Pennsylvania town lists 43 specific demands to approve new AI data center project — developer calls local demands ‘too difficult’ as council slams response as ‘approval by tantrum’
Plymouth Township, which sits roughly 13 miles to the north of Philadelphia, said that it will approve a new data center project on the condition that it meets 43 specific demands. While Pennsylvania state law prohibits blocking a landowner from using their property lawfully, Ars Technica says that townships can impose zoning restrictions and health and safety regulations. Because of this, Plymouth created a nine-page plan that covers everything from noise, light, and air pollution, to water and power use, as well as land use, taxes, and even future decommissioning of the data center.
Many jurisdictions would have just outright rejected or delayed the data center project, which is owned by Brian O’Neill, but Plymouth Township decided to go in a different direction. It still allowed the application to go through, as not doing so would expose the local government to legal action, but gave the developer the outlined demands (listed in pages 4 to 12 of this PDF) that it needs to meet to get the green light from its people. The township said that the applicant initially showed that they would implement that township’s provisions, which were derived from the demands of its residents.
“The Council can, should, and will do everything in its power to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of the Township, our environment, and our residents. This is always our top priority,” Council President Lynne Viscio said in a statement. “We understand that a hyperscale data center raises numerous significant concerns, issues, and questions. Accordingly, we spent considerable time researching and developing a comprehensive set of requirements to address the concerns raised by residents, our own concerns, and the issues raised by other subject matter experts.”
Unfortunately, the data center developer rejected the concerns after seeing the breakdown of demands. It then filed a second application challenging the provisions set in the zoning ordinance, saying that they make building the project “too difficult” for the developer. Plymouth Township did not look kindly upon this, saying it “is a blatant attempt by the Applicant to demand approval by tantrum.” It’s currently unclear how Plymouth Township will move forward with the issue, with the application currently awaiting approval from the Zoning Hearing Board.
As for O’Neill, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the accusations of was part of a “misinformation campaign” against his project, and that he has been “negotiating in good faith” with the township’s attorney and had even agreed to most of the provisions. “We are sympathetic to the fact that they are under tremendous political scrutiny from people outside the township, as well as residents inside the township, and that makes giving a landowner their property rights … challenging,” he told the local newspaper. “However, I am a landowner, and I do have rights, and it is their job to be impartial and fair in their analysis and response.”
These requirements are meant to prevent the various challenges that other communities face with data center deployments. Examples of these include a Michigan data center generating noise 24/7 that has been affecting residents for over two years, PJM Interconnection, the U.S.’s largest power region, hiking electricity prices by 76% due to AI demand, a Meta data center contaminating a city’s reclamation water supply, and Elon Musk’s Colossus 2 data center facing a lawsuit for its unpermitted natural gas turbines spewing nitrogen oxides and other pollutants.
