A lawsuit by the developer proposing the Project Scott campus of 18 data centers in Archbald seeks to overturn borough council\u2019s rejection of the plan on several grounds, including violation of due process and predetermined opposition.<\/p>\n
The plaintiff, Archbald I LLC of Dallas, Texas, and incorporated in Delaware, filed a land-use appeal lawsuit Friday in Lackawanna County Court against the Archbald Borough Council.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit claims council, in its March 27 vote rejecting the proposal, \u201cviolated the procedural requirements of the state Municipalities Planning Code, abused its discretion, erred as a matter of law and acted in bad faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
The land at issue is composed of 14 parcels on about 400 acres along Eynon Jermyn Road and Business Route 6, and bordering Staback Park.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit recounts key events as follows:<\/p>\n
\u2022 On Dec. 16, the company submitted a conditional use application to build the data center campus.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Council opened a hearing on Feb. 11 but did not complete it, and continued it to March 19.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Following the Feb. 11 session, the deadline under law to hold the next hearing was March 30, unless both sides agreed to an extension.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Before the March 19 hearing was held, it was rescheduled \u201cby agreement of developer and Borough Council\u201d to March 23.<\/p>\n
\u2022 But council on March 23 canceled that session because it \u201chad not been properly noticed,\u201d as required under state law. The borough asked Archbald I LLC for an extension, and the \u201cdeveloper declined to grant this request.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Council held a special meeting on March 27 and voted to deny the conditional use application for the data center campus. \u201cThis was, ostensibly, an attempt to avoid a deemed approval\u201d of the application that would trigger if the hearing would not get completed by the deadline. Council also issued a written decision on March 27 of the rejection vote based on an incomplete record.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the borough Council\u2019s written decision was issued within 45 days of the initial hearing, it was not issued after the \u2018last hearing\u2019 because a \u2018last\u2019 or \u2018final\u2019 hearing was never held,\u201d the lawsuit claims.<\/p>\n
That constituted a violation of the company\u2019s fundamental due process rights, because the governing body\u2019s decision must be based on the record developed at the hearing, and \u201cHere, the hearing was not completed,\u201d according to the lawsuit. \u201cA decision rendered on an incomplete record is, by definition, arbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council\u2019s \u201cattempt to pressure appellant into agreeing to an extension of time to cure the borough\u2019s own procedural failure, and then penalizing appellant for declining to do so constitutes bad faith and an abuse of power,\u201d the lawsuit claims.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the suit alleges that certain members of borough leadership \u2014 not identified by name in the lawsuit \u2014 demonstrated a predetermined opposition to the application. Council appointed a planning commission member \u201cwho publicly led the opposition to this and other data center projects,\u201d and shared this opposition on \u201cCBS Sunday Morning,\u201d a national news show, prior to appointment to the planning commission. That person now is in a position to act on the commission in opposition to the developer\u2019s proposal, which also is subject to planning commission review, the lawsuit argues.<\/p>\n
And council\u2019s ousting of the prior leadership of council further evidences \u201cinstitutional manipulation for a predetermined outcome,\u201d the suit claims.<\/p>\n
The borough has not yet formally replied to the lawsuit in court. Efforts on Wednesday to reach the borough solicitor were unsuccessful. Borough council President Louis Rapoch declined to comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit does not specifically mention the following related events:<\/p>\n
\u2022 On March 20, an attorney for the developer requested a rescheduling of the next meeting, because the project manager had a family vacation; and that the attorney also acknowledged, \u201cThis creates some procedural, due process and planning hurdles\u201d for the borough. The borough agreed to reschedule and then intended to hold the follow-up hearing on March 23.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The borough solicitor\u2019s law office submitted to The Times-Tribune on March 5 a public notice to run March 8 and 15 legally advertising a hearing to be held March 23. But that March 23 hearing, which would have been the required second hearing within 45 days, did not take place. The borough canceled it because the public notices advertising the hearing did not run in The Times-Tribune due to a newspaper clerical error.<\/p>\n
\u2022 On March 25, the borough solicitor explained the clerical error in an email to the developer\u2019s attorney and requested an extension for the next hearing. But the attorney refused, saying in an email, \u201cApplicant declines to be strong-armed into agreeing to an extension.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on Friday, Archbald I LLC also issued a public notice in The Times-Tribune of a \u201cdeemed approval\u201d claiming that under law the campus proposal automatically gained borough approval by virtue of the missed deadline to complete the hearing. Any legal challenge to this claim of deemed approval must get filed in Lackawanna County Court within 30 days of the second publication of the public notice of the deemed decision. This notice did not state when the second notice would run in the newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lawsuit by the developer proposing the Project Scott campus of 18 data centers in Archbald seeks to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2117,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-179647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-archbald","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}