As opposition to data center development continues to grow across Pennsylvania, one developer is trying to see if money talks loud enough to get residents of a Luzerne County community to support its plan for a sprawling complex in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains.
A new story from the Wall Street Journal details NorthPoint Development’s effort to build a 15-building data center campus across 1,300 acres in Hazle Township. In a scene that’s been playing out regularly across the state, locals pushed back on the proposal during a heated public meeting last year, arguing that the cost of powering the proposed data center would lead to a higher cost of living and diminished property values and quality of life.
Hazle Township officials ultimately rejected the project over zoning issues, prompting a lawsuit from NorthPoint that’s still in litigation. The township has since enacted a temporary moratorium on data center construction, as it works to update its zoning laws.
Then in June, Hazle Township residents began receiving letters from NorthPoint with the pitch: If the township gets behind our plan to build a data center, we’ll send you $10,000—money you could spend on “really whatever you want,” the letter read. With 4,500 households, the developer emphasized that this represented an outlay of $45 million to a community where the median income is approximately $60,000.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Brent Miles, chief marketing officer at NorthPoint, said the company planned to make another $120 million in payments to the community over the next 15 years, including money for a police department and other community investments.
Miles said the company “has converted close to 100 residents initially skeptical about the payments, by answering their questions and clearing up what he called misinformation about water, energy costs, noise and other issues.”
That still leaves many more residents who need convincing. And judging by what some locals had to say to the Journal, NorthPoint has its work cut out for them.
Retiree Carl Majusiak said he mulled the offer before deciding “we don’t need that around here.”
Jeff Fasnacht, another retiree who lives near the planned data center, did some number crunching and decided “$10,000 doesn’t match how much it’s going to tank my property value.”
A third resident, Ed Negra, who is working to organize opposition to the data center, said the quiet part out loud.
“Most people have the opinion that, ‘Hey, are they trying to bribe us here?’”
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