Scranton to amend zoning to regulate data centers

Scranton issued a public notice Saturday announcing the city’s intent to regulate data centers.

The public notice in Saturday’s edition of The Times-Tribune said that council, at its meeting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, will introduce an amendment to the city’s 2023 zoning ordinance, “to amend provisions relating to data centers.” The public notice also referenced an Exhibit A as part of the proposed ordinance detailing the zoning amendment, and that it would be available to be obtained or reviewed at City Hall.

But the agenda for the council meeting posted Monday morning on the city website does not contain any such data center ordinance.

City Business Administrator Eileen Cipriani said the administration spoke with council President Tom Schuster last Monday about the zoning amendment and it was provided to council Wednesday. The city clerk then put the public notice in the newpaper, but Schuster apparently decided not to put the proposed ordinance on council’s agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.

Efforts were unsuccessful Monday to reach Schuster.

This development comes as Lackawanna County planning officials recently advised the Scranton-Abingtons Planning Association — a zoning collaboration including Scranton, Dunmore, Clarks Green, Clarks Summit, Dalton, Dunmore, Newton Twp., South Abington Twp. and West Abington Twp. — to address data centers on their own.

Municipalities must allow every lawful land use somewhere within their borders, including data centers. SAPA municipalities can share land uses. For example, because Dunmore has the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, none of the other SAPA communities have to allow landfills. But SAPA members have not had data centers outlined in their zoning, and a full SAPA update would take a few years to undertake and complete.

Data center development exploded last year in Lackawanna County and the broader Northeast Pennsylvania region. Locally, most of the proposed data centers are in the non-SAPA Midvalley and North Pocono areas.

There are 12 data center projects proposed in seven non-SAPA municipalities including: Archbald, 6; Dickson City, 1; Jessup, 2; Clifton/Covington townships, 1; Ransom Twp., 1; and Olyphant, 1.

As of last month, SAPA municipalities had not received formal applications for data centers, according to an article in The Times-Tribune. Cipriani also said there are no proposals for data centers in Scranton.

All SAPA member towns, as well as Olyphant, Moosic and Throop, are working on implementing data center standards.

Municipalities that have adopted data-center standards include Archbald, Blakely, Carbondale city, Clifton Twp., Covington Twp., Dickson City, Mayfield and Jessup.

The standards implemented by these towns generally have included: height restrictions; requirements for “will-serve” letters from water, electric and wastewater utilities confirming they have adequate capacity to serve a proposed data center; aesthetics and buffers regarding building facades, exteriors and setbacks; requirements for studies on water usage, environmental and sound impacts; whether a data center would be a conditional use or a special exception; and prohibiting on-site electricity generation to power a data center.

While municipalities frequently ban on-site power generation, like nuclear or natural gas plants, they allow data centers to use backup generators to ensure constant power in the event of an outage. Each individual data center building can have dozens of generators.

Most of the data centers proposed locally would be two stories tall with a footprint of approximately 150,000 square feet.

Scranton’s total area of 25.54 square miles is the fourth largest among Lackawanna County’s 40 municipalities. While Scranton had not had a data center proposal, city officials and residents have expressed concerns about data center proposals elsewhere in Lackawanna County potentially impacting the city in terms of stormwater runoff and water consumption.

In January, Cognetti and Lackawanna County Controller Gary DiBileo, who is president of the Keyser Valley Neighborhood Association in Scranton, were among those who attended a hearing in neighboring Ransom Township to oppose Scranton Materials LLC’s proposal for a data center on its property at 819 Newton Road. The city is concerned that a data center atop West Mountain could produce runoff swamping the city’s stormwater remediation investments and projects in the Keyser Valley. DiBileo also later testified at hearings in Archbald and Dickson City, expressing concerns about data centers.

Ransom rejected Scranton Materials’ proposal, but the firm has filed in Lackawanna County Court two legal actions, a zoning appeal and a lawsuit, aimed at overturning the denial. Both remain pending.

Meanwhile, the Wildcat Ridge data center project in Jessup, and the Project Gravity seven-building campus proposed in Archbald, aim to tap 3.3 million gallons and 360,000 gallons of water per day, respectively, for cooling from Lake Scranton, which is the source of drinking water for Scranton and several other municipalities in the county.

Frank Wilkes Lesnefsky, staff writer, contributed to this article.

Scranton City Hall on March 4, 2026. (JIM LOCKWOOD /...