RANSOM TOWNSHIP, PA \u2014 A controversial proposal to transform a stone quarry into a high-tech data center campus has stalled after the Ransom Township Board of Supervisors denied a zoning application from Scranton Materials LLC. The 2-1 decision, delivered during a packed Tuesday evening meeting, followed a hearing where two township officials noted a lack of expert testimony and evidentiary support from the developer.<\/p>\n
Scranton Materials had been seeking a “zoning overlay” for its property at 819 Newton Road. This legal designation would have allowed the developer to bypass existing land-use restrictions to build large-scale facilities designed to house server banks for artificial intelligence and cloud computing. However, the Board of Supervisors dismissed the request, citing the applicant’s failure to present a complete case or provide the necessary witnesses to justify the significant change to the township\u2019s zoning map.<\/p>\n
The denial comes as a major relief to a number of residents of the neighboring Keyser Valley section of Scranton. Although the proposed site sits within Ransom Township, it is located directly “uphill” from one of the city\u2019s most flood-prone neighborhoods. Residents and environmental advocates had raised concerns that the construction of massive “impervious” surfaces\u2014such as roofs and paved parking lots\u2014would lead to increased stormwater runoff. This runoff would naturally flow down the mountain into Lindy Creek, potentially overwhelming the $23 million in flood mitigation projects currently being installed by the City of Scranton to protect homeowners on Frink Street and Dewey Avenue.<\/p>\n
While the dismissal represents a setback for the developer, it does not necessarily end the project permanently. Scranton Materials has the option to “regroup” and submit a more robust application in the future; however, any new proposal would face the same scrutiny from local residents and officials who remain wary of the industrialization of the ridge. For now, the decision reinforces a growing trend across Lackawanna County, where municipalities like Dickson City, Blakely, and Clifton Township are actively tightening zoning laws to regulate the rapid expansion of the data center industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RANSOM TOWNSHIP, PA \u2014 A controversial proposal to transform a stone quarry into a high-tech data center campus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-92805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-scranton","9":"tag-scranton-headlines","10":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92805","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=92805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}