Penn Forest Township, Carbon County
A multi-building data center campus has been proposed for wooded land at Route 903 and Maury Road in Penn Forest Township, Carbon County; no end user has been named and no land development plan has been filed.
Tim Hendricks first came to Penn Forest supervisors in September 2025, saying he was under agreement to buy 750 acres at Route 903 and Maury Road, about four miles from the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway, for a data center. Mele Brothers Realty of Glenside, which owns land there, filed a substantive validity challenge arguing the township's zoning excluded data centers before it had defined them, and the Zoning Hearing Board reserved Penn's Peak for hearings. Township officials said the industrial area of about 50 acres, bordered by state game lands and Penn Forest Streams, wasn't enough to satisfy the law, so supervisors and solicitor Tom Nanovic drafted a curative overlay with planner Nanci Sarcinello. They held packed meetings at Penn's Peak on December 29, 2025 and January 12, 2026, hired Thornton Acoustics and Vibrations and BCD H2O Solutions, and held a public hearing on February 24, 2026. On March 2, before a full house at Penn's Peak where a local well driller testified the aquifer can't support a data center, supervisors voted 5-0 to adopt Ordinance 1 of 2026, a 45-page overlay with a 30-acre minimum lot, 1,000-foot setbacks, a 60-foot height limit plus 15 feet for rooftop equipment, a 50 percent cap on woodland disturbance, sound and vibration studies, lighting and visual impact plans, well protections, and the 10,000-gallon-a-day water threshold. News reports put the overlay at roughly 500 to 750 acres. A Zoning Hearing Board session on the challenge was set for March 23, residents sent supervisors a petition against the data center in April, Rep. Doyle Heffley urged siting on brownfields in June, and Save Carbon County said in September that the challenge had not been withdrawn. The next hearing is November 9, 2026.
Update, October 26, 2026. On September 1, 2026 the Penn Forest Township Zoning Hearing Board dismissed a resident's substantive validity challenge to the township's data center ordinance for lack of jurisdiction, finding that no data center plan had been submitted. The separate Mele Brothers challenge stayed pending.
A local well driller testified there isn't enough groundwater in the area for a data center. The ordinance requires a water feasibility study, well withdrawal information and an assessment of effects on the aquifer within an 'area of influence,' and wells within 3,000 feet can be tested if a claim is later made.
Times News OnlineThe overlay allows buildings up to 60 feet plus 15 feet of rooftop equipment and lets up to half of a site's woodlands be disturbed for non-residential uses, on wooded land zoned residential along Route 903 and Maury Road.
WVIAThe ordinance requires sound and vibration studies, and operators must post generator run times on a public website and announce routine tests at least 24 hours ahead.
WVIALeaders: Linda Christman (president)
Tactics: Testimony at township and Zoning Hearing Board meetings, weekly posts, guidance for residents on giving testimony
Says it is 'adamantly opposed to any data center in Penn Forest.' Mailing address PO Box 176, Kresgeville.
Tactics: Petition delivered to the Board of Supervisors
Acknowledged as correspondence at the April 6, 2026 supervisors meeting.
Argues the township's zoning excluded data centers before the township had defined or regulated them.
Mele Brothers Realty (challenger, attorney Matthew McHugh); Penn Forest Township (solicitor Thomas Nanovic); intervenors · Pending; hearing continues November 9, 2026In Pennsylvania, the local zoning ordinance sets the route. A conditional use is decided by the elected governing body (supervisors, commissioners or council). A special exception or variance, and an appeal of a zoning officer’s decision, go to the Zoning Hearing Board. Each is a public hearing on a record: affected neighbors can ask for party status, cross-examine witnesses, and appeal. Municipalities can also adopt data center ordinances with enforceable standards.
Know your rights →Organized community opposition is the single most effective check on these projects in Pennsylvania. Show up to hearings, submit comment when it is taken, support legal and expert-witness costs, and press your municipality for a real ordinance. Pennsylvania municipalities cannot simply freeze applications, but a curative amendment under the Planning Code gives them a defined window to fix a defective ordinance.
How communities push back →