WHYY19%
Plymouth Township, Conshohocken-area residents shout, boo, as hearing for data center begins 24%
By Zoë Read27%
8/7/2026, 4:51:58 PM
Topics: Data Centers, Zoning Disputes, Community Opposition, Public Hearings, Industrial Development
Keywords: Data Center, Plymouth Township, Conshohocken, Zoning, Residents, Hearing, Developer, Brian Oneill, Schuylkill River, Cleveland Cliffs Steel Mill, Zoning Hearing Board, Environmental Impact, Property Values, Quality Of Life, Online Petition, Legal Challenges, Expert Witness, Richard Roseberry, Colliers Engineering And Design, Zoning Ordinance, Special Exception, Manufacturing, Research And Development, Warehousing, Edmund Campbell, State Law, Validity Challenge, Artificial Intelligence, David Sander
BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Begging the Question, Unattributed Quote, and Ad Hominem, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 15.1% saturation with 108 hits. Analysis detected 732 faulty-reasoning hits from 713 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 29.3% and a BS Rank of 24% (23,489 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 76.80% of the article peer group.
The first hearing for a proposed data center in Plymouth Township-Conshohocken area was interrupted multiple times as a crowd of residents booed, cursed and shouted at the developer’s attorney and witness.
Developer Brian O’Neill is seeking approval for a 2 million-square-foot data center that is technically located within the boundary of Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania, but also impacts nearby residents of Conshohocken.
The facility would span 10 existing buildings at the recently closed Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill, which sits on 66 acres of land along the Schuylkill River, about a mile from the Conshohocken borough’s vibrant downtown area.
The Thursday night hearing before the Plymouth Township Zoning Hearing Board was contentious as attorneys representing several separate opponents to the proposal challenged the qualifications of the applicant’s expert witness.
The board, an independent, quasi-judicial body appointed by the township council, will decide whether to approve the data center’s development.
Residents have pushed back against the proposal, which they say could harm the environment, reduce property values and impact their quality of life.
An online petition opposing the data center has garnered more than 4,000 signatures .
“They just don’t care.
They want the money, they want the win at this point,” said Ardis Leukens, who lives about 500 feet from the site, after the hearing.
“They don’t care about people, because if [O’Neill] did, he would be listening to us and saying, ‘Hey, let’s build this area up,’ not knock it down, not destroy it.”
Data center opponents make several legal challenges during the hearing
Attorneys representing multiple parties that oppose O’Neill’s plan made several motions during the hearing, including a challenge to the adequacy of the developer’s application.
They also questioned the qualifications of Richard Roseberry, senior principal at Colliers Engineering & Design, a witness called on to testify about the planning and zoning process.
The motions were supported by loud applause from the audience, but were rejected by the board.
Roseberry was called on by O’Neill’s legal team to interpret the township’s zoning ordinance.
The data center battle over zoning
Last month, O’Neill filed an application that challenges the validity of the current zoning ordinance, which does not authorize data centers as a permitted use in a heavy industrial zoning district within Plymouth Township.
Although the law allows for O’Neill to apply for an exception, which he has done, he argues the law is exclusionary, and unfairly creates roadblocks to data center development.
In response, Plymouth Township Council accused O’Neill of “throwing a tantrum.”
Thursday night’s hearing will help the zoning board decide whether to approve the special exception application.
After Roseberry explained the definition of a data center, he testified that their characteristics align with those of manufacturing, research and development, and warehousing — uses listed under the township’s ordinance.
O’Neill’s attorney Edmund Campbell said if an applicant’s project is of similar character to one of those uses, the applicant has a right to that use.
Campbell said that, according to state law, if an ordinance does not provide a use, the applicant gets that use by right, prompting O’Neill to file a validity challenge.
“The similarities between manufacturing and data centers is that both process raw materials,” Roseberry said.
“One process is a hard product, the other process is data.
Data is a raw material, which is used to manufacture a product.
AI is a product.”
The statement was met with loud boos and jeers from the audience, with the reaction becoming so loud the court reporter had difficulty transcribing.
Residents say they’re concerned a proposed data center in Plymouth Township near Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, would impact their quality of life.
(Zoë Read/WHYY)
“I appreciate the efforts that you’ve made to conduct the meeting ….
We can’t get through a sentence or two without being interrupted,” said O’Neill’s attorney.
David Sander, the board’s solicitor, attempted to appeal to the crowd.
“I know you’re in an emotional situation.
I know that you are invested in this,” he said.
“I think that the zoning board understands that, and has seen the crowd and seen you tonight.”
“Hear us!”
shouted a member of the audience in response.
“We are, we will, but we have to do it in a certain order,” Sander said calmly.
Speakers
5speakers32%attributed speech485writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageArdis Leukens
55 attributed words24% of attributed speech46% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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