Three months after a developer appealed Newton Twp.’s denial of plans for a data center, officials have yet to schedule a hearing on the issue — something that could lead to a claim that the plans are deemed approved.

Popca LLC filed an appeal of Zoning Officer Scot Haan’s decision in March denying plans for the data center campus with two buildings on a nearly 76-acre property on Newton Road.

The first hearing for any application or appeal must be held within 60 days from the day it was received by a municipality, according to the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code. If a governing body fails to make a decision within that time period, the decision is deemed to be in favor of the applicant unless they agree to an extension.

The zoning hearing board was set to hear the appeal in April, but the developer requested a continuance and the meeting was canceled.

Township Secretary Francine Fawcett said the developer requested to continue the hearing to a later date. As of Wednesday, township officials had not set a new hearing date.

Contacted this week, Zoning Hearing Board Chairman Keith Eckel said he wasn’t aware whether Popca LLC had requested a new date. Asked if the application could be deemed approved, he said he wasn’t familiar with that situation.

“My belief was that it was they who requested a delay and my belief is that it’s their responsibility to reschedule their hearing,” Eckel said. He said the board has not seen any application materials from the developer.

Efforts to reach Popca LLC representatives for information on the status of the project and whether it was extended were unsuccessful.

Archbald I LLC issued a public notice in April of a “deemed approval” of its Project Scott campus of 18 data centers in Archbald, claiming that under state law and the borough zoning code its proposal automatically gained borough approval in March because the borough council missed a deadline to complete a required hearing on the conditional use application. That motion is the subject of several ongoing lawsuits.

The Popca LLC proposal, filed by Mark Gawron, seeks a zoning permit to build two data center buildings, each 35 feet high, 660 feet long and 220 feet wide. Each of the proposed buildings has a footprint of 145,200 square feet, according to the application.

The plans also call for two generation yards, a well, septic tank, substation, guard building and two stormwater management facilities. Gawron stated in the application the project will cost $280 million. It does not specify how the proposed data center campus will be powered or cooled, or how loud it will be.

Newton Twp. is the first municipality in the Scranton-Abingtons Planning Association, a zoning collaborative that allows municipalities to share land uses, to navigate a data center proposal. The collaborative is composed of Clarks Green, Clarks Summit, Dalton, Dunmore, Newton Twp., South Abington Twp., Waverly Twp., West Abington Twp. and Scranton.

Gawron filed the application with the township in January. Haan denied his request in February because as a commercial land use, it is not allowed in the township — adding that as a member of the SAPA, Newton Twp. does not not have heavy commercial or industrial uses. The property is located in the township’s rural resource zoning district.

William and Brian Vinsko, the attorneys representing Gawron, appealed Haan’s decision in March, arguing it improperly excludes a legitimate land use, including data center development, in violation of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code.

The attorneys claim the proposed use of the site for data center facilities and related infrastructure is similar to existing township zoning, which allows for commercial, institutional, utility-related or light industrial uses.

Normally, municipalities have to allow every type of land use within their boundaries, but a collaborative like SAPA requires only one municipality to allow a land use like data centers — meaning only one municipality in SAPA has to agree to accept them. For instance, because Dunmore has the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, none of the other SAPA communities have to allow landfills.

No municipality in SAPA has data centers outlined in their zoning, and there is also no language outlining data centers in the current SAPA comprehensive plan.