SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa.- South Whitehall Township’s zoning officer has recommended against the latest version of a proposed data center campus across the street from Parkland High School.<\/p>\n
A zoning review of the project issued less than two weeks ago\u00a0by Kent Baird, South Whitehall’s zoning officer and director of development, said the plans have “missing and incomplete information, (and a) lack of complete review information to base decisions on.”<\/p>\n
The official recommendation, according to the review, is denial on the basis of non-compliance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Thursday, South Whitehall Township’s planning commission will meet to review the proposal, dubbed Project Atlas.<\/p>\n
As 69 News previously reported, plans for the 410-acre project changed in recent months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The original plan called for six buildings totaling 5,038,100 square feet; the newest submission shows three data center buildings, one administration building, and one warehouse building, for a total of\u00a01,556,702 square feet.<\/p>\n
Also, the anticipated permanent workforce was reduced from 440 to 250 employees. The original plan showed 966 parking spaces; the latest proposal has 399.<\/p>\n
The 410 acres, currently owned by Jeras Corporation, represents a combination of three parcels: 2493 N. Cedar Crest Boulevard, 2807 N. Cedar Crest Boulevard, and 2747 N. Cedar Crest Boulevard.<\/p>\n
The land is mostly undeveloped agricultural fields with Parkland High School to the west, a chemical manufacturing company to the south, and homes to the north.<\/p>\n
The zoning officer’s 43-page review is part of a larger, 161-page file that details the many submissions, reviews and back-and-forth between representatives for the developers-\u00a0CDE Acquisitions, LLC- and the township, since an initial review of the project in February raised many questions and concerns.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The latest review also identified a myriad of shortcomings, points needing clarification, or examples of non-compliance with township code.<\/p>\n
For example, Hanover Engineering noted the site’s karst geology, which includes “numerous closed depressions and two ‘surface pits.'”\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Numerous additional karst features have been directly observed on site by this office which are not provided on the plans, including a third surface pit near the center of the site,” the firm wrote in its report.<\/p>\n
An electrical consultant found that the lighting plan submitted with the proposal does not comply with township ordinance because it includes fixtures that would be facing adjacent residential properties, instead of away.<\/p>\n
4ward Planning Inc. identified four major issues in the project’s financial analysis, noting that its reduced footprint is “materially inconsistent with the unchanged $9 billion construction budget and 725 MW (megawatt) power capacity, producing a construction cost per square foot and an equipment intensity that are not credible at the stated scale.”<\/p>\n
The $9 billion figure, the firm noted, translates to a construction cost of approximately $5,696 per square foot, which is approximately three times the high end of the range for a project of this type, and “is not credible for any documented data center project.”<\/p>\n
The zoning officer’s review pointed out that the plan proposes a warehouse, which is not a permitted accessory use of a data center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition, the proposal identifies hundreds of emergency diesel fueled generators. But, “Because the applicant has not provided proof that smoke, dust, dirt, fumes, odors, noise, heat, glare, vibrations, radio-activity, electrical disturbances, radio disturbances, or magnetic disturbances will not be emitted beyond the lot lines and in such a manner that will not be a nuisance or injurious, the applicant\u2019s submission is not compliant with the ordinance,” the officer wrote, in his review.<\/p>\n
The township is also seeking clarification on how the developer will bring power to the site. It was previously announced that PPL Electric planned to build a new substation just north of 4359 Huckleberry Road, which would sit between existing 500 kV and 138 kV transmission lines. New transmission lines would run east parallel to Iron Bridge Road across the Jordan Creek, and then across the intersection of Ritter Road and Cedar Crest Boulevard.<\/p>\n
“The applicant will continue to provide updates regarding the substation \u2018PPL is planning on building,\u2019” the zoning officer wrote.<\/p>\n
Another issue: while the project site is within the township’s\u00a0PIRT (Planned Innovation, Research, and Technology) District, where data centers are permitted by right, as of May 30, when the zoning report was completed, the developer still had not provided a notarized letter from the landowner, providing consent to participate in the PIRT District, which is required by the township ordinance.<\/p>\n
The South Whitehall Township Planning Commission will meet on Thursday, June 11 at 7 p.m. at 4444 Walbert Avenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Project Atlas is one of four projects on the agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa.- South Whitehall Township’s zoning officer has recommended against the latest version of a proposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,28,664],"class_list":["post-215007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-south-whitehall-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215007","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=215007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}