When too many people showed up, East Whiteland’s planning commission postponed a data center meeting
The project was previously approved, but is seeking expansion.
So many people packed into an East Whiteland planning commission meeting Wednesday in response to a data center project, that the crowd exceeded capacity and forced township officials to reschedule the discussion.
The meeting will be tentatively rescheduled to March 9 at a larger venue, township officials said.
It’s the second time this week that a strong public presence has changed the course for local officials weighing data center projects. In North Coventry, the township’s board of supervisors took a vote saying they would deny a data center project that hadn’t yet been formally submitted after more than a hundred people packed into the meeting to object to it.
In East Whiteland, the planning commission is weighing an amended application seeking to expand a previously approved data center project that sits on the border of the township and its neighbor, West Whiteland.
The new plan would increase the size of the two data center buildings by roughly 61% from what was previously approved, to exceed 1.6 million square feet.
The developers, Sentinel Data Centers and Green Fig Land LLC, said the changes would also update the project to modern technology, saying the approved 2024 plan was outdated. Those changes would include removing two microwave towers, antenna yards, and ground mounted cooling towers. It would also redesign cooling equipment to use waterless chillers.
Lou Colagreco, the attorney for the developer, told the board Wednesday construction would commence within the next couple of weeks, with groundwork underway, under the previously approved project. He urged them to recommend the amended plan to the township’s board of supervisors.
“We think that a yes vote … would confirm that compliance, and we also think it approves, at the end of the day, a better plan,” Colagreco said.
After some musical chairs — with the attendees scooting their chairs up to make more standing room at the back — the discussion still came to a halt roughly a half hour into the meeting.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” planning commission chairwoman Deborah Abel said after a brief pause, “but we’ve just been told by the fire marshal that we cannot continue this meeting with this amount of people in the room.”
Attendees exceeded the room’s capacity of 98, with an additional 30 people in the lobby. Township officials sought to whittle the numbers down, saying people could watch the livestream at home, or stand in the lobby.
But residents chafed at the request, calling on the board to reschedule the meeting instead.
It represents a growing trend of residents packing into municipal meetings in Chester County to decry data center projects. More than 100 residents showed up to the North Coventry meeting Monday, speaking for more than an hour, against a project that hadn’t formally been submitted to the township. It surprised the developer, who decided to scrap it. In East Vincent, after months of public participation, the planning commission there recommended that the township’s board of supervisors reject a proposal for the historic Pennhurst site.
The opposition from residents clashes with the state’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has sought to draw more of this development to Pennsylvania. And while about 38% of Pennsylvanians said in a December survey they support data centers being built in the commonwealth, they were less likely to support data centers in their own backyards.
“Thanks, everyone, for coming out,” Abel told residents as she ended the meeting. “Sorry for the waste of time.”