Major Data Center Hearing In Plymouth Twp. Thursday Night: What To Know

PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP, PA — The next zoning board hearing on the highly controversial hyperscale data center proposal at the old Cleveland Cliffs steel site in Plymouth Township will be held Thursday night.

It's the first public meeting since the township council excoriated developer Brian O'Neill for "demanding approval by tantrum" last week. The township says O'Neill's massive proposal at 900 Conshohocken Road is a threat to public safety and health, and provided a 43-point list of conditions that the proposal would need to reach.

They said O'Neill refused to consider those conditions, though a spokesperson for MLP Ventures told Patch that is not true. The developers then counter-filed a motion challenging the validity of the Township's zoning ordinance, claiming it is too difficult to work with.

Previous coverage: 'Demanding Approval By Tantrum': Plymouth Twp. Council Calls Out Data Center Developer

The meeting Thursday will be held at 7 p.m. at Colonial Middle School.

The meeting will continue the evidentiary hearing from a several hour marathon meeting on July 28. More testimony and expert evidence is expected from O'Neill and MLP Ventures, with the township questioning and providing their own testimony.

There will also be cross-examination from individuals and groups granted "party status," a legal designation which allows individuals to participate more thoroughly in the township's hearing and review process. Those with party status have far more power to have their concerns heard and to stall or even prevent development altogether.

Of note, the municipality of Norristown is among the entities applying for party status Thursday. Approval could set an interesting precedent, as it would indicate that officials agree with bipartisan opponents of the plan that the impacts of the data center extend far beyond the range that developers claim they do.

Following months of unified public uproar against the project and the township's public condemnation of O'Neill last week, Gov. Josh Shapiro appeared to suddenly switch gears.

“This is the exact wrong way to do development here in Pennsylvania," he claimed about the project on social media, citing the motion by O'Neill to erase the township's zoning ordinance. "I’m a hell no.”

But the nonprofits leading a months-long fight against the data center, even should they take this sudden declaration at face value, it's a dollar short and a day late.

"The Right to Know records also show how this project got so far: daily calls to the Governor’s transformation office, meetings arranged with PECO leadership, and a request for 'fast track treatment from DEP' for this site that was forwarded the same afternoon," the Facebook group 'No Conshy Data Centers' shared. "Buried in that request is the number nobody would give residents at a hearing: an 800 megawatt power plant."

O'Neill, who is also behind the massive data center cluster proposal in nearby Upper Merion, has indeed been in close contact with Gov. Shapiro's administration about loosening rules against data center zoning and even urging the right to appeal be stripped from residents, according to emails obtained in a Right to Know request by the advocacy group Concerned Citizens of Montour County.

The meeting Thursday night is open to the public. Colonial Middle School is located on 716 Belvoir Road in Plymouth Meeting.