Lancaster City Planning Commission members voted unanimously to hold the hearing Oct. 1, taking the action at a Wednesday meeting that included more than an hour of pleas from city residents who are concerned about the impact data centers will have on the city. The time and location of the hearing are still to be determined.
While they can't regulate development of the project's first phase, commissioners still want to hold a public hearing to look into the city's determination to allow data centers in former LSC Communications printing plants located at 216 Greenfield Road and 1375 Harrisburg Pike. At issue is the classification of the data centers as being involved in "wholesale trade and storage."
"If we can demonstrate strongly enough that these decisions were made in error, it could give the zoning officer grounds to rescind approval," said Tony Dastra, a non-voting alternate on the planning commission.
At their monthly meeting on Wednesday, commissioners voted unanimously to advertise a hearing about the city's approval of the data centers for Oct. 1, at a time and location to be announced. Data centers weren't on the meeting agenda, but residents filled the meeting room and spoke at length against the proposed facilities during public comment.
The vote included an invite to Mayor Danene Sorace and zoning officer Jameel Thrash to speak at the hearing, though the city's bureau chief of planning, Betsy Logan, said they couldn't require the officials to appear.
The zoning determination, issued in February and signed by Thrash, termed the centers "electronic data processing warehouses," qualifying as wholesale trade and storage. That is a use allowed without a zoning hearing — which would require public comment and a formal vote — in the suburban manufacturing zoning district where the two former LSC Communications printing plants are located.
Commissioners pointed out that the wholesale trade and storage use excludes "manufacturing, assembling, processing or treatment," and that the computing work of data centers could be considered processing.
Planning Commissioner Amos Stoltzfus said that the city could have deemed the centers a "use not provided for," which would require a zoning hearing to determine whether the projects would affect the public health, safety and welfare of the neighborhood.
"That was our opportunity as a city to have some control in this development. That did not happen, so I have a lot of questions about why that didn't happen," Stoltzfus said.
Demolition underway
Demolition is already underway at the 216 Greenfield Road site, where co-developers Chirisa Technology Parks and Machine Investment Group plan to have a 450,000 square-foot data center complete in summer 2027. Artificial intelligence and cloud computing firm CoreWeave has committed to investing $6 billion in the project.
The developers haven't established a timeline for the Harrisburg Pike site, or a planned second phase at Greenfield.
The planning commission's primary role is reviewing and approving land development plans for projects in the city, something the 450,000 square foot data center on Greenfield Road didn't require because it uses the footprint of an existing building. The commission also makes recommendations on proposed changes to the city's zoning ordinance. Logan said the commission will be able to review later phases of the project if they extend beyond the existing footprint of the former printing plants.
Commissioners also said on Wednesday that they plan to ask council to look at amending the zoning ordinance to create rules specifically for data centers, instead of classifying them as wholesale trade and storage.
The Lancaster County Planning Commission has been advising municipalities in the county about adding data center regulations in the weeks since CoreWeave announced its plans in Lancaster city.
The city planning commission's decision to schedule the Oct. 1 hearing prompted applause from those in attendance. During a public comment period that lasted over an hour before the vote, more than a dozen people warned of the negative impact that data centers have had in other states, and urged the commission not to let it happen here.
"We only need to point to other cities across the country to see the impact of these data centers. They strain local resources and leave communities to bear the environmental fallout," city resident Reagan Lehman said to the commissioners.
© 2025 LNP (Lancaster, Pa.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
