A local developer challenging Dickson City to build four data centers across Bell Mountain filed a new land-use appeal and amended another this month as it seeks to invalidate the borough’s zoning regulations for data centers.

Dickson City Development LLC — a firm linked to Kriger Construction Inc. —  filed its latest appeal Aug. 7 against Dickson City and its council, arguing that the borough’s Feb. 12 zoning ordinance regulating data centers should be declared void. The filing was submitted through Lackawanna County’s court system and requests either judicial review and annulment, or alternatively remanding it back to the borough. The appeal addresses the Dickson City Zoning Hearing Board and concludes by asking the board — not the court — to invalidate, annul and remand the ordinance back to the borough.

The appeal is Dickson City Development’s latest challenge to Dickson City’s data center regulations in a bid to build four data centers on the mountainside above Business Route 6. Dickson City allows data centers as special exceptions in its light manufacturing zoning district, which limits developments to Enterprise Street near Eagle Lane and undeveloped land southeast of Railroad Street. As special exceptions, any applications will be considered by the zoning hearing board.

Three days prior on Aug. 4, Dickson City Development, 99 Power Blvd., Archbald, filed an amended, consolidated appeal under a different docket in county court. The Aug. 4 appeal supersedes a previous filing and addresses a zoning denial in May.

Attorney Michael Mey of Mey & Sulla LLP in Dunmore represents Dickson City Development in the appeals.

Other firms linked to Kriger Construction, operating as a trio of limited liability companies named Dickson City Power One, Two and Three, applied to build three natural gas power plants on Bell Mountain, coinciding with the locations of the data centers. The power plants would collectively produce a projected 600 megawatts of electricity. Those proceedings were postponed last month to give Dickson City Power time to conduct a mandatory environmental assessment. Kriger-affiliated companies also propose the nearly 620,000-square-foot Project Boson data center on Eynon Jermyn Road in Archbald, and a roughly 400-megawatt Essential Energy LLC natural gas power plant across the street.

Dickson City Development has so far been unsuccessful with its appeals to the Dickson City Zoning Hearing Board.

The board unanimously voted May 20 to deny an appeal from the developer that challenged the substantive validity of Dickson City’s data center zoning ordinance. The following week, on May 27, the board voted four times to deny four individual appeals from Dickson City Development, each pertaining to a separate, denied zoning permit for its data centers.

Dickson City Development initially filed its four zoning permit applications Jan. 13 for data centers on Bell Mountain. Borough Zoning Officer James Damski denied the applications on Feb. 17, prompting the appeal and triggering the hearing

The Aug. 7 appeal references those four properties, and the preceding Aug. 4 filing directly appeals the May 20 decision.

A timeline of Dickson City Development’s filings in Lackawanna County Court:

• The developer filed a land-use appeal against the borough and its council on March 13 in the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas, seeking to overturn Dickson City’s data center zoning ordinance.

• The company filed a new land-use appeal June 22, largely restating the arguments in its March 13 appeal. However, the appeal also challenges the then-unwritten May 20 decision from the zoning hearing board.

• Dickson City Development files an amended, consolidated land-use appeal Aug. 4. It is filed under the docket created with the June 22 appeal, though the document indicates it supersedes the original March 13 appeal.

• The developer filed its latest appeal Aug. 7  through county court, but it describes the appeal as being before the Dickson City Zoning Hearing Board.

Dickson City Development’s newest filing largely restates its arguments from previous appeals on March 13 and June 22, alleging the borough’s data center zoning ordinance is invalid because of: procedural noncompliance and defects, vagueness and internal inconsistency, unlawful delegation of legislative authority, a lack of uniform standards and equal application, substantive unreasonableness, and it is so restrictive to data centers that it is de facto exclusionary.

However, the appeal diverges from the previous filings by incorporating Dickson City Development’s four zoning permit applications for data centers, and the developer’s subsequent appeals when the borough’s zoning officer denied them.

From west to east, the four proposals are:

• A 147,000-square-foot footprint data center near residences on Bell Mountain just east of McLean Street. The land is owned by Mountainview DC Realty LLC, 859 Enterprise St., Dickson City.

• A 107,820-square-foot footprint data center just above Cold Spring Road on land owned by Fore Up Realty, 859 Enterprise St., Dickson City. Kriger Construction President Jim Marzolino signed an assignment of rents and leases as the manager of Fore Up last year, according to the document recorded with the Lackawanna County recorder of deeds on March 25, 2025.

• A 147,000-square-foot footprint data center on the Circle Drive-In’s property above Business Route 6. Scranton Circle Drive In Company Inc., 11 Hendrick Lane, Carbondale, owns the property.

• A 147,000-square-foot footprint data center on a parcel east of the drive-in on land owned by HFS Realty, 1501 Albright Ave., Scranton.

The Aug. 7 appeal contends the four permit applications were denied based on the pending ordinance doctrine, which essentially gives a municipality a window to apply upcoming zoning regulations to a project if the developer applies while the new ordinance is still being prepared.  It describes the zoning permit appeals as pending before the zoning hearing board, though the board voted to deny those appeals in May.

Both the Aug. 4 consolidated appeal and new Aug. 7 appeal seek to invalidate Dickson City’s Feb. 12 data center ordinance. The former appeal asks the court to reverse the zoning hearing board’s denial of its validity challenge, or to remand it back to either the board or the borough. The latter appeal asks the zoning hearing board to remand the matter back to the borough.