Delaware Gazette, March 7, 2015, posted at Township Hall, March 5, 2015, and on list serve and website, March 7, 2015.

Mr. Quigley asked the applicant or their representative to come forward to speak.

Mark Ford with Ford and Associates Architects, 1500 West 1st Ave, Columbus, Ohio 43212 came forward. He commented:  He introduced the people he brought with him; they were: o Jamie Hollingsworth – Ford and Associates o Tom Warner – Advanced Civil Design o Todd Ferris – Ferris Planning and Design o Gary Brown – McClure Engineering –who prepared the acoustic study  He described them as the design professionals who had helped prepare the application and the exhibits  They were there to answer any questions the Board may have  What they had worked through with the zoning commission is a fairly complex application in terms of its scope and the amount of information the planning commission and staff had asked for throughout the process of their various meetings  Which was evident by the volume of work that was in front of the Board members  The project itself will be a data center campus  5 buildings each approximately 150,000 square feet  Located at the southwest corner of relocated Home Road and US23  The present zoning for the site is currently planned commercial office district with multi retail buildings fronting out on to US23 as well as the once proposed extension of Gooding Blvd.  As well as a Suburban office to the west side of Gooding Blvd and multifamily along the south edge of the site  They are asking for a zoning request for this application  The differences between these two are the current approved use and the proposed use are primarily there will be a single user on the entire site  That will control the entire property  As well as Gooding Blvd will not continue on to the relocated Home Road  A lot of the discussion they have had with the boards and the residents at the hearings primarily aesthetic and the environmental impact on the surrounding properties  To focus on that they did engage McClure Engineering to provide an acoustic study which is included in the report  The other issues other than sound, were light from the substation that they will be constructing along the south end of the property  He had illustrations for the Board if they cared to look at them  He felt one of the differences is they need to compare the baseline right now is that everyone understood that it is basically an open field  But the current approved zoning for this is multi building grocery anchored shopping center  They would also present several similar issues that would be developed as well  They have design professionals on this team; they had designed numerous shopping centers and have seen these same issues among those developments

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 It is always lighting, sound, trash, what is going to be at 2 o’clock in the morning when BW3’s is closing and they have a patio and they can hear their music  These are very common issues when they do projects similar to what has been approved here for this site  Some of the benefits of this current proposal they will have reduced traffic generation  Again he said they are a single user  Each building will have a limited employee base; in terms of you will not have a lot of in and out traffic  They will come to work in the morning and leave in the afternoon  You will not have all that transient traffic and the associated noise from a commercial retail development  You would not have restaurants, drive thrus and other late night activities generally occur with our proposal  One of things in comparing our proposal use as a data center campus versus the retail center  With a retail center you get a lot of transient noise, intermittent noise, the horns beeping, cars starting and stopping; trash and delivery  Vehicles throughout the day or even like the early morning vegetable deliveries, refrigerated trucks, that sort of things  Those no longer will be present with their proposal use  The only deliveries they will have, and they have been very open about it; they will have generators on the site and they do require fuel  There will be deliveries to refill those tanks throughout the month; basically they just top off the tanks  They want to make sure as they test them they draw down a little bit of fuel and it will need to be replaced  Some of the other benefits less impervious for this development o They will have more green space than what was previously approved o They will also have less lighting o There is limited building lighting o The parking lots are quite small; you would not have a large field of parking like you would have in an office setting or a retail setting o They will be preserving more of the woods and waterways along the west edge of the property than the current zoning o There will be no true through traffic through the site which limits the noise along Gooding Blvd  The other issue is; this is a single user, it is a controlled campus; it is a secured campus  It will be fenced in its entirety; the perimeter of the site including the substation to the south  There will be no building signage  They have asked for a monument sign at the curb to be placed along Home Road  That is all they are asking for, again with a retail center one of the big issues are the number of signs on buildings, the lighting types, the colors, that sort of thing  He mentioned again considerable less truck traffic associated with this project  He commented that this was kind of an overarching statement; in terms of; the more he thought about this; in obtaining zoning commission approval; everyone right now understands this is an empty field; an empty lot  But if you compare what could be built there right now by right versus what they are asking for; there are actually some benefits to the surrounding properties  Based on this is not such an intense use  Earlier today they had discussed the approved plan has 2000 parking spaces and buildings within 80 feet of the west property line  They do not have near that type of development at the edge of the property  He asked his associate to start the projection screen slide show presentation

There was some problem with the projection presentation starting.

While they were working at getting their presentation working; Mr. Quigley reminded everyone of another hearing at 7:00 p.m. If need be, the Board would recess this hearing to conduct the 7:00 p.m. hearing and reconvene after that hearing.

Mr. Ford continued speaking while the others tried to get the computer working. He continued: 3

Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 At the planned commission meeting last two Fridays ago  They had asked on behalf of their end user; for two modifications/two stipulations that were made part of that motion  The Chair asked them to bring it forth to this Board for their consideration  He requested that they all take a look at those and they can always come back to the slide presentation  One of the changes has to do with the generator testing  There were a lot of conversations about this during the hearings  With the planning commission as well as the acoustic engineer  Part of this was partly his confusion  He did not mean to mislead the Board or anybody  In the report that was prepared; it states that two generators per building would be tested at a time  There are a total of 5 buildings  So he said 2 per building  The question came up how many buildings done at a time  He said one  In actuality the report was based on all five buildings being tested concurrently with 2 so it would be a total of 10 instead of 2  He went on to say, having said that, they are still within the decibel level that they have established and agreed upon with the planning commission as to what would be acceptable around the perimeter of the site  So the study does anticipate the multiple generators; multi building generators being tested at the same time  He wanted to clarify this  That was one issue  The second issue was in the report or in the stipulations it was stated that they should use all the measures included in the acoustical study as sound mitigation issues to use to making or achieving that 55 decibels level  They ask for the language to be expanded so that in time; and it was not their intent to not meet that criteria  Just the way it was worded that they would use those mitigation efforts they want to expand that because in time if there is new technology, you know in three years, there might be a different type generator, there may be a different type of air fan  They just want to say “shall include but not limited to those things listed in the sound report  They want to make sure they have the ability to design this building with the most current technology

(Mr. Ford checked to see if the presentation was ready. It was not.)

Mr. Ford continued to comment:  They just want to make sure that in time as technology changes they have the ability to use the most current technology  He respectfully requested that the Board consider those two modifications/stipulations

Mike McCarthy, Township Counsel commented:  Asked in regards to that point  He was looking at the table on page 12; table 5  It does indicate that the southern property line slightly above the 55 as it would on the eastern and the north east  He just wanted to make that clear, for the record  Mr. McCarthy commented he guessed in terms of the zoning commission, he doesn’t know if any of those members made it to the hearing tonight  He thought he saw one  The study that was presented was based on some assumptions  Among those assumptions were if A,B,C, and D were sound mitigations the level would be 55

Mr. Ford agreed.

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

Mr. McCarthy commented:  That was the way the Board approved it  There was nothing in there that would… that if they would start willy/nilly substituting it; it could be a long trip  That was his thought on it

Mr. Ford commented that their thought on it was they did not want it to be exclusive of future technology. He though everyone would want the best technology; beneficial to have better sound control systems.

Mr. McCarthy went on to question:  Looking at the language too; talking about the language of “A” stipulation that was stated…  (Mr. McCarthy read the from a binder #7)  He commented that it was not just mandating 4

Mr. Ford would like that latitude.

Mr. McCarthy commented that he wanted to look at it. He again read from the binder. He commented he didn’t know if others were mentioned now that they have gone through it. He read from the binder again. He would let the Board respond and then they would take it from there one way or another.

Mr. Ford agreed. They again tried to get their slide presentation to work. They got it working. Mr. Ford commented while showing different slides:  He showed the landscape plan  It was a high level 10,000 foot view  He pointed out the five buildings, each with approximately 150,000 square footage  They are paired together  There were two buildings on the left of the main access drive north and south; where the service courts were; where the generators, will be are paired together  As well as the ones in the lower right side  Because they have an odd number; the building in the upper north east corner does not have a shared service courts; it has its own service court  They felt that was the most appropriate position there because of the fact that it faces the office building which is their use as well as the roadway as in terms of any sound generation of those generators  There was a substation (he pointed it out)  It was in the white rectangle along the south property line  They have worked with AEP extensively on the design of it  The route in which that substation will be serviced to impact the residents to the south  They actually made changes during the planning commission meetings on comments input AEP has agreed to route their service line west and then back to the east so they do not encumbering any of the condos to the south  He pointed out a double row of trees along the south edge; a light green color  He thought one of the things that is unique about this development is Delco water wants to run, what is called a raw water line along the south property line; that is going to happen whether they develop or not  It is out of their control  It is part of their master utility plan for this whole quadrant of the township  They will require removing a lot of trees; it is a 45 foot easement for this new raw water line  It is a fairly good size line to be installed  What they are proposing, they would plant that area; to replace those trees that will be removed because of the raw water line installation with deciduous and evergreen trees  They have also provided along the south side of the substation a synthetic wall that is stone like material that will help with the sound and also screen the lower level of the equipment of that substation  He pointed out the mounding  He noted that in the packet they had all the illustration that are on the slides They could illustrate the cross section if the Board would like  The substation, the issues are resolved involving it 5

Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 It again was light  AEP has agreed to not have lights on that substation at night  That is not their policy, again to address the concerns raised by the residents to the south  They have agreed they will not have service lights on that facility unless there is continued vandalism  He wasn’t sure who would be brave enough to go into a substation and try to vandalize it but……that was their commitment  There are service lights in that fenced area of the substation  They have two different types of lights  They have general lighting; again the security lighting, which they are going to install but not turn on  It is a down light just like the rest of the parking lot and driveways  The service lights are more of a jelly jar, plastic prismatic lens that the only time they will be turned on is during a power outage  The reason they want to use those is for safety  When workers go in there and get around the electrical equipment, they need a high level of lighting  The only time those would be illuminated, and it is the only divergence they asked for as part of their plan commission approval was to be able to use those non cut off light fixtures for service lights only at the substation  They should rarely be turned on; it would only be if there is a significant outage and they would need to go in and service that  They have extended the bike path from Gooding Blvd they loop around the bridge to the south east corner of the site  It loops up along US23  They have committed to extend that bike path along the south side of Home Road to the west edge of their property  That will all be put in as part of phase one  Since he mentioned phasing he went on to describe phase 1  There will be one building built as part of phase 1  The foot print of the substation would be created  The security fencing would be created  But it would be populated with the equipment as more buildings come on line  A lot of this, if he could use the word, is very modular  The buildings themselves are very modular  It would make sense because of the computers  As they are built out; on the interior more and more demand will be put on to the electrical grid and to the heating and cooling grid; the systems of each building  That substation will not be built out with all of the elements the Board could see in the rectangle from day one  This is building by building that they will drop in their equipment as needed  It is a capital investment on their part as well  They will phase that along with demand  The north west building will be number 1 and the substation  The roadway; the south entrance needing to get the connection to Gooding Blvd is not required by the fire department until they have 3 of the buildings on line and occupied  They will have met their request in phase 2 of the building process  Getting the Gooding Blvd connection into the south end of the campus  He asked if there were any questions so far

Ms. Knapp asked what the height of the substation in comparison to the buildings.

Mr. Ford answered:  There were two different things  There were the aerials that will have the high voltage lines  They actually step down from where the higher lines are now  There will be two 90 foot poles  They will drop down into the substation at 22  Once you are inside the rectangle (representing the substation on the slide)  There will be a high voltage line running parallel to the south property line from the west back to it 6

Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 He commented he mentioned the service court  (Commenting on the slide) This would be a view of one of the buildings  Looking along US23  They have not done a visual screen; but an acoustical screen  The buildings themselves are quite large and very narrow  The way they are going to work is along this (pointing) ridge line  Are all the exhaust lines from the heat from the building so they use natural convection so the heat goes up like it does in this room  This will be the exhaust portion of the building  They have intake fans along the sides of the buildings; which will bring in the natural air and cool and then exhausted out the top  On the other side of the building you can see the generators inside the enclosures  They will also be modular  They will be installed as the building is populated  They also have some water cooling towers for the industrial waters that are used as part of the cooling process  This basically is what each building will be replicated; the modular concept  The side that is facing the public right of way out towards US23  They have added a gable in  Some detail and articulation to the end of the building  Windows are not desired in this type of facility  It is very high security  They have created panels of different colors and textures on it  They have also working into the building foot print to create some relief on the front façade  The center piece will be prefinished metal panels in a ribbed design  The intent is, and this is the slippery slope that Mr. McCarthy was talking about  One of the things they went through plan commission is  They asked for specific dimensions on everything from the generator, to substation  Their fears all along has been this is a phased project  This will take multi years to build out  As they respond to acoustic design  As they respond to the new technology  Their biggest concern is what they put in here  Generators will be 12 feet wide, by “x” long; in three years may be different  There may be different acoustical apps; may be taller; may be shorter  That is what they have always struggled with this application  They have complied with this planning commission  With the dimensions that they know is in their current design  Their commitment is (coughing) for instance with the generators …  Jamie and he was having a conversation about this today  To baffle the generators at a higher rate and to reduce the decibel level they would have to increase the height of them by three feet  Those white boxes would be three feet tall  They are insulated big boxes  There is a benefit of that  Less sound  But what they would do (going to a slide)  Their commitment is to, as it grows, and is a benefit to everyone, better technology, they would increase the height of that screen wall  So they are only screening it from view of US23  That is their commitment  That they would always match the height of the equipment  What he knows today may be different from three years from now

Ms. Knapp asked what the screen wall was made out of.

Mr. Ford responded:  It is the same ribbed metal material that they are using; they actually got different ribbed spacing’s to make patterns on the building

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 You can see they are showing a silver ribbed panel on the corners of the buildings  Here (pointing to slide) they have it folded back around the corner  And they are using it as the screen wall material  He commented his point was these generators because we can get a better (coughing) acoustical baffle if taller they would just pull that up with that  They think this is to everyone’s benefit  They want to screen the equipment  They want to provide the most sound and energy efficient equipment sold in the overall project  And in three years from now the equipment could get smaller as most computer things do  That is what always made them nervous about the application when they ask for very specific specifications on specific pieces of equipment  He showed some more views by slide projection  There are a lot of people here who have not seen the application  There is an office in each building  A small office grouping  A lot of the employees will be moving throughout the campus during the day  Having specific tasks they will be doing at certain buildings as they are built out  So there are offices and conferences areas  Again high security  Not a lot of windows  It is just what their use is inside the building  One of the issues is; when will the office building be built  It is hard to say  It will be before all five buildings are built  That is their expectation  But the program for that office  This is a whole new concept that they are developing  They really aren’t clear, his client is not really clear, when they are going to need this office building  It is hard for them to say they will be done by “X” certain date  They are committed to the maximum size of it  They have put written criteria in the book describing material, percentages, roof types, all mechanical units, screens  Similar to what they have done on the original application at Clear Creek; the office buildings there; the buildings are going to sit more back to the west  They have created criteria that they have to design to for that building  He felt that was it; he didn’t know how the Board wanted to get into it  There is a lot of information in the application book a lot of (inaudible), a lot of statistics  He was more than happy to answer any of the Board’s questions that is why they have brought everyone back  They have tried to be as open, they have expressed the good and the bad with these types of facilities  They have not tried to conceal anything from anyone as part of their application or their presentations  He did misspeak on the testing of the generators the one versus the two, he was just ….. He had emails how they would test them  The report was actually done with the highest load testing of all the buildings at the same time  And they were maintaining the 55 db except for the two exceptions that Mr. McCarthy pointed out

Ms. Taranto asked how often that was again.

Mr. Ford responded:  The testing as he understood and he has had multiple conversations  They will test each generator once a week

Ms. Taranto asked what is a generator on that (slide).

Mr. Ford commented; one generator is one of these (pointed to a rendition on the slide). 8

Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

Ms. Taranto asked just one of those.

Mr. Ford commented:  They test them for about 15 minutes  They call it exercising the generators  They are diesel generators  They will have a belly tank or a day tank underneath it  Part of the whole unit  The unit itself is basically a big box that is insulated  The tail pipe that sticks out of it; only sticks up about 4 inches out of the top  So it is a lot better, some people think of the old caterpillar generators that FEMA uses when there is some emergency they have a tail pipe sticking out 4 feet  These are very contained units  In terms of their design; one big metal box  So 15 minutes a day  One of the things, and they did some math

Ms. Taranto asked 15 minutes once a week.

Mr. Ford:  Verified it was 15 minutes a week  Clarified that the idea was they would rotate a building a day  That was his understanding  But then they said they may need to come in and do a full load test, where they have to test everything  They did agree to was there would not be any regularly scheduled testing between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.  That is what they agreed to  That was one of the stipulations that was actually approved by the planning commission  There would be no weekend testing  Unless, there are conditions where there are; they have quality control standards that they need to meet in the industry  To be able to tell their investors that they are meeting these levels of reliability  He had mentioned earlier in the planning commission that they may have insurance, regulatory or some sort of quality control where they may show up and say “Surprise we are here”

Ms. Taranto asked how often does that happen.

Mr. Ford commented:  They do not know  He doesn’t know; he asked that question  They said it could be once a year; quarterly  He did not get a definitive answer

Ms. Taranto asked if that was the only time a full load would happen.

Mr. Ford responded:  Yes  Or there is a complete loss of power of the substation  They would need to…………..because this facility cannot shut down that is the bottom line  It is a repository of information that will be housed here  It cannot shut down

Ms. Taranto commented so the full load only happens when it is meeting those requirements of government or the insurance company. Mr. Ford responded yes.

Ms. Knapp asked what was the decibel level of that compared to a typical household decibel level.

Mr. Ford commented: 9

Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 He knew that question would come up and that is why he invited his friend from St. Louis back  He is the one that developed that report and he can give you ………….  He asked his friend what is the decibel level of this compared to a shopping center  What is the decibel level of this versus “X”  He felt these were reasonable questions to ask  He is not the guy to answer them  He had his friend come up to address any acoustical questions

Gary Brown, McClure Engineering, 4545 Oleatha Ave, St Louis Mo., 63044 came forward. He commented:  The question was, what actually is the level of 55 and 60 decibels

Ms. Knapp asked was there a maximum of 55 or a limitation level set for this project.

Mr. Brown asked do you mean at the property line.

Ms. Knapp said yes.

Mr. Brown continued:  What they come up with, 55 according to the EPA US standard is a comfortable level at the property line  You can still have a good conversation without interruptions  Can still have 100% clarity of that conversation  A typical 55 db level at 10 feet of normal conversation is about 55 db  When they talk within .5 meters or less than a foot or so it is about 70  So a normal conversation; someone talking within 3 foot of each other is in the range of 65-70

Ms. Knapp asked the conversation itself is. Mr. Brown answered yes.

Ms. Knapp asked if that would be for the generators. Mr. Brown responded no, for the entire generators the level of that is at 75 db at 23 feet.

Ms. Knapp asked what the 55 db was for.

Mr. Brown answered 55 is for the entire facility operating at a full load or full speed excluding the emergency generators. No generators involved in that.

Ms. Knapp asked, okay then you compared that to a normal conversation; so what would be the sound of a barking dog.

Mr. Brown answered:  Within 3 or 4 feet he had a dog be as high as 110 db  Inside a room with one or two dogs it would be it would be up to 105 -110 db  It depends on the size of the dog; you have frequency variables that play into the dog’s bark ; how deep it goes; the bigger the dog

Ms. Taranto asked if he had looked at shopping centers; the kind of noise that produces.

Mr. Brown answered:  Yea, they had looked  They had looked at a couple shopping centers with restaurant type environments that have a back patio  They produce background music at 75; so that could impact a resident that is within 100 ft at about 60

Ms. Taranto commented; you said that was 75. Mr. Brown confirmed it was 75; it was with playing the background music. Now at a club that level it goes up quite a bit. It could go up into the 80s and 90s. It depends on the type of music and the type of environment you have in that club.

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

Ms. Knapp asked what would a big box retail operations or a shopping center be.

Mr. Brown answered:  It would vary almost as much as 10 to 15 db on site depending on the movement of the traffic in there  The trash pickup, truck deliveries  When you get bigger trucks on the lot; the sound would increase  Like Mr. Ford said it is more transient type of environment where you have cars moving in and out  Doors closing  People coming in  Loud stereos; windows down  It is more of a fluctuating sound level  It is not the steady sound like what you have here; a constant noise source

Ms. Taranto asked so when no testing is being done; what do they hear, anything?

Mr. Brown said:  Yea, it would be like a fan in the background in the second bedroom of your house  That was the best he could describe it at  It would be like the blower system on your air conditioner unit at the side of your house

Ms. Knapp asked if he meant inside.

Mr. Brown answered:  Inside was different, with the windows open, you get a 10-15db continuation through the house  So the sound would be about 15 with the windows open  So if the sound would be in, in the worst case 55 out of the house, it would be about 40 inside the house

Ms. Knapp asked when he said the air conditioner fan, did he mean the compressor on the air conditioner unit.

Mr. Brown commented yes, depends on your model of air conditioner; they have gotten a lot quieter nowadays. That fan within the house can be as high as 60. Typical background sounds for h-vac systems; you want to have around 40 and 50.

Ms. Knapp commented; so you are saying that would be a constant sound coming at all times from the facilities at 55 decibels.

Mr. Brown responded:  Yes, or lower, because this is at 100% speed  That is when it gets extremely hot; you need the maximum cooling  So in conditions these run around 60%  So that would bring the level down on some of those operating speeds on the fans  When the building is not as loaded; it’s only going to be about 60% that is going to be operating the building then  So that would decrease the overall sound level

Ms. Knapp asked what about the substation.

Mr. Brown answered:  The substation would stay steady  That is why there is an enclosure around it  About 10 feet from the substation it would be 70db  That is in the range of a single transformer

Ms. Taranto commented 70? Mr. Brown commented it would be within the transformer itself. About 10 feet away.

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Mr. Ford interrupted and commented he wanted everyone to understand. That is if you are standing 10 feet away from the substation not at; the substation is away from the property line. So it would decrease and that is what the report illustrates that the db level is not 70. He just wanted to make sure the Board understood that. The machine itself is producing 70 but obviously the further you get away from it ……..

Is there a sound wall around that asked Ms. Taranto. She also asked how far away is that from the property line.

Mr. Ford commented that the equipment itself is more than 100 feet away from the south property line. You have the mound and you have the trees and sound wall.

Ms. Knapp asked how tall was the mound and the trees.

Mr. Ford mentioned they have a topographic graph that shows the sound contours that have been calculated for this site. Down to the south line. Mr. Ford showed Ms. Knapp the graph. He described the graph.

Todd Ferris with Ferris Planning and Design, 243 North Fifth Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, came forward. He commented:

 Between the substation and the residents; they are proposing a 12 foot tall, basically a vinyl fence, ??? (coughing) material, opaque and provides a sounding deading quality  It is identical to the fence used at the Columbus Zoo along Riverside Drive  It screens the lower level of the substation  There will be a 4 to 6 foot mound  On top of that mound will be evergreen trees  A double row; those will be going in, between 8 to 10 foot tall  So they have in effect with that 12 foot tall mound have another 14-16 foot mounding and then evergreens  When the raw water line comes in through there, he didn’t think it was going to happen right away  When they take down the tree line that is remaining that is when they will come in with the double row of deciduous trees to replace that on top of that water line  So there will eventually be four rows of trees a mound and a twelve foot fence  He showed the section 4A & 4B

Ms. Knapp asked what kind were the existing trees.

Mr. Ferris commented that they were established trees and they were a mixture of ash trees and cherry trees. They show some decline, being on the edge. When they do go down, they will be replacing them a double row of shade trees.

Mr. Ford commented that for a point of clarification, they do not know the timing of the raw water line. They didn’t want to plant something new and then in three years have DelCo come and rip it out. So they have agreed when DelCo does come and rip them out. They do not have the obligation to replant, as a public utility; so they have assumed that obligation to replace those trees after they do their work.

Ms. Knapp asked where the fence was on there (slide).

Mr. Ferris pointed out where the fence was. He described that there are actually two fences. The substation itself has its own fence. It has a chain link fence with barbed wire on the top to keep people getting in. Outside of this they have put an opaque fence that he has talked about. The opaque fence is made out of vinyl.

Ms. Knapp asked if you could see the chain linked/barbed wire fence from the …… Mr. Ferris said no.

Ms. Knapp asked how tall that fence was. Mr. Ferris commented 12 foot. She asked how far away it was from the residents. Was it before or after the trees. Mr. Ferris commented they were the farthest from the residents, then the mound and the evergreen trees. The residents will not see the fence once the evergreens start to grow and are touching. They have committed according to 12

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the stipulation the evergreens must be touching within 5 years. The fence will be day one, but they will be seeing it once the trees are in growing.

Mr. Quigley commented that there would be essentially a twenty minute recess.

Motion by Mr. Quigley to take a recess from this current hearing and to reconvene March 18, 2015, at 7:20 p.m. at the township hall. Seconded by Ms. Knapp. VOTE: Quigley – yes, Knapp – yes, Taranto – yes.

Mr. Quigley called the meeting back to order. Motion by Mr. Quigley to reconvene from recess for Application #14-0374. Seconded by Ms. Knapp. VOTE: Quigley – yes, Knapp – yes, Taranto – yes.

Mr. Quigley commented the hearing will pick up where they had left off with the applicant up.

Mr. Ford commented that he believed that they had concluded their portion of the hearing. They were happy to answer any additional questions the Board may have had. At this time the Board had no additional questions.

Mr. Quigley commented then the Board would move on to Public Comment. He ask that they come forward, state their name and address. He also reminded everyone that if they had not signed in, to please sign in before they leave as well.

Istvan Gajary, an attorney, 2 Miranova Place Suite 230, Columbus, Ohio 43215 came forward. He commented:  He and attorney Jack Van Kley represent 11 property owners that are going to be affected by this project  The property owners have a very good reason to be concerned about what is going on here  The question is  They talk about this 55 decibel level; what are they really talking about here  He wanted to make sure that they all understand that it is just talking about the noise coming from the building; not including the generators  Once you factor in the generators this project would never meet that 55 decibel standard  The rules, Orange Township Zoning Code Section 14.07(f) specifically states that the noise standards of EPA shall be adhere to  The development text itself states that this project shall generate no more than 55 decibels at the property line  The way they are talking about that, just so the Board is clear that does not include any noise generated from the generators themselves  They have discussed these generators here, and have suggested that they are not that consequential; he suggested to them that they are  Under Section 8 of the manual there, they give a picture of how these things look  Here is one of them, on the front page; it is about half way through Section 8

Ms. Taranto asked for page number.

Mr. Varjary commented:  They are not marked with page numbers; it begins with the Caterpillar; the second page pictures the generator  The generator is substantial in size  If you are talking about numbers; the statistics for what they are talking about is 69 liter motor  If you would compare that with a car; the car has typically a 2 liter or 3 liter car  In comparison it is a lot larger  These are about the size of a semi truck  What they are talking about here is, they are talking about putting 110 of these on the property of the project  They have concerns they are not going to be able to meet the noise standards  He wanted to be brief, and asked the Board to consider the testimony of two experts

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 Jack Van Kley is going to talk about the noise  Marilyn Vutech a realtor, is going to talk about the impact of this project on property values in the area

Ms. Knapp asked his name again and the correct spelling. She asked what residents he represented. He had a list of residents. Mr. Van Kley commented that the residents are listed on his written testimony he was about to give the Board.

Mr. Jack Van Kley, with the law firm Van Kley & Walker, LLC, 132 North Woods Blvd., Columbus, Ohio 43235 came forward. He commented:  He passed out his written testimony  He is with an environmental law firm, down the street , off US23  They are representing 11 residents of Home Road  The residents were listed on the first page of his comments  During the hearings held by the zoning commission on this project  These residents have expressed their concerns that the noise from the data center; their air intake exhaust fans; generators and other equipment would pose a problem for their community  A noise study recently performed by the applicant’s engineering firm identified 3,100 noise sources at the proposed facility  They are not only talking about generators; which there are 110, but they are talking about numerous other sources of noise as well  That makes up this facility at all times that it is operating  And it is expected to operate like any other data center 24 hours a day/7days a week  They have to do that to meet their business  He didn’t want to read the written testimony word for word  He wanted to go through it and express the highlights  If the Board had any questions as he was proceeding; he wanted them to feel free to interrupt him  He loved questions during his presentations because it helped him understand the Board’s concerns  He is an environmental attorney who has experience in the legal aspect of acoustic of noise  He has handled a number of noise cases  They have retained an acoustic engineer as well to advise them  His name is Richard James with E-Coustic Solutions in Lansing Michigan  He is an experienced acoustic engineer with 45 years of experience  That has involved not only advising citizens, such as the citizens they are representing  But also large corporations; assisting them in dealing with their noise problems  Including corporations like all the big 3 auto makers; as well as steel companies and other companies that he has worked for  He is a very experienced engineer  He has not represented just one side of the issue but both sides of the issue  So he really knows what he is talking about  Noise can be devastating to a community if it is too loud  It can also be devastating if it occurs at the wrong time  That is at night, when people are trying to sleep  Or occurs on the weekend when they are trying to do some recreation outside, a party or a graduation party, a picnic outside  If the noise is occurring it makes it very difficult for them to enjoy their yard  Inside their houses it interrupts their activities as well  Based on the experience that he has had in noise cases  Noise can case sleep deprivation, prevents people from enjoyably relaxing, recreating and working in their yard  Gives them headache, interferes with them watching television programs  Forces them to close their windows instead of enjoying the outdoor air  Causes frequent stress and irritation, discomfort, distraction, anger, tension and annoyance  And you will hear soon; decreases property values  In the application; at section 7 a noise study conducted by McClure Engineering on behalf of the applicant 14

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 He and Mr. James has reviewed the study  The study argues that that this data center isn’t going to cause a noise nuisance  Actually the study proves the opposite is going to prove the case  Some of the reasons way: o First of all, he wanted to point out, and the Board already knows Article XIV, Section 14.07(f) of the Zoning Resolution provides that “the noise standards of the Environmental Protection Agency shall be adhered to” . It is a mandatory requirement of the township zoning code . The McClure report contends that the data center will meet that standard . It will not o The noise study cites the wrong noise regulations o Rather than citing EPA’s standards, which has been incorporated into the zoning code; it cites a standard from the Housing and Urban Development

Ms. Taranto commented; didn’t they say they could not find the EPA standard.

Mr. Van Kley continued: o They stated they could not find an Ohio EPA standard o That is accurate, Ohio does not have a EPA standard o But *USCPA (*???) does; he pointed out that the *USCPA standard is not a regulation o It is called the levels document o It is a document that was created by *USCPA at the time the federal noise control Act was founded o It provides *USCPA’s recommendations and findings in regards to what levels are harmful and under what circumstances o That is the only EPA standards that exist o So it has to be the one that is referenced in the zoning code o The McClure noise study refers to the HUD standard as the Federal EPA HUD standard o There is no such thing o You have an EPA standard and you have a HUD standard o The HUD standard is designed to meet different objectives than the EPA standard o The HUD standard is designed to provide numbers that people who are asking for grants for housing are required to show that their housing will meet if they are exposed to noise sources as a condition for getting the grant o Typically these housing developments are in higher noise urban development areas o When talking about quite suburban areas like at Home Road o That HUD standard is not going to work o It was never designed to apply for the situation here o It was designed to apply to only urban areas; in housing developments o A new noise source such as the data center will cause a problem if the noise level is 5 decibels or higher/more than the existing sound levels o Reason for that is because the existing sound levels will tend to mask that is to higher disguise the noise coming from a new source o Unless the new source is significantly higher than the noise that already exists o The noise level that already exists is critical for determining whether a new noise level is going to create a problem o Under the principals that have been discovered by acoustical engineers over a period of decades o If you have an increase of at least 5 decibels above the normal level you are going to have a problem in the community o It will be very noticeable; it’s going to be very annoying o He asked the Board to go to the EPA standard that has been incorporated by reference to the zoning code o He referred the Board to one of the attachments to his written testimony o He directed them to the page that had Table 4 at the top of the page o He highlighted an area that was applicable areas that is for residential areas with outside space and farm residences o The EPA Standard for that type of land use as distinguished for an urban land use is 45 decibels ldn (day/night average); inside the house or a level of 55 outside the house o That is the basic starting point for the EPA standard

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o But it doesn’t end there o Sometimes some people mistakenly go to just this table and just use that figure without properly correcting it for other conditions o He referred to Table D-7; which are the corrections that are to be added to that level of 55 outdoor or 45 indoor from the prior table o He highlighted the corrections to the 55 and 45 Ldn levels that should have been made here o This is a normal suburban community; that is, it is not located near industrial activity o So you would reduce the level by 5 decibels to account for that o This community had no prior experience with a data center; so you would decrease the number by another 5 decibels o Lastly, the generators and other sources at the data center will produce tonal or impulsive noises that increase the irritating qualities of that noise o By tonal quality he is talking about low frequency noise o For example, if you ever sat in your car alongside another car that has a very heavy bass drum type of music playing; you would know firsthand what a tonal quality sounds like o It’s a droning; it’s a beating, it is a very irritating sound that penetrates people’s houses o And easily gets sucked into people’s houses o The appropriate standard here for the EPA levels document for outside should be 40 decibels and inside it should be 30 decibels o This project as currently designed comes nowhere close to meeting that requirement o He added that there have been studies done; the health impact and other impacts of noise o The World Health Organization (WHO)is a researcher in this area o It has found that levels over 40 decibels at night will interrupt sleep and the starting point for adverse health effects for people who are experiencing that at a regular basis o WHO has also determined that the same effects will occur if you have over 30 decibels in your house at night o Generally speaking there is a 10 decibel reduction in noise level if your windows are closed o In other words the sound that comes through your windows or your walls normally would decrease by ten decibels from outside to inside o That is why you see the 10 decibel difference between the inside and outside o He noted Table 4 on page 10 of McClure’s report the Board would see that the data center’s noise without generator’s running would range between 48 and 55 decibels at the property line o That is the level of noise that the people will experience standing in their yard who live near this facility o That is substantially higher than the EPA standards dictate o He referred to Table 5 on page 12 of McClure’s report shows the levels when two generators per building are tested; range between 49 and 56 decibels o He noted on the last page, when all generators are running of course along with the data center the noise level would range between 62 and 72 decibel o That is what people will be experiencing in their yards during power outages; when all the generators are running and possibly during the testing that is being required by the insurance company o At this point we do not know how often or how long those tests are going to be required o Based on his current experience, and other sources, that the annual testing or quarterly testing is going to be substantially longer than 15 minutes at a time o The application doesn’t show us how long the generators are going to be operating o It also doesn’t show us at what times during the day or night those tests are going to be operating o During the applicant’s testimony the applicant’s acoustic expert stated that certain noise levels would be akin to certain types of noise the he described o For example, shopping center, and talking, and so forth o He had a page from the EPA document that has a list of comparable noises o According to that document; according to EPA the noise you would expect near a freeway with auto traffic is 60 decibels o That is only 5 dBA (decibel) above what they say they will meet when the data center is running without generators

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o This data center even without generators is going to be noisy o It is going to be a problem o He also pointed out that according to the handout he gave the Board, the EPA levels document; the EPA has identified that the level of 70 ldn at is the level at which hearing loss begins to occur o According to the application submitted with all generators running the noise will go up to a potential level of 72 o Which is above the level of where hearing loss starts o He thought obviously something has to be done to further control the noise from those generators o He felt there were some problems with the McClure ambient sound measurements o He didn’t want to get into them, they could be found in his testimony handout o Basically the ambient sound measurements of most conditions; most of them were invalid because they were taken during windy conditions o When the wind blows on the microphone; it distorts the microphone it makes the noise sound higher than it really is in the area; the locations were all in the wrong place, they should have been closer to the neighbors homes so they could measure the normal background noise at the neighbor’s homes instead of the data center’s property o But even despite those fallacies there was some data in the report actually showed the neighborhood to be rather quiet when the conditions were not windy o There was one snapshot of time which at the end of one day and the beginning of another day that is right in the middle of the night where wind conditions were 5 miles per hour or less o Which is what you need to have valid measurements and it showed the normal levels on the lnd basis which is the basis you are to take ambient measurement sound levels at; 35 to 37 decibels o If you add 5 to that that brings you to about 40 to 42 decibels o That is the level the data center should be at

Ms. Knapp asked is that where he talked about the outside 40 and the inside 30.

Mr. Van Kley commented: o Yes, all these figures ducktail rather nicely o The 40-30; the 40 outside and the 30 inside; is the WHO recommendation o It is also what you get when you work out the EPA levels standard o The way it is suppose to be worked out o And it also roughly works out to be 5 decibels above the normal background at night o So all these figures are very consistent with each other o He noticed that condition 8 noted by the zoning commission would require that all scheduled generator testing to be conducted on week days between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. but it allows unrestricted testing any hour required by the insurers o He commented he had already pointed out how that is a large loop hole that the data center could step through o In short, as currently designed the data center would violate the township zoning code and generate misery in the Home Road community o The Board should require the applicant to take new ambient sound measurements near the neighbors homes and should revise the data center’s design in order to comply with the zoning code o Requirements of no more than 40 ldn outside and 30 ldn inside day and night o That standard applies whether generators are running or not  He was prepared to answer any questions

Ms. Taranto asked him to give examples of other cases he represented that are similar to this one.

Mr. Van Kley responded that the most recent and the most explicable case would be a recent law suit that he filed on behalf of some neighbors over on Winter Road, the data center there. That is where a large part of his knowledge comes in. He commented he has also done some regulatory work with noise before the Ohio Power Site Board.

Ms. Taranto asked the outcome of that.

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Mr. Van Kley responded in the first case with the Ohio Power Site Board they were testing an application for some wind turbines and the Wind Power Board decided against them. They went to the Supreme Court and they lost in a 4 to 3 decision. In the second case they again contested wind turbines because of noise and other issues and as the Power Site Board always does, they decided in favor of the applicant and they are now back before the Ohio Supreme Court.

Ms. Knapp asked about the case in Liberty Township. Mr. Van Kley commented the case against the data center along Winter Road has been resolved but it is subject to confidentiality he cannot tell the Board the details.

Ms. Knapp asked if the case is no longer ongoing. Mr. Van Kley answered correct. The case has passed. It has been resolved. Ms. Knapp asked was that property zoned industrial. Mr. Van Kley answered no, it was zoned commercial. She asked what were the decibel levels at that location. Mr. Van Kley commented that the decibel levels at the closest house ranged anywhere between almost not being able to hear them; depending on wind conditions; the wind blowing the other direction; To about 65 to 68 decibels.

Ms. Knapp commented that her concern about this is the constant noise. She commented she lives somewhat near a commercial; near Home Depot and there is a nice big wall that keeps most of the noise out; sometimes she hears some things, or kids or traffic but it is not constant. When it is constant it is grading on your quality of life. Mr. Van Kley agreed. And he felt it was especially true if like here, noise sources has a lot of low frequency noise in them because that low droning or beating in some cases really gets to you. It penetrates everything. It causes a lot of the noise especially if you cannot get away from it; because you are in your yard, or even if you go into your house you can hear it inside your house through the walls and the windows. It is like there is no escaping it. The people who have lived under those conditions have in some cases developed mental problems. There are cases that states where mental problems have occurred because of that. It’s that low droning, sometimes even if it is a low volume drone; if it goes on all the time it kind of becomes a major irritant.

Ms. Knapp reiterated that it was a concern for her if it were a constant noise and the destruction of quality of life. She thought it would be far different than a commercial site that would generate the type of noise. Mr. Van Kley commented that it depended on what kind of commercial site it is and how close it is. Mr. Van Kley went on to say one of the things about this application is that the data center and buildings are extremely close to the neighbors; closer then the one at Winter Road. Some commercial facilities you have a lot of activity during the day when everyone is awake anyway; then quiet down at night when people are trying to sleep. That is a major difference then what is demonstrated back here where you have a 24 hour data center; droning on all the time; when people are trying to sleep.

Mr. Quigley asked were there any further questions. Ms. Knapp said not right now. Mr. Van Kley introduced Marilyn Vutech.

Marilyn Vutech 575 Winter Road, Delaware, Ohio 43015 came forward. She commented:  She has been a realtor for 28 years  She was called to talk about the impact of sound and disclosure  As she listened to tonight she felt she has a much more unique perspective because she lived in the shadows of the Citibank Data Center  She is about 1500 feet away and arguably as close as the resident who filed the lawsuit  She regrets that she did not participate in that  She would love to have learned the outcome of that lawsuit  That data center went in 2007  She didn’t think anyone there lives near a data center  She had gotten so good, that the person who brought the law suit, an engineer, and bought a sound meter  For years they tracked the sound  She could tell the Board what 40 sounds like, 50, 55, 60  She gave an example; sitting on a screened porch with her daughter and if that load is at 60; it sounds like a freight train going right through the back yard  There are times when that sound lasted for a week  There are times when they have the windows open at night and at 4:00 a.m. you just wake up and you can’t get back to sleep  It has gotten better 18

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 She doesn’t know why it has gotten better since the lawsuit  They still live there

Ms. Taranto commented you don’t hear it any more. Ms. Vutech answered it is much better.

Ms. Vutech commented:  Some of the things she had learned and maybe the neighbors can take away  And maybe something can be done with generator sound  What she has learned from talking with her neighbor and other people  She felt there are ways for the sounds (coughing) to be more quiet  But it is costly  It would cost the person developing the company  It costs money to make it more sound friendly  When she looks and sees how close these houses are to this data center  It is so much closer to what she is to the CitiCorp  She cannot image how loud that is going to be  It looks about 3 times the size of what she lives near  She would definitely read everything that is in there and learn from it  That was her perspective as a neighbor  As a realtor; anyone within an ear shot of that has a disclosure issue  It will impact their property value  They will have to disclose it  Then who is going to want to live near a data center  So it is a disclosure and a property value issue  It is very hard to measure, who knows

Ms. Knapp asked if you had to disclose if you live by a railroad track for an example. Ms Vutech commented that is visible; people can identify that. They can see it on Google maps, you can walk by it. It is a very interesting question. If it were not identifiable that is a gray area. Ms. Knapp commented that a lot of people will buy a house and never knew a train was (talk over). Ms. Vutech commented that a case in point is the race track proposed for downtown. There have been a lot of neighbor conversations about that. There are realtors who will not list property downtown without having that owner disclose of the possibility of the race track going in. It is not even in. But the possibility of that coming down the road could be a liability. It is a gray area, it would depend on the realtor you would talk to. (coughing). Ms. Knapp commented a lot of times people are unaware.

Ms. Vutech went on to say that 60, 55, is loud; it is disturbing. When they load those generators and then have to test them more than you think they would. It is like a jet engine going off in your back yard and she is 1500 feet away.

Ms. Knapp asked if that has hurt her property value. Ms. Vutech commented she thought it could. She is lucky enough that someone took that company to a lawsuit and it has been really quiet; she feels very, very fortunate. She felt it was better to deal with this up front. Like it is happening here. So much better. They didn’t know when a data center went in; they were clueless until they heard the noise.

Mr. Quigley asked if the Board had any questions. Mr. Quigley asked Mr. Ford if he would care to respond.

Mr. Ford commented:  The applicant group did not have a chance to review the testimony just given  They obviously had a chance to review their acoustical study  One thing he was looking at out of curiosity when it was mentioned that we are going to be; the data center is going to generate dBA levels higher than the 55, when he looks at the exhibit on page 13; the areas that they are higher are out on relocated Home Road and US23  They are not into the residential property  He wanted to make sure that was understood  Yes, this illustration does indicate dBAs higher than 55 but they are not into the adjoining, if he is looking at this correctly, it is quite small

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Ms. Knapp asked where he was looking. Mr. Ford told her where he was looking and explained what he thought he was reading. The statements were made there would be levels of 70-75 in the neighbors yards and he doesn’t see that.

Mr. Ford went on to say:  Regarding the Grief Brothers; they had just looked at it on Google Earth and the way that the generators are positioned, it appears they are facing the east  So they are exposed to an open field to the east  What they have tried to do; the way they have them paired them together; they have the buildings actually buffering  That was one of the design traits was to turn the buildings inward towards each other so the buildings themselves would help to buffer the sound of the generator  The one that does create the louder dBA level is the one facing relocated Home Road which isn’t paired with a sister building  That was their strategy  The Grief Brothers looks like there is nothing to screen or buffer the sounds off to the east

Ms. Vutech commented that she lives west of the woods (speaking from back of room, difficult to hear over other people talking)

Mr. Ford commented that prevailing winds are typically west to east. Mr. Ford asked Mr. Brown if he wanted to respond to the comments and testimony made.

Mr. Brown commented:  He wasn’t sure where to begin  There were a lot of comments referencing Ldn  And it should be 30 & 40  Ldn is a 24 hour measurement  These measurements that were done by the study he looked at was done by a person who was wearing a noise monitor for 24 hour period  So they would go into work, in an office environment, in a car where the noise level could be as high as 80 dB(decibel)  You have to take into account what is be said about hearing loss at Ldn of 70  You have to realize that is at an end of an airport  That Ldn was designed for an airport runway  Kind of draw a contour around an airport to see whose house could get mitigated for noise  That Ldn 70 is right off the end of a runway of an airport  65 was within the range for a house to get mitigated for noise  He has tested close to 1,000 homes in the airport environment of St. Louis, Missouri  His comment about open windows; it is very close; it depends on what weather  Colder weather it is 12 dB  Warmer weather it is 17dB  There is a big fluctuation  Now background sound level at this site; there was a part they did measure  The gentleman that lives on Home Road got a level of 42 dB  That is an instantaneous level that probably occurred  You have to realize this is no longer a rural area  This is now a suburban area  This area has stepped up; the population has sprouted tremendously  This is no longer a suburban area  They have not done(coughing) calculations of the highway US23  He mentioned a statement in there about 60 off a highway or freeway  He did not give any sort of distance  That is probably a distance of about 100 feet  Most freeways right next to it; is 80 to 85  As you move away from it; you always have to have a distance associated with a sound power level  You cannot just throw out a number without having a distance associated with it  We have been throwing out a lot of numbers here; from levels; what 55 is 20

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 55 Ldn is a very quiet level for a neighborhood

Ms. Knapp commented that this would be a constant noise level, not the generators, just the noise.

Mr. Brown commented:  Like he had mentioned earlier  This is running at 100% speed  This is when the thing is fully lit up  It will not operate at that condition unless it is extremely hot day

Ms. Knapp asked what condition, the 55.

Mr. Brown:  Yes; it is 55 at the property line  It is still another 100-200 feet from most of these people’s houses  He didn’t have the exact distances  But you have to realize up to the house; it is going to drop it down  So every time you go; you double that distance; you drop the sound 6 dB; it is a rule of thumb

Ms. Knapp asked what was it he just said.

Mr. Brown commented:  Every time you double the distance of sound you drop it 6 dB  If you would go from 10 to 20 it would drop 6 dB  From 20 to 40 it would drop another 6 dB  40 to 80 it would drop another 6 dB  If you would go 100 to 200 it would drop another 6db

She asked what would the people living in the condos; sitting in their house, hear on a regular basis.

Mr. Brown commented:  He would have to look at the noise contour on the map; with the sound modifications  Page 9; if they would look straight back to the north; you are in the green  You would be at least 48 to 51; 51 being the highest for any of those residents along there  This is with the modifications  They are making sure they have the quietest equipment that can possibly go in this

Ms. Taranto asked so they are constantly going to hear between 41 and 50 decibels constantly.

Mr. Brown commented:  Right; this is a variable system in this data center  As the load comes in; it gets hotter; the load goes up; on the speed on the system; and the maximum on this system at 100% speed; 51 is the highest they are going to hear at their house

Ms. Knapp asked for least.

Mr. Brown answered:  Least is; it could go down to 45  That scenario has not been run, in this case  They wanted to run the worst case to show; so the Board would know they were not trying to hide anything  They wanted to show what the worst condition could be

Ms. Knapp commented it is good to be honest.

Mr. Brown continued:  Reiterated that Ldn was designed for an airport environment  To measure impacts of airplanes flying over houses 21

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 It accumulated the sound over a 24 hour period  And it penalized night time levels 10 dB  Ldn is not good for this particular case  Because he said there are impulsive sounds; this is steady straight type environment; there is no impulse noise

(Talk over) Ms. Taranto thought that when the testing was done is when they thought the impulsive sounds were going on.

Mr. Brown commented:  That is going to round at a steady level  The generators will run for 15 minutes and then they are going to shut them down  So that would be a steady sound source for 15 minutes  You would get more impact; more impulsive type noises probably along US23 than you would from this site

Ms. Knapp commented but there is a variable noise, there by the traffic.

Mr. Brown commented:  The startling and impulse noises are much more reflective or startling to us  Because we do not know the direction of them  When someone claps (demonstrated); you are startled  It has more psyche  It is all in the cycle of acoustics  He is not an expert in that field

Ms. Knapp asked the decibel level for a leaf blower.

Mr. Brown answered:  That would be a 95  That is at 2 foot  That is 1 to 2 foot when you are carrying it at your side  If you are blowing leaves down here (demonstrating); you have a distance  You always have to have a sound pressure level associated with a distance  You cannot just throw out a number; you have to have a certain distance

Ms. Knapp asked about a leaf blower at 100 feet away and the neighbors are two houses down.

Mr. Brown commented:  There are some calculations you have to run for the sound power of that unit for that distance  The sound decays 6 dBs every time you double that distance  You always have to have a distance associated with a sound  He threw out a whole lot of numbers earlier; there were no distances associated with those numbers  You talked about a dog; where the distance of that dog was at  It has to be associated with it as well  When we talk; we talk at certain distances  Normal conversations are within 3 foot  When you get outside of 10 foot the level goes down to 55  But when we are close; right here like this  He could show you a sound meter over here and you could watch the voices that are talking  You could see how the sound fluctuates but it all stays within the 70 dB of that distance of 8 feet here  The low frequency, this sound level has been “A” rated  We don’t hear sounds very well  It gets weighted  Our hearing, the lower the frequency (coughing) 10,000k  So there is a certain set of frequency waves we hear better at

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 So at 4,000 hertz is where hearing damage begins at those higher frequencies  If you take a lower frequency our ears have a very good way of articulating those sounds  The low bass you hear when a car pulls up is more of a vibration you are feeling then hearing, not the sound

Ms. Knapp asked about jake breaking; asked if that was a low sound.

Mr. Brown responded:  That covers a lot of frequencies  That would cover your big frequencies down to your low frequencies  So these fans operating anywhere from 125 to 500 hertz are primary frequencies  They try to keep this level at the property line  Which is back away from their house at 55 dBA  But you look at the laq; a 24 hour period; however you measure that; it could be an hour; it could be 15 minutes; it could be instantaneous  You are taking all those noises into account  When you are looking at that level  Along that back property line  This particular case they were only looking at what the data center is producing  They had not looked at any of the noise that is being produced on US23  Which he already mentioned that; off at some distance it was 60 db  (Coughing) the following locations that he did were the access points he could get to  He didn’t have permission to go onto anyone’s property  He did not feel comfortable doing that  So he got closest to the area that would represent the best background sound level

Ms. Knapp commented she had happened to think of an example. The township has Movie in the Parks back in August and there was a problem with the speaker system. There was a loud hum that was possibly being produced by the generator that was running it. It was a really loud hum and it was extremely annoying. She described how her son tried to explain it to her. It was very annoying and actually half the people left. She thought it was a 65 hertz.

Mr. Brown agreed and said that it was a pure tone. How you measure a pure tone at a certain frequency; if it is high dB above each frequency on that side. Mr. Brown stated there will be no pure tones in this system. That is one of the things that they try to eliminate. Pure tones and any kind of excessive wobble in a frequency. That is why they try to spread it out between 125, 250 and 500 hertz. Those sound levels are expanded at those frequencies. He agreed that a pure tone is more annoying and will irritate you much more.

Mr. Quigley asked if there were any more question from the Board for Mr. Brown. There were none.

Scott McCoy, 285 Home Road, Delaware, Ohio 43015 came forward. He commented:  He runs an acoustic lab at OSU as part of the school of music  He is very familiar with all of these numbers and everything they are talking about with the decibel ratings  There have been a lot of numbers thrown at them  It is very easy to (inaudible) when you have to look at so many different things  He told them when sitting on his desk; from where he sits which would be right at the midpoint of building one  When a truck hits its jake brakes out on US23 his calibrated decibel meter jumps to 50  At peak traffic time during rush hour it bounces around 45 and 48 dB  At night it is down below 40  This is a calibrated meter  This is weight aid with a long term not just an isolated spot but looking at it as a real estate number  There are so many different numbers floating around here tonight it is really hard to know what the truth is  So let’s say it is really going to be 55 dB  Is that going to hurt us physically  No, but it is going to be very annoying as its been stated

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 Because it is the drone  If you could just look back to being there all the time always stronger than the measured background noise is  When it is at its best  And then we will have the periods when the generators kick in  And it gets worse  And they will never know when that is going to happen  Who would want to live next to that  He was very curious as to how some of these figures in terms of the amplitudes they are going to be exposed to  The cut sheet that is in the folder for the generator says an 85 dB rating at 23 feet  Well if you extend that out; by the time you get to 360 feet that is still 60dB  That is not just at his property there are half a dozen people who are well within that  And that is for just one generator  Not all the 100+ generators  It will not be a single sound point  Which is very different from a speaker at a restaurant  We are talking about over 100 massive sound sources distributed over a huge area  That will all act together  And yes, 140 generators are 140 times louder than one generator  But they are lots of volume  He doesn’t see how this can work

Robert “Bill” Gallargher, 7188 Fall View Circle, Delaware, Ohio 43015 came forward. He commented:  He is a home owner at the Village of North Falls  Which is the south section of where this is going to be built  He is speaking as a home owner and he is also the president of the association  Although he is not authorized to completely speak for everyone  But he is the president and he will be asked questions  He is a lay man; he is not an attorney; he is a public speaker  His will be more in lay man terms  The problem they began with was that that property zoned for small homes, condos and a strip mall  The zoning board was partially unaware of that when they were speaking of this  At 8:00 a.m. two weeks ago on Friday morning they came in and rezoned that so Amazon could move in  So the property was originally designed for small sandlot condos and small homes with a small strip mall, office buildings and so forth  So this is a complete change from what the property was originally zoned for  We are now going to have this large Amazon complex with all this noise  Again we were going to have homes just like ours  The decibels shouldn’t change a whole lot having homes there versus having this Amazon  He asked them to bear with him as he had a story to tell  It was a very nice warm day  He spent some time outside  Enjoying the noise of spring  The birds were singing, the squirrels were rustling in the woods, the woodpeckers were pecking at the trees  It was quiet and tranquil  Yes, there were some sounds from cars and trucks moving on US23  But nothing disturbing  Then he thought  What will it be like when Amazon is up and running  So he had a story to tell the Board  The tale is the two sided fence  One side of the fence Amazon; a multibillion dollar for profit company  Versus the other side of the fence; the Village of North Falls; a private self supporting community of condominiums

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 So let’s look at Amazon; what do they get on their side of the fence  According to the February 19, 2015, report from Thomas Gallick of This WeekNews.com he is quoted as reporting the following “The data a subsidiary of Amazon was offered tax credits and incentives from the state of Ohio”  Which they received  Also Mr. Gallick on March 12, 2015, reported that Amazon sought to receive a 15 year 100% tax abatement from Delaware County Ohio to build the data center  Yes, they will employ about 125 jobs; which is great for the community, county and township  Now let’s look at the Village of North Falls; what do they get for their side of the fence  A 12 foot high barrier and it is a highway type fence;  Up to 60 decibels of sound at their property line  More electric transmission lines with poles and large metal supports and humming from the lines  Noise from the substation and possibly a view of partially the top of that substation  They have been told that when the trees grow high enough you won’t see that  He thought he may be dead before those trees grow high enough  Noise from testing the generators  When in a emergency the whole gambit of 122 generators will be running  He has yet to be told when these generators and how long these generators will be tested  122 generators are going to take most nights during the week to test those generators  So much for leaving the windows open in the spring and summer  The possibility of the loss of the serenity of their life  So in reality they will be getting a disruptive life style  While big business gets incentives, tax abatements, and the approval to build  Nothing has been mentioned yet about the cost to the property owner as far as the value of homes  He has spoken to an engineer for the City of Columbus this week and he said when something comes in like this; into a suburban home area  You usually lose 15 to 20% of your property value  He checked this out online and yes, it says that online also  However he took his population and our homes; there are 132 single homes, ours are in quadrants, so there are 264 homes  He took it down to 10% of the property value; they are going to lose $2.6 million loss of property value within that community  At 20% that would be $5 million  To Amazon that means nothing  But to property owners; it means their life savings  He knew it would sound like an old adage; “What’s in it for me?”  But at this point he saw little incentive for the Village of North Falls  He asked if there were any questions

Mr. Farahay commented that he wanted to clarify the current zoning on this property is 15, 3 unit building for 45 total condos on the south side which would be bordering North Falls. There is about 400,000 square feet retail approved for this on the east on Gooding Blvd., he forgot where it is extended to Home Road. On the west side of Gooding Blvd. there is if you add up all the lots there is about a maximum of another 100,000 square feet. So you are talking 500,000 square feet commercial and 45 condos in 15 – 3 unit buildings.

Ms. Knapp asked if the multifamily was in the southern part.

Mr. Farahay responded along the southern property line bordering the North Falls Condominiums.

She asked if it was the entire area. Mr. Farahay responded yes, it would be the entire southern border, west of Gooding Blvd.

Mr. Quigley asked if there were any other comments. Mr. Quigley asked if the zoning representative wanted to come forward as there were some questions on the request to modify the code on those 2 items.

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

Ms. Christine Trebellas, 2626 Coltsbridge Drive, Lewis Center, Ohio 43035 came forward. She commented:  She was a member of the Zoning Commission  She stated that she could not speak for all of the Zoning Commission  The Board was talking about the stipulations that were added at the last minute  She thought it was a couple Fridays ago; the commission voted on this measure  Mark Ford had emailed some stipulations at the last moment that the Board was not able to discuss  Therefore it was not put into the recommendation that was sent to the Board of Trustees  There were some concerns about the requests  One was that it was at the last minute  The first request was to kind of change the times that the generators were going to be used  Or originally they understood that the testing and the sound analysis was 2 generators at a time  It was changed to 2 generators per building  And that the full load testing would only be required by insurers and they wanted to include it to government and permitting agencies  And that between generator testing would be done between Monday through Friday between 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  She could say they were concerned about the noise from the testing generators  That is why they put in it would between 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  She understood that during emergency situations the generators would run at full levels  The applicant later mentioned that the insurers would require that the generators would run at full level periodically  That was a surprise, but they ended up agreeing to it because they figured the insurers perhaps tested at unusual times  Maybe once a year; once a quarter something like that  They could not image them doing it more beyond that  Second of all, in her opinion, the insurers would probably do it between 9 to 5  They couldn’t image any public employee or employee coming at like midnight to test generators  That was just her personal opinion  That is why they wanted to make sure the 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. were in there  They knew again, the sound for 2 generators overall that were tested  Since there are some levels where it is on the 55 level mark they actually thought it was better to leave it as it was at 2 generators period would be less sound  So that sort of is the first one; that and since it was contrary to what was told they were not going to redo it  The second stipulation was one about sound mitigation measures  They were very concerned about the added language; they felt it sort of gutted the section  They had worked very hard with the applicant to get the sound mitigation measures  They were very concerned that part of the site is adjacent to residential  55 decibels to their understanding of what the EPA allowed and that is what is in their code  So that was their understanding at the time; that that 55 decibels was what the cut off was  It is up to the Board whether the new information presented before the Board contradicts that  They felt that since the acoustical report that was given with the development plan had those sound measures in there that they would have to stay  Their understanding with the language you could get better with new technology that is fine  But not to replace the existing technology with something untried  Where you would not know what the sound measures were  So at a minimum, you would need to include a technology that you had, that was their understanding of what the current language and Mr. McCarthy could probably speak currently to that  That you are not limited to what you said in your report; but the language you said implied that you wouldn’t provide what was in the report and since that was not acceptable for some of us since the decision was made based on the figures that were in the acoustic study 26

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 She asked if that help explain why they were hesitant to approve those 2 stipulations  They left it up to the Board of Trustees plus they have a lot more information in terms of the sound mitigation; what it means and what the 55 decibel level means  That is much more thorough than what was presented before the Zoning Commission  She asked for questions

Ms. Knapp commented she did read the minutes and asked was there any discussion about this being an industrial property.

Ms. Trebellas commented:  Yes, and actually there is a small little brochure that the American (noise) Association put out that she brought a copy for the Board to look at and Mr. McCarthy has read  The township has no experience with data centers  Data centers tend to be according to that report zoned either commercial or industrial, that is true  When they looked at the code; and she is only speaking for herself and not the whole zoning commission  Our code seemed to imply that this was allowed under commercial use  We do not have a specific stipulation for data centers because and she felt a lot of townships or communities do no because it is a new building type  Their commercial code as it stands; it allows warehouses; it allows offices, things of that nature  It was looked and their understanding was that this was a zoned commercial site so you could have something like this  You can have offices and warehouses; you could have something like WalMart, Target something of that nature on that site as well  That was her understanding  So therefore within our current code this was applicable  And as far as their current understanding of the code; our sound levels, they did research  They realized that the Ohio EPA did not have a standard, they then went to look at the US EPA  And their understanding was that it was 55  The material that was presented here today is material that the zoning commission did not have when they made their decision  She reiterated that she can only speak for herself; she could not speak for all members of the Zoning Commission  They may have different opinions on this issue

Martha Spohn, 445 Home Road, Delaware, Ohio 43015 came forward. She commented:  She would be very brief with her comments  From a personal standpoint  She had been at every single meeting  She had absolutely no confidence in anything she has heard from the applicant about the testing of the generators  It has ranged from the insurance people may request it to there may be some spot inspections where it asked erroneous things  She would like to the ask the Board to look at this and see what the manufacturers of these diesel engines are requiring in way of warranties  What regular maintenance is required  What healthy running of these things; she understood they have to exercise these machines and have to run these things for a significant duration so they do not get condensation in them  She just believes that they have not heard the full spectrum of what could happen with the testing of the generators  They understand full power if there is an outage  Another thing, she has looked at the sites over at Hilliard and Dublin  They appear to be a part of this whole project  She is thinking they will find other people who are like us that are concerned neighbors who would have concerns about the affect of their quality of life  From Google Earth and from what she could tell being a lay person, none of them are close to residents that it would have the same impact on us

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Ms. Knapp asked if they were in an industrial area.

Ms Spohn responded:  Yes; She thought she was one of the persons who raised the question why this would not be looked on as an industrial use given the significant quantities of electricity and quantities of water  50% of the daily water output from Delco  Not that they all water their lawns; they are all pretty much naturalist out there on Home Road  But if there is a drought in central Ohio; who gets the water  They are already taking 50%  She is throwing that out there; it is from what she remembers  These are some of her concerns from what she has heard

Mr. Quigley asked for any more public comments.

Mr. Bill Lineberry, 7268 Falls View Circle, Delaware, Ohio 43015 came forward. He commented:  He is a fire protection contractor  He does a lot of work for heavy industrial  He commented obviously he is not a speaker  His company installs sprinkler systems for fire protection  They are involved with large distribution centers  One of the things that they do they install fire pumps for sprinkler systems  Some of these are electrical pumps others are diesel  Many times they are connected to large generators  He could tell the Board; in the 38 years he has been doing this work  Every large generator has an automatic timer on them that it starts on a weekly basis  It usually runs for 15 minutes on a weekly basis  The reason it does that is because you have diesel fuel; these engines which are enormous are diesel engines  They require electricity to get them started  The electricity comes from a bank of batteries which have to be charged daily  They have to run these generators on a weekly basis because they have to make sure that in any circumstance they can fire up and run  Whether it is a power outage; emergencies or just under load  He found it humorous, comical and disappointing that we do not have that information in front of us  He went on to say he could only image however many generators there are out there starting up once a week running 10 to 15 minutes at whatever intervals they are even if they are all at one time  Or if they are every 15 minutes times however many there are  He felt this is something everyone needs to consider  Because that could be a major event

Mr. Ford came forward and commented:  He wasn’t quite sure what the last speaker was saying  They have stated they will be tested once a week for 15 minutes two at a time  So they have provided that information  He received confirmation on the full load testings it will take place once a year annually unless there is what they define a critical incident; something goes wrong that they would have to test everything  It says, unless there is something that requires a specific test on a critical issue standard full load testing is done annually for 2 hours; that is it  That is what he is being told by the end user

Ms. Knapp asked if they would all be done/run at the same time.

Mr. Ford responded:  Yes, for 2 hours

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 They will be doing a full load test; once a year; for 2 hours

Ms. Knapp asked  If there was a way  She would support an industrial  It is a lot better for a community than in a lot of ways residential even commercial as far as amount of money  It commercial can be a…..  It can cost a lot to the community in services so it is better to have  There has been a lot of research done about it, business parks, and office park  They have far fewer costs compared to revenues, shopping centers where you can see the revenues generated by sales tax and other things

Mr. Ford asked is if she was referring to police and fire protection; associated costs to the community.

Ms. Knapp responded:  Yes, things like that  Menards for an example, a big box  It has a lot of employees  The different uses that could almost be doubled the sales tax that actually comes in  So when you get tax abatements for those kind of companies you sometimes come off in the negative  But for business parks and research parks and things like that the industrial is actually a higher return  You get better jobs and higher paying jobs, $80,000.00 an average  She would love this facility to come to Orange Township  She thought it would be great  She has done research as to other similar uses that could come in  But she is not sure this is exactly the right spot for this  Because to her, and she has been doing zoning since 1998 for this township  To her this is industrial use  She understands that there is really no way in the current code to explain the use for this  Industrial use is usually hidden away from home view  The part of it that is not hidden away is made attractive  We have industrial areas like Super Kick, which is a soccer facility  From the roads they are made more attractive  There were self-storage units that were made to look nicer because they are along the road  But to her this is an industrial use and the residents are aware that this will be solely developed as commercial  But commercial has a lot of problems associated with it  But she just thought that the noise level coming from a commercial development is something more what they would expect  They were expecting multifamily units  To her this is looking like an industrial compound  It is right in a area of a beautiful part of our township  She is not sure that it belongs there  She wondered if there was any way to come to a win/win compromise  If there is any way to mitigate the sound and the further from the neighbors  She has not been able to measure but she lives behind Home Depot  Up by US23 and Powell Road  She lives just north of that and right kind of along River Bend  She didn’t live in that house then, but she did live in the neighborhood  The guy that owned her house ended up being on the Zoning Commission  He demanded that the developer develop a huge mound with a large fence on top maybe made of masonry or something like that  At the time she thought he was making a big deal, kind of being overbearing  But in the end, she lives next to that fence, about 2 to 3 lots away  She never hears Home Depot  Once in a while she will hear a noise, but it is almost completely almost eliminated 29

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 The noise from that  She felt the masonry substances appeared to absorb more sound  Is there any possibility there could be something larger against the neighbors  She knows that it is expensive  She knew that due to the rise in the land, it could take a huge amount of space  But to her that would be a good compromise  Because the noise is unacceptable  She could not vote yes at all for something that is 55 decibels  Just sitting in the house hearing a lawn mower for an hour or even a leaf blower 5 houses away is annoying  That constant droning  Sometimes if her son has his fan up too loud; that can be just annoying  It is just a constant sound  The residents were expecting this to be developed at some point  She just thinks that this is not what they were expected  She does want Amazon to come here but  Maybe if something can be done  Maybe a huge mound with a masonry fence; something along those lines  Something that would mitigate most of the sound to be reduced to almost nothing

Ms. Taranto commented:  She imaged they were looking for several things  You are probably looking for fiber optics, probably looking for water, your looking for electricity  That is why they picked that area

Mr. Ford agreed.

Ms. Taranto continued:  To add a little bit to what Ms. Knapp has said  She does realize that there are high expectations from the state, the county and Columbus 20/20 to bring part of Sandstone to the area  However she ultimately have a responsibility to the community of Orange Township  For the quality of life  She does believe that economic development is a part of that  However having said that  She is not sure Orange Township economically is getting a whole lot from this project  But it is costing us quite a bit, as well as our neighbors  Ultimately she didn’t think the residents that aren’t here tonight realize is their property taxes are not going to be effected by this project this year  Ultimately it would affect the businesses but not the individual residents  So that is not really a benefit either  She didn’t know if it was Amazon or not, it is labeled Sandstone  If it is, she has a great respect for that company  She uses them all the time  But she is not liking what she is hearing tonight as far as this application  She doesn’t know what it cost to build everything they are building  She has heard rumors of over a billion dollars  Is that realistic

Mr. Ford responded it is for multiple sites.

Ms. Taranto asked Ms. Vutech if she couldn’t hear CitiBank any more.

Ms. Vutech responded oh no, it is much better, but…

Ms. Taranto asked if it were 30, 40 or was 20.

Ms. Vutech commented that there was a difference. If you hear a lawn mower you know it is going to end. When you have a data center, you never know, when it comes on it could be an

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hour or it could be seven days solid. And the sound goes up and down, 30, 50 60, 40, 65. It is that unknown. You never know. It is very hard.

Ms. Taranto commented if you are spending that kind of money, billions of dollars then true sound mitigation is just a drop in the bucket. That was her personal opinion.

Ms. Knapp commented:  That she agreed with that  How much could it cost to mitigate the sound  She agreed that it would be a drop in the bucket  The other 2 sites are in industrial areas already there are no neighboring properties  It could be the right location for it but with some modifications  That you can make sure that the neighbors do not have to hear that constant droning  That impacts their quality of life  They wouldn’t be able to sit outside and enjoy the birds, kids playing  This would drown out a lot the sounds  She just felt that this would affect their quality of life

Mr. Quigley commented:  He felt that they were essentially asking if it could be looked into  Is there options for sound mitigation

Mr. Ford commented:  He would have to defer it  If they change the types of fans on the building or changing the types of generators that are typically used

Mr. Brown commented:  They could decrease the size of the fans; to multiple smaller fans

(Talking among the applicants)

He continued:  They have put up barriers at the end of the buildings; around the corners  At the edge of the buildings to mitigate any kind of noise going on  They had to realize they have a 40 foot structure  They have a barrier built into itself on any of those generators  Dealing with any of that equipment inside  They have built these inside the trough to keep down the noise inside that area there  And then put a wall up there at the end so it comes out the edge of the buildings  They reduced the size of the fans to be the quietest fans that are on the market today  So they have done an enormous amount of mitigation already  He is not sure if putting a barrier at the end of somebody’s back yard is going to sove the problem totally 100%  They can look at scenario  The can analysis it  And come up with any thing  It would need to be run through the client  If they want to continue

Ms. Knapp commented it looks like it is packed in there pretty tightly.

He continued:  All the areas on the one side that face the residents  Are the quietest units on the market  They are silent air system  Which is a 12 smaller units inside a larger unit  So it is at its quietest level  Right at the vent opening  They ran through a lot of numbers  They have thrown out a lot a decibels 31

Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 There is a point of diminishing the terms  Getting less of the sound level  The background being 42 during the day as well as 30 at night  To reach a 40 outside ldn would be impossible  You have trains; you have airplanes; you have traffic out there on US23

Ms. Knapp commented that when people come home at night and on weekends that sound seems to lessen, when people are home.

He continued:  Yes, you are right  And as you go on until 3:00-4:00 at night  Those levels they used to determine the lowest sound levels was at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning  When everyone should be home

Ms. Knapp asked where those numbers were again. Mr. Brown showed her where they could be found and explained them to her. He explained the conditions they endured during the testing. He explained the graphs. He answered all of Ms. Knapp’s questions while he was explaining the information.

Ms. Knapp commented:  If they could make it so there was less noise  Do some modifications  She thought for the area, they could be giving up some tax dollars over 15 years  But she thought that for the overall economy of Delaware County  They do not have a good economic development person up there now that would be actually seeking out this type of (coughing)  So she thinks it would be great to have in Delaware County  She asked if the storm water basin had to be in that area  Could it be moved, the one near building 2  She knew it was all based on different variables  Can the substation be moved any farther north

Tom Warner, Advanced Civic Design, 422 Beecher Road, Gahanna. Ohio 43230 came forward. He commented:  There are some tributaries on the property  They are regulated by the Ohio EPA  There is that Olentangy Water/NPERS permit  For this property specifically, these waters are tributaries to the Olentangy River  There is a higher level of sensitivity to the water detention and to the water quality principles  Every stream, these are afemoral streams  They have 30 foot wide stream buffers  Measured on either side from the center line  Those are defined by the Ohio EPA and NPERS permits  So they are following those  To put a substation over the top of that stream essentially is not welcome by the EPA  They try to stay out of those areas as much as possible  As for the storm water basins, they are positioning those on the low end where they are naturally goes; so the flood route the waters naturally and it will make sure all the storm water is collected and treated before it is released back into the environment

Mr. Varjary came forward with Mr. Van Kley to make some brief responses to comments that were made.

Mr. Van Kley commented:  He referred to Mr. Brown’s comments on the page he discussed with Ms. Knapp and gave his point of view.  Secondly if you are doing a background study; acoustical engineering principles dictate that you always look at the L90 level as background not the LEQ level

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 That makes a huge difference  The cases he has been involved with; the engineers on the other side that have been advocating loud noise levels from the applications try to use the LEQ levels on some occasions and on other occasions they don’t dare to do it  The reason is, the purpose of the background level in a noise study is to determine how much noise is available in the community to disguise the new noise that is proposed  So if you are averaging the noises in the community that exist before the new noise arrives you are going skew the results  For example; let’s say you have a car that drives through during that hour you are averaging; the car will spike the noise  Even if the rest of the time; is way lower in volume than that car; the LEQ is going to give you a number somewhere between the normal background level and that car  That is why acoustic engineers who are doing the job correctly always use the L90  Because the L90 shows you what the level is 90% of the time versus 10% of the time that is above that level  You want to have the new noise no more than 5 decibels above the L90 level so that you won’t be able to substantially hear it when you are trying to sleep  He just wanted to make that point  Another point he wanted to make; it wasn’t totally clear to him whether the applicant is now saying they will only do 2 hours of full load testing a year  It wasn’t clear to him that that was the news they got from their insurer or was that something they just heard from their client  That it is their client’s requirement  However if the applicant is sure that they will only be doing 2 hours of full load testing a year; then why not make that part of the requirements for this facility  To make sure that it is legally binding

Mr. Quigley commented that is something that they can do. Ms. Knapp agreed it was possible.

Ms. Knapp commented she thought all the trustees agreed that it was just too much noise. She didn’t think she was speaking out of turn. She thought there was too much noise.

Mr. Quigley asked if there were any more questions or comments. Mr. Quigley closed the public comment portion of the meeting.

Mr. Quigley commented that he thought from all the comments that the noise was just too high and constant. He was not getting into that area for what it is. Mr. Quigley asked Mr. McCarthy if he had the resolution. Ms. Knapp commented she had more questions.

Mr. Quigley called for a 5 minute break.

Mr. Quigley called the meeting back to order. He commented that Ms. Knapp had some questions.

Ms. Knapp asked is there any possibility, when the Home Depot was built; the grading was reduced so they actually put it into the ground slightly. It is possible to put it into the ground by a few feet, or reduce the grading possibly.

Mr. Ford asked that when she is referring to “it” what was she referring to; the buildings, the generators…..

Ms. Knapp commented:  She guess she was referring to the whole thing  She guessed that Home Depot was too high and they wanted to reduce the level of it so it was not quite as…..  Somehow their property is higher up than the Home Depot plus with the fence obviously is not 42 feet tall  But is it possible to reduce the grading  She realized it was an engineering type question

Mr. Warner commented:  He wasn’t sure by lowering it

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 There is just so much; quite a bit of relief on this property as it stands  So take building number 1 which is their first phase  He believed there was 12 feet of fall naturally on that building; from what is there today  So there is a great difference from the east side of the building to the west side of the building  They are leveling it out so they will have cuts on the east end and fills on the west end so it will balance out  So you won’t be sending trucks out to haul dirt away or bring soil in  What they are trying to accomplish is flood routing is quite important; they don’t want to put the buildings in a hole  This is a computer building; they do not want the potential for water to inundate and get into the buildings; that would cause a multitude of problems  He is not sure that lowering really gets them there  It is a large building foot print  Still even if you lower it 2 feet; you have 12 feet of fall and he is not really sure it gets it down to low (coughing)

Mr. McCarthy asked if he could follow up on that a little bit. He commented:  He thought this may be a dumb question, he didn’t know and their sound man was here  He asked if he had ever seen the mound behind Home Depot

Mr. Warner stated he has not.

Mr. McCarthy continued:  It is about 20 foot high  And there is a wall on top of it  Would that appreciatively affect the sound

Mr. Brown commented yes, in the form of a wall.

Ms. Knapp commented that one was masonry. Mr. McCarthy commented that was what she was speaking of. She asked if something like that can be done. She thought it was great. She thought it looked like it was farther back than Home Depot mound. She thought it would be much farther back.

Mr. Ford commented:  During the recess they did start talking about alternatives  What could they do with grades  As he said earlier in the presentation there issues with different easements that have been requested by different utilities along that south property line  He said Mr. Warner could address the issue of putting mounds on top of easements  They feel if they can find a footprint for the property line to increase that mounding size they would certainly explore that  It is an option  That brings up the question; at what point do you start to get return, benefit from doing that  Or is the sound just going to go over the top of it  He thought they would certainly entertain it, like to explore that option  They are trying to explore for the best solution; if they haven’t gotten there yet  They would certainly like the opportunity to do that

Ms. Knapp commented that they were welcome to look at that property anytime. They could see if from the Home Depot. She wasn’t sure how wide it is though.

Mr. Ford asked you said it was masonry.

Ms. Knapp commented:  Yes she thought it was, but it could be stamped concrete  The mound is pretty steep  It is big, you never here Home Depot  They have a lot of loud noise with trucks and cars

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 Once and awhile she will hear something, but they also have traffic behind the house, so there is some ambient noise there  But they hardly ever here that  Some neighbors have built fences or have trees but those do not seem to help as much as that huge wall

Ms. Taranto commented so what they were saying they are willing to find ways to negate the noise.

Mr. Ford commented:  Yes, he cannot guarantee they can find a solution  You know they get into 40dB  They have discussed that  Right now they are getting levels without the facilities there over 40 dB as Mr. McCoy has already stated  They are already getting levels higher than what they are asked to maintain without any commercial development in there  They are struggling with that

Ms. Knapp commented but is the constant noise.

Mr. Ford commented:  They did discuss it  It is the constant noise that seems to be the concern  So yes, they would appreciate the opportunity to explore further potential solutions  To see what they can do  He could not stand there and tell the Board that they can get to 40  He does not even know if that is obtainable

Mr. Brown commented it was not feasible.

Mr. Ford continued:  What they can do they will certainly explore those options  There are physical limitations on the site with these easement and things  He didn’t know how much room they really had to do this

Ms. Taranto asked Mr. Van Kley if it is possible to get to 40.

Mr. Van Kley commented:  That is a design issue  That has to be done by the people who are designing it  He couldn’t tell her that; it was a design issue  He doesn’t know if the sources at a data center of this nature can be reduced to 40  In order to tell that an acoustical engineer would have to know the details, the sources, noise sources on the site, to make the calculations  Any acoustic engineer could do that; he is not an acoustic engineer  He doesn’t know much about the 3100 sources

Mr. Brown asked why the 40. 55 has pretty much been the standard for all the codes across the country. Go to any city, even Columbus.

Ms. Taranto commented that he mentioned 40 and that is what brought her down to 40.

Mr. Brown and Mr. Van Kley got into a discussion about whose standards were at what levels using what tables.

Ms. Knapp commented that a lot of it was just common sense. Mr. Brown agreed with her. She went on to say that you could talk about decibels all you want but if you are living there she would not wish it on anyone.

Ms. Taranto asked Mr. Ford, what he would like to do.

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

Mr. Ford commented:  He would like it to be tabled  And allow them the opportunity to go over some of the things that were discussed  They will give it their best effort  They will continue to work with their client to see if operationally they are willing to commit to in terms of the testing; time periods, he knew that was a big concern  See if they can get more definitive answers  All the information here has been provided to him by his client  He will continue to explore those options

Mr. Quigley commented that he had mentioned it to several people from a costing point he knew that there are other ways to do mitigation of the generators. He mentioned there was a finance authority in the county that when the costs start getting to a certain point; you can utilize at a lower interest rate. This may help offset some of the increased costs. It was just something else he was throwing out there.

Mr. Ford commented:  They had discussed in the brief period that they had modeling the physical site differently  Which would be the mounding situation  Is there something different they could do with the configuration he wondered  Or maybe the orientation of the generators  They could explore that  Is there a different way to enclose the generators to encapsulate the noise  Maybe divide them differently than the way they are  They would like the opportunity to do that  Also the opportunity to look at the information that the attorneys had presented  Just to be able to take a deep dive on that  Just to see if they agree or disagree  Or agree to disagree on that information

Mr. Quigley called on a person in the audience.

Ms. Spohn spoke from her seat in the audience. She commented:  Along those same lines  She would ask that the applicant bring to the table besides the options they are exploring  That they provide the Trustees a report on a similar size facility running with about 110 generators  An annualize report of what the generators ran  How they tested  How long they ran  Who requested the test  She would just like to get her arms around this information

Ms. Taranto asked if this was kind of new.

Mr. Ford responded:  It was a good question  Their client are the most innovative people  They are constantly thinking on how to build the better mouse trap  There really is not a similar facility like this that is constructed right now  He will ask the question

Ms. Spohn asked:  Maybe ask the builder of the diesel engines what the specs are  What do they require  What typically an insurance company require  Who all requires what  Just kind of put together a chart  This is required by this entity; it runs for this;  She wanted definitions  What is a full load 36

Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 What is a bank flow  She just knows a little bit, not to be annoying  Is the whole thing running at 100%, at 50%  They alluded at things not running at full capacity  That is what she would like to see in writing as an example

Ms. Marcie McCoy, 285 Home Road, Delaware, Ohio 43015, stood at her seat and commented:  She was interested as a very close neighbor  Not just the generator sound  But in the sound that will be going on 24/7  She believed this is what the realtor was talking about in her neighborhood  Keeping that sound very, very low  As low as possible  And she meant as low as possible  She is interested in the generator sound; but she is very interested in the everyday sound

Ms. Knapp thought all the Trustees were interested in that also.

Cheryl Patton, 7111 Falls View Circle, Delaware, Ohio 43015 came forward and asked:  Will the noise be louder in the summer  Because as we heat up; you are going to have to keep the building cooler  Will there be more noise in the summer than in the winter

Mr. Ford responded:  That his general understanding is the building will keep on  The demand on the coolant will be as they take outside air and cool it as they run it through  It works just like a house  It is a very similar concept  His gut answer is yes but he wanted to quantify that with the number of days or periods  It is really weather dependant  They have talked about when the weather reaches its peak  It is simply a correlation of the water demand usage as a coolant  The engineer regarding that said that when it hits that peak for water cooling is 11 days a year  He wasn’t an engineer  In his civil mind how that would equate that there are about 11 days a year that it would

Ms. Patton continued  Now going back to a couple years to the summer we have had  July and August was really really hot

Ms. Knapp commented that she had a few more questions. Is it true that it is going to take 50% of the water from Delco.

Mr. Ford commented he didn’t think that was true. He referred it to Mr. Warner who commented he didn’t have the stats with him today and he really would rather not comment.

Ms. Knapp asked him to look that up for next time. He said he would. She felt it was a good point that a resident brought up. When we have a drought, you can’t even water the lawns, you would think that the facility would also suffer from that. She asked how security is going to be handled on this. There is some fear that it could be the site of some sort of an attack. It would be a great way to hit a community, by destroying data.

Mr. Ford responded:  The security he has experienced in the facility that he had visited is very high  As a visitor, he was only allowed to go in because his involvement with this  General public is not invited into these facilities  Their cyber security is very high  There is a lot of check ins; check through  You cannot take in electronics

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 They have all seen things about corporate espionage  Regarding the site security  There is a fence, not the wall the fence  It will circumvent the entire site  It is 12 foot tall  It is aluminum; but looks like rod iron fence  The illustration is in the packet  There is security 24/7 on site all throughout the facility

Ms. Knapp asked; these facilities that exist in other places, when she looked them up; they weren’t very attractive. On the east side of the property, will the ends of the buildings look like the rest of it.

Mr. Ford responded :  The illustrations that they showed them earlier looking from US23  They are actually using that same detail on the east and west sides  It is the short ends of the buildings  With the precast wall panels, mixed with the metal panels with the different bands on them

Ms. Knapp asked if there is going to be a wall along there on the east side.

Mr. Ford asked where she was pointing. Mr. Ford reviewed the illustration with Ms. Knapp and showed her everything that she was questioning.

Ms. Knapp commented:  Did he think it was possible,  Because she thought this was industrial  To enhance the sides of those buildings  So when you are driving down US23 it is not an eye sore  If it is now possible to build a mound and a fence where the neighbors are  Maybe that wouldn’t be necessary; or maybe it would be  But if you enhance it, maybe make it look like some of the industrial areas that do front onto the road  Like the Superkick facility or doing a retail  Because she really didn’t like that look  That was going to be right on US23  A lot of times our industrial uses are pushed back  She didn’t want to look like, well she isn’t going to say different areas  We are Orange Township not the city of Columbus  She wondered what were the caliber of trees that will be planted along by the neighbors  It probably says in here somewhere when they are first planted

Mr. Ferris commented that they will all be 2 ½ inch caliber deciduous trees; 8 to 10 foot height on all the evergreen trees.

Ms. Knapp asked if there was a reason this could not be placed in another part of the township. Was there another part of the township that was looked into.

Mr. Ford commented:  As Ms. Taranto commented earlier; the site provides the infrastructure that is needed to support this type of facility  On the east side of US23 is the railroad tracks  The potential for derailment  There are certain criteria that a data center known of this scale needs to maintain clear distance of potential hazards  And railroad tracks are one of those hazards

Ms. Knapp commented:  That residents had some questions  They may have been answered during the zoning commission meetings

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 But she wanted to go through them real quick  Possibly using some different type of technology for the diesel engines  She felt the diesel was a kind of outdated technology  Was there any thought to using any more modern technology  Like solar or fuel cells  Is there any thought to more sustainable and cost effective

Mr. Ford commented:  What they are using is high efficient equipment  The issue with the fuel cells  They have heard these comments at the meetings  They have talked to the engineers  The direction they are going is not to use fuel cells

Ms. Knapp commented:  There were concerns about access for fire vehicles and emergency vehicles  Because of access off US23  She is not sure that can be solved  There was a current question about the life expectancy of the facility  A lot of times a retail store will be real popular and thrive for years; then shut down and are abandoned  How do they think this kind of use will have sustainable life  It is not very aesthetic pleasing to be abandon after so many years; it could possibly be worse than an abandon shopping center

Mr. Ford commented:  He didn’t know if he could answer it  This particular end user is investing significant funds to create this facility  His impression is they will occupy this facility for some time based on that investment  No one has a crystal ball  He is working on sites in Columbus, the old Timken site is heading for new uses  The Lennox factory was a factory; now is a retail center  Sites change; needs change; demographics change  Who knows where is it going to go

Ms. Knapp commented:  She did agree they would be investing a lot of money  It would be sustainable for awhile  They would lose a lot of money  She wanted to reiterate that industrial uses are the best as far as having the least amount of fiscal impact  She did think in some ways this would have less of an impact on site  But that is mitigated unfortunately by the noise; possibly the aesthetic issues  She didn’t think that she could approve this without the assurance that the neighbors wouldn’t hear the constant droning  It would be unacceptable  Otherwise she felt it belonged in another area of the township  She would like to give the applicant another chance to come back and maybe make some modifications  She asked if they had met with their neighbors

Mr. Ford commented:  They had not  They have only dealt with them at planning commission meetings  It has been a very civil discourse  There has been no admonitory  Everyone has been extremely polite  They have asked reasonable questions  They have tried to give them the most reasonable information they have

Ms. Knapp commented: 39

Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

 Sometimes when applicants bring back new plans they sometimes meet with neighbors first to discuss it and involve them  Then some of the questions and concerns can be alleviated  A big part of this is that there are a lot of unknowns about this site  And that brings a lot of concerns by the people in general, sometimes it is good to alleviate that  She was disappointed that, they the trustees didn’t receive of the information on this, as far as the economic benefits to a facility like this and the township  She commented that the county commissioners or that the state of Ohio didn’t give the Board some sort of study on how this could benefit not just Orange Township but the State of Ohio  She knew that we have been losing jobs for awhile  She would love to have this because she thought it could help  And it was good for the economy  It is a great modern use  She felt she had to do a lot the research herself  That was a downside to that  That was all she had

Mr. Quigley commented:  It sounded like to him  That the applicant would like another stab at it

Mr. Ford commented yes, sir.

Mr. Quigley commented:  They would have to recess to another date and time  That may be a challenge right now with travel and spring break  He asked how long it would take the applicant

Mr. Ford thought it would take them at least a couple weeks, he wanted to do it right. He didn’t want to say next Wednesday, and then only have one third of the information they have been asked to provide.

There was a brief discussion between the applicant, the Board and Mr. McCarthy about a good date and time.

Rose Erjavec, 7051 Falls View Circle, Delaware, Ohio 43015 came forward. She commented:  He driveway would be right across from this little electrical facility; her kitchen sink window would look right out on it  She is concerned about all these issues  She appreciated they were trying to be very cooperative  She was worried about the electromagnetic forces coming out of all this added electricity around them; the emf factor no one has mentioned that  She was worried about the smell from the diesel fuel, she knew it would not affect everyone; but would affect her  She would like to know if these items would be an issue

Ms. Knapp asked Mr. Ford if those two items could be addressed now. He commented he could not at this time. Ms. Knapp asked if he could when he came back, he commented yes.

Mr. Quigley commented:  They were probably looking at the middle of April  The week of April 13, 2015

There was a discussion among Mr. McCarthy, the Board and the applicant. Mr. Ford agreed with the date.

Motion by Mr. Quigley to recess this hearing until, Monday, April 13, 2015, at 7:00 p.m. Seconded by Ms. Knapp. VOTE: Quigley – yes, Knapp – yes, Taranto – yes.

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Orange Township Trustees March 18, 2015; 6:00 p.m. Legislative Review

There was no further business, meeting adjourned at approximately 10:10 p.m.

______Robert W. Quigley, Chairman

______Deborah Taranto, Vice Chairman

______Lisa F. Knapp, Trustee

Attest: ______Joel M. Spitzer, Fiscal Officer

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