Gregg Township residents push back against proposed AI data centers

Gregg Township moved the PNK Landowner Curative Amendment hearing to June 1 at 6 p.m. at the Allenwood Social Hall as residents kept pressing objections to possible AI data centers in the township. The issue had already gone before the Gregg Township planning commission in a March 25 workshop session, and the three-member Board of Supervisors remains among the local bodies weighing what comes next.

The dispute has sharpened around a simple cost-benefit question for Union County households: what gets taken out of Gregg Township if the projects move forward. The township says it was founded in 1865 and covers 15.1 square miles, with a 2010 Census population of 4,984, including 3,864 inmates at the Allenwood Federal Prison Complex. That leaves only a small share of the township's land and population in the hands of nearby homeowners and farmers who would feel the direct effects of any new industrial buildout.

County leaders have already acknowledged how far the proposal has advanced. Union County commissioners confirmed that PNK Group would hold a meeting on April 2 in Allenwood about a site in Gregg Township that could potentially be used for a data center. An online flyer told residents who signed up to attend that they would be informed about the project, a sign that the company was trying to build support even as questions mounted about power use and land impacts.

Those questions widened when a PPL transmission line proposal entered the conversation, drawing farmers in Union and Lycoming counties into the fight. For many residents, the power project underscored the bigger concern behind the data center plan: whether Gregg Township would give up farmland and absorb the strain of new electric infrastructure so a private development could operate at scale. In another Union County data center proposal, residents also focused on power and noise, two of the most immediate burdens for households near a campus of that size.

The backlash is no longer confined to Gregg Township. Data center proposals are also surfacing in Tioga, Jefferson and Mifflin counties, and nearby Pine Creek Township has been considering whether to classify data centers as a conditional use in its Industrial Zoning District. PA Stands Up and the Sierra Club have also warned about the effect of these projects on communities, while Gregg Township’s own hearings and workshops show how quickly the issue has moved from speculation to local land-use decisions.