Data center moratoriums and restrictions in Pennsylvania (2026)

Local actions in Pennsylvania

Blocked or delayed projects in Pennsylvania

• Montour County rezoning (Talen-linked): County commissioners unanimously denied Talen's request to rezone roughly 870 farmland acres near the Montour Preserve on Feb 10, 2026, after a petition of just under 3,000 signatures and school-board opposition. Talen says it still intends to develop a data center near its Montour plant and will return with a refined petition, and PA DEP accepted its air-permit application for two new gas turbines there in June 2026, but no new zoning application had been decided as of Aug 2026.
• Green Fig data center: After months of opposition the developer scrapped the expanded 1.7M sq ft application in May 2026 and reverted to a previously approved 1.5M sq ft plan on the same Superfund site; a judge rejected residents' challenges in June, construction began in July, and after a brief township stop-work order over soil-safety review, East Whiteland allowed work to resume in late July 2026.
• Pennhurst campus: Township supervisors unanimously denied the conditional-use application for the 1.9M sq ft campus on 123 acres of the historic Pennhurst property on May 21, 2026 (written decision June 2). The developer appealed to the Chester County Court of Common Pleas on June 26, 2026; no hearing date was set as of early August 2026.
• Blakely campus: Developers withdrew the rezoning request for the roughly 200-acre, four-building campus in September 2025, days before a scheduled hearing, after the borough declined to hold another informational meeting amid heavy resident opposition; no refiled data center application was found as of August 2026. The developers said they would continue generic site work (clearing, grading) under existing zoning, but no relocation of the project is documented.
• Plymouth Township data center: The 2M sq ft proposal for the closed Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill at 900 Conshohocken Road was withdrawn November 17, 2025 over a legal-standing defect (unfinalized agreement of sale), then resubmitted roughly six months later in spring 2026. Zoning hearing board proceedings were still underway and contentious as of a packed August 6, 2026 hearing, with the township council, county commissioners, and Governor Shapiro publicly opposed, and the developer has since filed a substantive validity challenge arguing the zoning ordinance fails to provide for data centers. No decision has been issued.

What one campus pays a local government

The parent piece's calculator puts a single large campus at $2M to $90M a year in local revenue, depending on the tax regime and abatements. The reference campus (Project Blue scale: $3.6B of capital, 286 MW) pays about $157M to local governments over 10 years. Permanent jobs run around 50 per facility.

Run your own numbers in the calculator on the parent piece. Jurisdictions in Pennsylvania that say no give up this revenue, not the jobs.