A group of residents appealed Throop’s recently adopted data center zoning ordinance that conditionally allows the developments on hundreds of acres of conservation land, arguing the legislation benefits private interests over the public.

Using the name “Protectors of Water, Wildlife, Environment and Resources,” or POWER, the group filed two appeals Friday against Throop’s July 23 zoning amendment that defined and regulated data centers as conditional uses across a 351-acre overlay in an environmental conservation zoning district east of the Casey Highway. The appeals challenge the substantive and procedural validity of the legislation, taking the matter to both the Throop Zoning Hearing Board and the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas.

Attorney Donna Davis of Throop filed the appeals; they do not name the appellants but describe POWER, P.O. Box 160, La Plume, as “an unincorporated association consisting of landowners and residents of Throop and surrounding communities who represent other property owners who are aggrieved.” The mission of the group is “to protect the environment, water, air, wildlife, forests, resources, land, community, health, safety, welfare, quality of life and to oppose data centers and the like that seek to destroy the same and to oppose governing bodies and its representatives who do not act to protect the health, safety and welfare of its people, its citizens,” according to the appeals.

The filings ask county court to invalidate Throop’s data center zoning ordinance and for a hearing before the borough’s zoning hearing board to challenge the ordinance. Both appeals rely on 31 contentions against the ordinance, largely focusing on the underlying conservation zoning, the size of the overlay, impacts of data centers and a lack of benefits to the public.

Municipalities in Pennsylvania are required to allow for every type of lawful land use within their borders, or else they face legal challenges over exclusionary zoning. While Throop’s ordinance contains a comprehensive set of standards governing data centers, residents have pushed back against the use of a 351-acre overlay district on top of an environmental conservation zoning district. Theta Land Corp. owns the land; Keystone Sanitary Landfill co-owner Louis DeNaples most recently signed an easement agreement last year as the president of Theta.

“Borough council has unanimously abandoned their role as representatives of the citizens of the borough of Throop and handed it over to private interests and solicitors representing conflicting parties,” Davis wrote in the appeal, later adding, “The Ordinance as written invites large behemoth data centers into a small community of Throop that does not have the resources to share with the overwhelming and unclear needs of a data center or multiple data centers.”

Throop officials have previously defended the location, contending both the landfill and Casey Highway would act as buffers between any data centers and the community.

Although rarely used in the past, local municipalities have increasingly turned to “overlays” to govern data centers. An overlay retains the underlying land use while allowing a new use, like data centers, on top of it within a designated area, rather than rezoning the land or broadly allowing data centers across an entire zoning district.

As conditional uses, proposals are subject to a lengthy public hearing process where developers have to testify about their projects while abiding by conditions established by the municipality. Impacted residents have the ability to cross-examine data center representatives and testify. Council will then consider whether to approve or deny a conditional use application.

The arguments in the appeals include:

•The ordinance was adopted to benefit a private interest rather than the general public.

•Council and planning commission members abandoned their role under the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code and breached their fiduciary duty to the Throop community.

•The ordinance violates the Environmental Rights Amendment of the Pennsylvania Constitution; Throop officials breached their duties under the amendment by failing to conduct a detailed analysis of the potential impacts of data centers before approving and enacting the ordinance.

•The ordinance unreasonably impairs the environment.

•The ordinance creates concerns about the preservation of open space, potential depletion of water resources, increased energy costs, dwindling energy supplies, lack of clean air and nuisances associated with the development of 351 acres of data centers.

•The ordinance does not protect the conservation/environmental land in Throop.

•No evidence was offered showing how Throop residents or surrounding communities would benefit from 351 acres of environmental land turned over to data centers.

•Throop previously gave up environmental land for industrial use, and the ordinance “would eliminate all environmental land in a once pristine environmental area.”

The filings also raise concerns about the potential of allowing data centers on an additional 442 or so acres of surrounding land.

Throop Zoning and Code Enforcement Officer Andy Hegedus said Wednesday that the appeals had been turned over to the borough’s attorneys for review.