Municipal Monday, Issue 06. A weekly digest of regulatory and development activity from 32 Central Pennsylvania municipalities.
THE PATTERN: The data center wave reached Cumberland County’s West Shore, and one township took a route we have not seen before in this series. On June 17, Upper Allen Township took up resolutions to initiate a curative amendment — a Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code tool in which a municipality declares its own zoning ordinance may not lawfully provide for a use and opens a protected window to correct it. Every other municipality we have tracked on data centers has used a conventional text amendment, an overlay, or a moratorium. Upper Allen is the first to reach for the curative-amendment route, and its solicitor delivered the resolutions less than 24 hours before the meeting. Lower Allen Township, nine days earlier, authorized a public hearing on proposed Ordinance 2026-04 the conventional way. By our count, at least ten municipalities we track are now writing data center rules, with adoption-stage hearings still ahead: Hampden July 2, West Hanover July 16, and Silver Spring July 22.
ON THE BOARDS: Roughly sixteen named subdivision and land development items moved across nine municipalities, led by North Londonderry Township’s review of Winding Creek Phases 3 and 4 and the King subdivision. Lower Allen Township approved the Allen Middle School land development, and Reading Township (Adams County) acted on the Hampton Heights Phase VI developers agreement.
LONG HORIZON: Lower Swatara Township held a June 17 hearing on Ordinance No. 628, restating zoning height limits for residential retirement facilities, and East Hanover Township (Dauphin County) continues its zoning and subdivision ordinance updates.
COST TO WATCH: A cohort of projects reached completion, and municipalities released or reduced improvement guarantees across seven jurisdictions. Silver Spring Township released the Woodbridge Phase 1 through 3 guarantees and most of 125 State Road, roughly $237,000, and Lower Swatara Township cut the Penn Preserve security to zero, about $135,000. West Hanover, Mechanicsburg, East Pennsboro, Lower Allen, and Lower Paxton acted on guarantees as well. For builders, that is escrow coming back.
If you own or are working land in any of these jurisdictions, happy to talk through what a specific item means for a specific parcel.
Municipal Monday runs weekly. Next issue: 6/29.
Correction (July 1, 2026): An earlier version of this issue included items from Middlesex Township (Butler County) and Carroll Township (Washington County) — same-named municipalities outside our Central Pennsylvania coverage area. Those items and the affected counts have been removed.