When local activist Frank Arcoleo found out over the summer that a data center was coming to his neighborhood in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he said he was furious. There’d been no votes or public hearings.

The first phase of the data center project under development there only required administrative approval from a few city officials, based on the building permit application and state laws.

“So these data centers are going in, and guess what? The public gets nothing to say about it because the city’s already approved it,” Arcoleo said.

Now, Arcoleo is backing a zoning ordinance under consideration by the Lancaster City Council that aims to ensure residents have a say in the future. The ordinance would require data center projects to undergo a special exception hearing from the city’s zon

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