As data center projects begin to proliferate through Northeast Pennsylvania, a developer proposes constructing a nearly three-dozen-building data center campus in Clifton and Covington townships, challenging the validity of Clifton’s data center zoning while Covington moves to enact legislation governing the high-tech facilities.
Operating as 1778 Rich Pike LLC, a Doylestown-based firm wants to build 34 data centers fueling artificial intelligence across just under 1,000 acres divided between Clifton and Covington townships on either side of Interstate 380 just north of Clifton Beach Road. The proposal quickly drew opposition from some residents.
The plan
Each building would be approximately 125,000 square feet per floor with a maximum of three floors, amounting to an estimated $14.25 billion-plus investment, said attorney Tony Maras, who represents the developer. Covington Twp.’s proposed ordinance would cap the maximum height of each building at 120 feet while allowing up to 200 feet for water towers and power generation facilities. Clifton Twp. adopted a data center ordinance in May, which the developer is challenging, that limits the buildings to 35 feet — a height Maras said is too low to allow for enough cooling and airflow.
The data center campus could use up to 1.5 gigawatts of electricity by tapping into PPL’s 230-kilovolt power lines running through the property. One gigawatt is equal to about 100 million LED light bulbs, half of the power generated at the Hoover Dam or roughly the same power as 2,000 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 engines, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Although Maras was not involved with the project when the property was selected, he attributed the site selection to proximity to the power lines, proximity to high-speed fiber optic data lines and accessibility to a technically skilled and trade-skilled workforce in the Lackawanna County area. Typically, a data center campus this size would employ 400 to 500 workers, in addition to support jobs like electricians, plumbers, roofers and other specialized trades, he said. Based on current valuation assumptions, current assessment assumptions and current millage rates, the data centers could generate an estimated $60 million to $85 million per year in “net fiscal benefit” to Covington and Clifton townships, the North Pocono School District and Lackawanna County, Maras said.
If it clears local zoning, the entire project will take seven to nine years to complete, building two to four data centers at a time, Maras said.
The developer approached both townships at the same time, he said.
“Covington expressed a willingness to work and work toward an ordinance,” he said. “Clifton drafted their own ordinance and then tried to publish it. That’s the matter of the debate.”
Former Clifton Twp. Supervisor June Ejk, who served 12 years on the board of supervisors until 2023, helped launch a “Concerned Clifton Citizens” Facebook page in February in light of a warehouse proposal, and the page now shares news and information on the data center development.
“One of the obligations that every supervisor, every planning board member, every zoning board member is obligated in the state of Pennsylvania is to consider public safety, public health and welfare,” Ejk said. “Putting a data center in our community does not show a concern for those obligations of those boards.”
In light of the proposal, both Clifton Twp. and Covington Twp. sought to amend their zoning to address data centers by defining them and making them conditional uses, which would require the project to satisfy certain conditions for approval, like noise restrictions, height restrictions, water studies, setbacks from residential properties and buffers.
In Covington Twp., 1778 Rich Pike LLC filed a zoning district application to rezone seven parcels from rural residential to a data center, energy and technology district, according to a public notice published June 26 in The Times-Tribune. As part of its zoning application, the developer included a proposed ordinance, said township Solicitor Joel Wolff. While the township used some elements of the proposed ordinance from the developer, Wolff said the ordinance supervisors will vote on is substantially different.
For example, the proposed ordinance suggested allowing data centers by right, but township supervisors wanted data centers to be conditional uses — which means if the ordinance is adopted, 1778 Rich Pike would still be required to apply for a zoning permit and meet the conditions established by the township, Wolff said.
As part of its proposed zoning amendment, Covington Twp. would add small modular reactors, or SMRs, to its zoning, requiring approval as special exceptions. SMRs are a class of small nuclear fission reactors designed to be built in a factory, shipped to operational sites for installation and then used to power buildings or other commercial operations, according to the ordinance. SMRs are advanced reactors envisioned to vary in size from tens to hundreds of megawatts; they are currently under licensing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and will likely be deployed in the late 2020s to early 2030s, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
There are no current plans in the foreseeable future to use nuclear generation, Maras said.
The concerns
Ejk worried about the impact 34 data centers could have on the aquifers supplying the townships with water. Neither town has a public water system, requiring residents to have their own wells.
“You could literally drain all of the water aquifers from these wells,” she said.
She also criticized the deforestation caused by building the campus across nearly 1,000 acres and how it would impact wildlife. She pointed out that there are two watersheds on the property — the Lehigh River and Roaring Brook — and the proposed site is adjacent to nearly 800 acres of land in the Pocono Heritage Land Trust.
“The Poconos have always tried to attract tourists, and now you’re building warehouses and data centers,” Ejk said. “You’re making us an industrial area; you’re not reserving the natural beauty that you advertise the Poconos to have.”
In Covington Twp., the proposed data center zoning ordinance would include conditions for comprehensive water and sound studies paid for by the developer, Wolff said, explaining the water analysis would include every well in the area of the data centers.
“Those are provisions that are going to protect the community because there’s a baseline,” he said. “Before their shovel hits the ground, they’re going to have a baseline of what the sound was before they did anything, what the water usage was before they did anything.”
To source water to cool the data centers’ computers and service the campus, Maras said the developer has discussed using gray water from Covington Twp.’s sewer treatment plant, including potentially reimbursing the township to double the capacity of the plant.
If the data centers use well water, they likely wouldn’t use the water for cooling beyond initially filling the cooling systems, instead using the wells for potable water, Maras said. There could be one centralized well for all buildings or individual wells for each, he said. The data centers could also truck in water, he added.
“The developer just wants to have a fair hearing on this, and for people to have an open mind,” Maras said. “This zoning change is like receiving an invitation. There’s a lot more work that has to be done before these things are ever built.”
On April 17, 1778 Rich Pike filed a substantive validity challenge with the Clifton Twp. Zoning Hearing Board seeking relief to build a data center campus by contending that the township’s zoning ordinance unlawfully excluded data centers and power generation within the township. Municipalities in Pennsylvania are required to provide for every type of lawful land use somewhere within their borders, from data centers to power plants.
The following month, on May 22, Clifton Twp. supervisors adopted an ordinance amending Clifton’s zoning by defining data centers and adding them as conditional uses in the township’s industrial zoning district. Maras noted that much of the land proposed for the data centers in Clifton Twp. already falls into an industrial zone; most of the Clifton site east of Interstate 380 is zoned industrial, as well as some of the land west of the interstate, he said.
However, on June 20, 1778 Rich Pike LLC and JCO LLC, 207 Drinker Turnpike, Covington Twp. — which is the legal owner of a large chunk of the proposed data center land — filed a procedural validity challenge against Clifton Twp. in the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas that asked the court to declare the data center ordinance void due to procedural issues, according to the challenge filed by Philadelphia-based attorney Matthew J. McHugh of Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg LLP. Joseph Occhipinti signed the paperwork as an authorized representative of JCO.
In the lawsuit, McHugh wrote that the board of supervisors violated Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act by failing to properly post an agenda 24 hours ahead of the May 22 special meeting to adopt the ordinance, and the township violated the state Municipalities Planning Code by failing to have its planning commission review the ordinance at a public meeting, among other contentions. The township posted the May 22 agenda on its website sometime after May 27, according to the procedural challenge.
Covington Twp. supervisors will hold a zoning hearing to consider their data center zoning amendment on July 24 at 6 p.m. at the pavilion at Moffat Estate, 20 Moffat Drive.
Clifton Twp.’s zoning hearing board will hear the substantive challenge on July 29.