Just before Upper Hanover Township officials passed a zoning ordinance amendment adding definitions for data center use, a developer filed an application seeking approval to build one. Hanover Development LP submitted a conditional use application to the township's zoning hearing board for a proposed 150,000-square-foot data center on 37-plus acres of former farmland along Gravel Pike, in the Light Industrial zoning district about three-quarters of a mile north of East Greenville. The filing also included a substantive validity challenge, warning that if the township does not permit data centers in the Light Industrial district, that exclusion would be unconstitutional under Pennsylvania law — and that Hanover Development would be entitled to site-specific relief to build anyway. The township's newly passed ordinance amendment does allow data centers, but only as a conditional use in a different zoning district. The application has triggered significant community reaction, and a public hearing must be scheduled within 60 days.
Source: UPVnews; 6/17/2026