A proposal to make an East Whiteland data center 60% bigger will be considered by the town’s supervisors after a fiery planning commission meeting

The East Whiteland planning commission on Monday stopped short of fully recommending that the township’s board of supervisors approve an amended plan that would increase the footprint of a data center to more than 1.6 million square feet.

The amended plan would increase the overall size of a data center slated for the border of the township and neighboring West Whiteland on Swedesford Road.

Monday’s meeting was a second attempt to consider the revised plan after the commission was forced to halt a February meeting when too many people showed up and exceeded occupancy.

The recommending body sought to pass along further decision-making to the township’s elected officials, saying in their recommendation that the plan is in compliance with local ordinances, its waivers were supported by professional consultants, and it adhered to zoning allowances made years previously. The commission also recommended, given the proposed changes, that the board revisit the initial application for the data center.

The vote to move the proposal along to the board of supervisors without a full-throated recommendation passed the seven-person commission, after hours of charged public comment that repeatedly rose to yelling and barbs.

It was seen as a positive step for many residents, who showed up in the hundreds on Monday to largely oppose a sizable amendment to a previously approved plan, pleading with planning commission members to recommend rejecting the amendment and restarting the process because it was a significant change to the original application.

A defiant developer rejected attendees’ assertions that the process should start from zero, arguing that the amended plan still meets the parameters set by the zoning board in its original decision years ago.

“We have the right to build a data center, and we will build some sort of data center,” said Lou Colagreco, the attorney for the developer. “The question here before the township, before the planning commission, is which one will it be?”

The planning commission’s chairwoman, Deb Abel, opened the meeting by asking the residents to “understand the limits of the township’s authority, with respect to an already approved use.”

“We are residents just like you. Actually, I live very close to the facility as well,” she told residents later. “We have the same concerns. We care about the same thing. So if you think we don’t, you are dead wrong.”

The developers, Sentinel Data Centers and Green Fig Land LLC, said the new plans would update the project with modern technology, calling the approved 2024 plan outdated. The plan would increase the size of the data center by roughly 60%. Changes would also include removing two microwave towers, antenna yards, and ground-mounted cooling towers. It would redesign cooling equipment to use waterless chillers to reduce water use, they said.

Construction would take roughly two years, officials said.

The location of the center, which has already been approved, is slated for a remediated Superfund site. It would sit across from Malvern Hunt, a neighborhood with about 280 homes and would be intersected by the Chester Valley Trail, an 18.6-mile route popular with walkers, cyclists, and runners.

The planning commission had approved the original plan in 2024, but the project has been underway since at least 2018, when the developer sought zoning changes to OK data center use. After the planning commission’s approval, Sentinel joined the project and suggested the design changes.

In recent months, municipal leaders in Chester County have increasingly come face-to-face with data center proposals — and residents’ vehement opposition. East Vincent’s planning commission recently voted to recommend the board of supervisors there reject a proposed data center plan. In North Coventry, elected officials voted to reject a data center that hadn’t even been formally submitted to the municipality yet.

Data centers nationally have seen increasing pushback from communities, who fear the centers will drive up energy costs, pollute the environment, and harm health.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro has sought to grease the skids for more data centers to call the commonwealth home, but said recently he would prevent developers from “saddling” residents with higher energy costs.

In a December survey, 38% of Pennsylvanians said they supported data centers being built in the state, but they were less likely to support data centers in their own backyards.

In the weeks since East Whiteland had to halt its meeting, momentum didn’t slow: Protestors gathered outside ahead of the Monday meeting with signs decrying the data center, and attendees filled the auditorium of Penn State’s Great Valley campus.

“This is ridiculous,” one resident, Anthony Oligino, told the members. “Costco is only 200,000 [square feet]. So you’re talking eight Costcos stacked up on top of each other. It’s insane.”

As planning commission member Todd Asousa highlighted how the developer, Green Fig, cleaned up the former Superfund site and improved the trail, residents audibly chafed.

“My career is built on science, and I believe in its power to grow and protect human life, but science also tells us what not to do, and it tells us clearly not to build a data center in the middle of a community, and it certainly tells us definitely not near schools, daycare centers and residential communities,” resident Shiva Kapsi said later during public comment.

Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, who sits on West Whiteland’s planning commission, said during public comment the changes would come with “significant increases in the impacts we have.”

“This will have potentially devastating impacts to the surrounding homes, schools, parks and the trail,” she said, noting the proximity of Malvern Hunt. “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live there, and I think every single one of you would not as well.”

Josh Rabina, cofounder of Sentinel, tried to assuage residents’ concerns about health, noise, and emissions, saying the data center wouldn’t run generators around the clock, and that they’d never received a noise complaint for other data centers in their portfolio. The company has developed over 3 million square feet of data centers, according to their website. He acknowledged that other companies’ data centers did do the very things residents worried about, but said this one wouldn’t.

“We understand what we are building. We’re data center builders. We’ve been doing it for a long time. If we thought we were harming children, we wouldn’t be doing it,” he said, prompting interjections from attendees.

The proposed changes to the data center will now go to the township’s elected board of supervisors.