SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. \u2014 A big crowd is expected in South Whitehall Township Thursday night for a highly anticipated meeting for a massive data center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The center is proposed for across from Parkland High School.<\/p>\n
The developers of the proposed Atlas Data Center are set to address the Planning Commission, making it the first time the public will hear directly from them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We think it’s going to be a long battle. We want to pack the house tonight,” said Laurie McShane.<\/p>\n
McShane and Greg Sussman are with the South Whitehall Civic Alliance, a recently formed nonprofit. Their goal? To halt a proposed 1.5-million-square-foot data center complex consisting of five buildings across 400 acres between Mauch Chunk Road and North Cedar Crest Boulevard, directly across the street from Parkland High School.<\/p>\n
“Why are we putting a data center across the street from the institution where we send every child in our township?” McShane asked.<\/p>\n
Neighbors have raised concerns over noise, potential pollution from diesel generators, and water usage. Sussman says the group isn’t opposed to data centers in general, but rather this specific location.<\/p>\n
“We’re at the planning stage, we’re not at zoning, where most of the other data centers have been defeated. So it makes our fight different,” Sussman said. “This is why we have onboarded a legal team, why we have onboarded technical experts.”<\/p>\n
Residents will have an opportunity to ask questions in person Thursday night as the developer publicly addresses the township during a Planning Commission meeting. Originally scheduled for June 11, the meeting was moved to Springhouse Middle School and begins at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
The proposal has ignited intense local debate. Sussman said his group sent out 19,000 flyers, while developers have also issued messages to residents. Developer Atlas declined to comment, but township officials stressed that no vote will take place Thursday.<\/p>\n
“We’re here to be the voice of the South Whitehall residents, and to fight this until we run out of funds or until we are successful,” Sussman said.<\/p>\n
Township officials said the earliest the plan could be voted on is Aug. 19, ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline. An extension could be granted if requested by the developer, though Sussman stressed that the alliance plans to take the matter to court if the township ultimately approves the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. \u2014 A big crowd is expected in South Whitehall Township Thursday night for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,232,43471,12874],"class_list":["post-239968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-area","tag-local_government","tag-zoning_planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239968","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=239968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}