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Resident Alyssa Noritz Bieber urges Mifflin County to intervene on proposed Granville Township data center
Summary
At the July 14 meeting, Alyssa Noritz Bieber and a nearby property owner told commissioners they oppose a large data-center proposal in Granville Township, saying plans arrived at township offices minutes before a comment deadline and asking the board to contact the developer PowerHouse Data Center PA.
Alyssa Noritz Bieber, a visitor to the July 14 Mifflin County commissioners meeting, told the board she and neighbors discovered a large data-center proposal recently submitted to Granville Township and urged the county to contact the developer.
Bieber said the township received the developer's package late in the public-comment timeline and described the submission as startlingly large. "We found out that not only because we didn't know we didn't know where really where it was…They're not talking 1 farm. They're talking 2 farms," she said, and said she had presented 6,840 petition signatures opposing the project.
A second resident told commissioners the proposal would place "a 70-foot building, 300 feet from my property," and said the township lacks the capacity to manage the review. The resident named a local landowner, Mark Valener, in the course of remarks and warned the dispute could prompt protracted litigation.
Bieber identified the developer as PowerHouse Data Center PA and said she found the plan at Granville Township offices at about 3:34 p.m., shortly before a 30-day public-comment period would have closed. She asked the county commissioners—"as the big umbrella over the whole county"—to consider writing the developer, contacting them directly, or otherwise intervening.
Chair (presiding) acknowledged the concern and said the board would notify appropriate officials. "I'm certain I'll let them know," the Chair said, and indicated the county would inform higher-level officials if appropriate.
Why this matters: residents say the project would convert farmland to a large industrial facility adjacent to housing and that the submission timetable limited public notice. Granville Township and county responsibilities for land-use approvals differ; residents framed their appeal to the county as a request for political pressure and coordination rather than a request for immediate county land-use authority.
No formal action on the proposal was recorded during the meeting. Commissioners moved on to new business after public comment; the transcript contains no vote or directive committing the board to a specific next step beyond staff or commissioners passing the concerns upward.
