South Annville Data Center, South Annville Township, Pennsylvania

The $1.7 billion South Annville data center that Inch & Co. planned off Mount Pleasant Road in South Annville Township, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, was withdrawn on May 12, 2026, after a grass-roots campaign against it. The developer's lawyer wrote to township supervisors that "the Petitioner has decided to no longer pursue the development of a data center in South Annville Township." The township is now writing a zoning ordinance to regulate any future data center.

The petition came from 1235 Martina Drive Owner LLC, a joint venture between the York-based developer Inch & Co. and Eastern Land & Resources Co., owner of the site. It sought about 58 acres of new industrial zoning across four parcels totaling about 99 acres, on the western side of Mount Pleasant Road near U.S. Route 422, just west of Annville Borough. The plan was for five buildings of about 150,000 square feet each, with fans, chillers and generators on the roofs. Inch told Lebanon County Commissioners the campus would be built in three phases from 2027 to 2029 and would bring more than $17 million a year in taxes, and its handout told residents they would face regional electricity rate pressure whether or not the data center was built in their township.

Opposition grew from the first Planning Commission presentation on April 7. Organizer Michael Schroeder said more than 500 people signed a petition, which he put at over one-third of the township's adults. At the Planning Commission, members addressed electricity, water, noise, infrasound and property values, Schroeder said. On May 5 the Planning Commission voted 6-0 to recommend that supervisors deny the rezoning, and a week later the developer withdrew. "The developers were able to see the tremendous popular opposition to this proposed data center," Schroeder said. Lebanon County Commissioner Jo Ellen Litz, who spoke of protecting bald eagles near the site, said: "I just think a whole community is exhaling."

Neighboring North Annville Township adopted a data center ordinance on September 14, 2026, allowing data centers only by conditional use in its manufacturing district near the railroad and Route 422, with a 50-foot height limit and a 100-acre minimum lot. Its solicitor said the ordinance resembles those in North Lebanon, Union and Jackson townships, and that "it's unconstitutional to exclude a certain use from your municipality."

The township Board of Supervisors, which had the final say on the rezoning, is also the body that will adopt the new ordinance. Its members are chairman Dale Hoover, vice chairman John Harrell and second vice chairman Garry Rhine. In August Hoover said the draft would go to the Lebanon County Planning Department and the township Planning Commission before the supervisors' September meeting, followed by a public hearing. "We're trying to discourage anything we possibly can, but we can't downright outlaw it in our township," Hoover said. Supervisors meet on the second Wednesday of each month.