{"id":224863,"date":"2026-06-22T11:18:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/224863\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T11:18:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:18:36","slug":"allentown-city-council-to-hold-meeting-on-data-center-amendments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/224863\/","title":{"rendered":"Allentown City Council to hold meeting on data center amendments"},"content":{"rendered":"

One week after approving data center regulations, Allentown is already looking to strengthen those rules following pushback from the public who said the new law is too lenient.<\/p>\n

Council members will review amendments to its brand new data center ordinance at 5:45 p.m. Wednesday in City Hall.<\/p>\n

The new data center zoning ordinance, which passed Council by a 4-2 vote Wednesday following hours of public comment, allows data centers in two of the city\u2019s three \u201cindustrial\u201d zoning districts. Data centers are permitted by \u201cspecial exception\u201d only, which means that each proposal will receive a public hearing and vote by the city\u2019s zoning hearing board.<\/p>\n

Under the ordinance, data centers are not allowed within 75 feet of the right of way of a public street, or 200 feet of any residential, civic or childcare areas. The ordinance also requires robust landscaping around the perimeter, and thorough environmental, noise and waterway studies and reviews from the developer before any approval from the city.<\/p>\n

However, several anti-data center activists told City Council on Wednesday that they believe the new ordinance is too lenient<\/a>. The 200-foot buffer between residential areas is not enough, activists said, and the city should have more stringent requirements that would force data centers to use sustainable energy sources, keep noise to a minimum and limit possible pollution to the environment.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s agenda does not specify which specific amendments City Council plans to review. The city is subject to stringent requirements when amending its zoning code \u2014 it must issue a public notice at least 30 days in advance of a public hearing, which must happen before a vote. Zoning amendments also require review from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and Allentown Planning Commission.<\/p>\n

Allentown\u2019s data center discussions come as the city faces a proposal to convert a vacant warehouse at 2401 Emmaus Ave. in south Allentown into a data center.<\/a> The building is next to homes, local businesses and a nonprofit that helps chronically and terminally ill children.<\/p>\n

The new ordinance will have no effect on the Emmaus Avenue data center proposal because developers applied before it passed.<\/p>\n

Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One week after approving data center regulations, Allentown is already looking to strengthen those rules following pushback from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,153,155,154,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-224863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224863","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=224863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}