{"id":238480,"date":"2026-07-08T15:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T15:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/238480\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T15:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T15:58:07","slug":"why-cant-lehigh-valley-towns-just-say-no-to-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/238480\/","title":{"rendered":"Why can’t Lehigh Valley towns just say no to data centers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not since the start of the Lehigh Valley warehouse boom a decade ago have development projects caused so much angst. Nobody, it seems, wants a large data center in their backyard.<\/a><\/p>\n

But the angry crowds who fill municipal meetings chanting \u201cjust say no\u201d may be wasting their collective breath, because town leaders don\u2019t have the power to ban a project just because residents don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania is a \u201cfair share\u201d state<\/p>\n

A 1968 law that created the Municipalities Planning Code, which gives local governments the power to enact zoning ordinances, requires that all types of zoning have a space.\u00a0 Because data centers are lawful, municipalities are legally required to provide space for them, typically in industrial-zoned districts.<\/p>\n

Towns can attempt to ban data centers, but that would be considered illegal exclusionary zoning, potentially opening the municipality up to expensive lawsuits.<\/p>\n

What else could happen?<\/p>\n

When a Pennsylvania municipality violates the fair share zoning doctrine, its zoning ordinance can be declared invalid in court. This strips the municipality of its authority to block the development.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened in 1977 to Upper Providence Township in Delaware County. A developer named Robert Surrick wanted to build townhouses on 22 acres of land he owned. Multifamily homes like apartments and townhomes were allowed in Upper Providence, but only in a 43-acre business district, which was less than 2% of the municipality\u2019s land and mostly developed.<\/p>\n

Surrick\u2019s application was denied, so he sued, complaining that the town\u2019s zoning was unconstitutional. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed, and invalidated that part of the town\u2019s zoning ordinance, making it impossible for Upper Providence to stop Surrick from building townhouses.<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t towns just change their zoning ordinances to thwart data center developers?<\/p>\n

Pressing a pause button and trying to rewrite zoning ordinances to exclude data centers may also be illegal. Under the law, if a developer submits a proper application while an ordinance is being rewritten, the municipality must review it under the laws that were in place at the time of submission.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Allentown\u2019s new ordinance, which limits where data centers can be built and requires a public hearing on each project, won\u2019t affect the proposed West Emmaus Avenue project.<\/a> Developers got their application in before the ordinance passed.<\/p>\n

\"SignsSigns opposing the Atlas Data Center line the roads Monday, June 8, 2026,\u00a0 in South Whitehall Township. (Monica Cabrera\/The Morning Call)
\nExtra, significant hurdles in the Lehigh Valley<\/p>\n

The Project Atlas data center near Parkland High School in South Whitehall Township, for example, is proposed for the township\u2019s Planned Innovation, Research and Technology overlay district.<\/a> This unique zoning feature permits data centers \u201cby right,\u201d allowing developers to bypass a zoning board hearing and move straight to the planning phase.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt essentially places the burden of proof on the municipality to prove that the developer does not meet the requirements of all applicable ordinances, laws and required permits,\u201d said Spurgeon J. Dunbar, a member of the South Whitehall Alliance<\/a>, a group formed to fight the data center.<\/p>\n

The PIRT zoning also makes it easier for data centers to repeatedly revise their plan if its rejected, Dunbar said. The Planning Commission will meet July 9 to review Project Atlas.<\/p>\n

Can lawmakers do anything?<\/p>\n

Besieged with pleas to stop data centers, lawmakers are pitching bills to halt or limit where the projects can be built. State Sen. Jarrett Coleman, R-Lehigh, in May introduced a package of bills in the state Senate and House along with Rep. Jamie Walsh, R-Luzerne, to repeal the 2021 tax break being given to data centers to locate in Pennsylvania and allow municipalities to place a moratorium on data center development applications. The bill recently advanced out of the Senate Local Government Committee.<\/p>\n

Coleman, who attended a packed zoning board hearing on the proposed data center at the former Air Products headquarters<\/a> in Upper Macungie Township and has held telephone town halls on the subject, has urged residents to keep up the fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you show up at meetings and you make public comment and tell them your personal stories, those are your elected officials who are sitting up there. They\u2019re going to have to see you in the community. You\u2019re a lot more influential than you think,\u201d Coleman told callers.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in other parts of the state are waging similar battles against data centers. The state House of Representatives on June 24 passed a bill that would empower local governments in Pennsylvania to place up to a six-month pause on their consideration of a data center application. If adopted, the law would allow municipalities to adopt, amend or repeal sections of their related land-use ordinances during the pause. Those changes would then apply to any projects submitted during the pause.<\/p>\n

The measure\u2019s sponsor, state Rep. Paul Friel, D-Chester, said the pause window would give local governments time to research, draft and pass comprehensive land-use ordinances pertaining to data centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill gives our local officials necessary breathing room to update these ordinances, evaluating demands like water and energy usage and other considerations related to protecting our communities from potential harms caused by data center development,\u201d Friel said.<\/p>\n

The bill is now with the state Senate for consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not since the start of the Lehigh Valley warehouse boom a decade ago have development projects caused so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-238480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-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\/238480","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=238480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}