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Data Center Watch Report · ZIP 18349

Pocono Manor

Monroe County

ProposedZIP 74.4% Blackpop 215

Proposed — hyperscale campus sought by Pocono Manor Investors under Tobyhanna Township's new data-center overlay zoning; a related overlay ordinance is under ac

Researched: 2026-08-02 · Lead source: Brockovich AI Data Center community map (2 resident reports, 2026-05-26→2026-06-10) · ZIP demographics: 74.4% Black, pop 215 (Census ACS 2023) · County: Monroe County (~14.5% Black countywide) Status: Proposed — hyperscale campus sought by Pocono Manor Investors under Tobyhanna Township's new data-center overlay zoning; a related overlay ordinance is under active legal challenge (Zoning Hearing Board, 2026).

This report is research, not legal, financial, real-estate, or investment advice.

0. Snapshot

ZIP 18349 is Pocono Manor, a tiny resort hamlet in Tobyhanna Township, Monroe County — home to the Kalahari Resorts & Conventions waterpark (250 Kalahari Blvd). The pin here is real and significant: Pocono Manor Investors — the landowner that also brought Kalahari to the site — is seeking zoning to build a pair of data centers that together reach "hyperscale" scale (~40 MW) on a ~193-acre parcel just south of the Kalahari resort. Tobyhanna Township created a Data Center Overlay District to allow it (voted December 2025), and a second overlay (Ordinance No. 580) covers a separate 520-acre Pennsylvania Glacial Till LLC site along Caughbaugh Road by the Lehigh River. The second overlay is being challenged by residents as illegal spot zoning, with Zoning Hearing Board sessions running into mid-2026 (a June 22, 2026 hearing was held at Kalahari itself).

The anomaly the map flags is genuine: a 215-person ZIP that is 74.4% Black is unusual for a rural Pocono resort area, and a hyperscale AI campus proposed on top of it — where nearly 80% of the Pocono Mountain School District's students would sit within the impact radius — is exactly the kind of quiet, thinly-covered siting worth documenting.

1. The Facility & Where It Sits

  • Developer: Pocono Manor Investors (the entity holding the former Pocono Manor resort lands; same ownership group associated with Kalahari). Proposal: two data centers on ~193 acres south of Kalahari Resort that together constitute a hyperscale facility. (Delaware Currents; Pocono Review)
  • Size: "Hyperscale" defined in coverage as ~40 MW ("enough to power tens of thousands of homes"); exact building count/sq ft still moving through zoning. Industry-standard large facilities can use up to ~5 million gallons of water per day. (Delaware Currents)
  • Where it sits: Pocono Manor / Tobyhanna Township — resort-and-forest country. The Pocono Manor property is ~3 miles from the Pocono Mountain East campus and ~1.8 miles from the West/Sullivan Trail campus; surrounded by homes on private wells, conservation land and wetlands. (monroecountypa.com)
  • Related second site (same township): Pennsylvania Glacial Till LLC, ~520 acres along Caughbaugh Road off Route 115, next to the Lehigh River, surrounded by conservation land with wetlands — covered by Ordinance No. 580 and the subject of the resident zoning challenge. (fox56; monroecountypa.com)
  • Status: Proposed (zoning stage). No construction. Overlay ordinances adopted; one under appeal.

2. Public Hearings & Notices

  • Dec 11, 2025: Tobyhanna Township supervisors voted on a data-center ordinance for Pocono Manor; Ordinance No. 580 (Data Center Overlay District) adopted Dec 15, 2025. (monroecountypa.com public notice)
  • "Second overlay" approved for the Glacial Till / Caughbaugh Road 520-acre site. (fox56)
  • 2026 legal challenge: Residents Mark & Joan Lippi, Jennifer Beardsley, Dolores Ruppel, Jim Millington, Ray Laytham, and the Stoddartsville Association appealed Ordinance No. 580, arguing it is unlawful "spot zoning" benefiting a single landowner with no public-welfare basis. Tobyhanna Township Zoning Hearing Board held continued hearings (a March 2026 session and a large-crowd June 22, 2026 session at Kalahari, Kilimanjaro Suite 1, 5:00 p.m.). Outcome as of 2026-08-02: litigation ongoing — final ruling Not found as of 2026-08-02. (monroecountypa.com; 28/22 News; fox56)
  • Township meetings: Tobyhanna Township Board of Supervisors — agendas at tobyhannatownshippa.gov. The proposed Data Center Overlay ordinance text is posted there (Ordinance-Amendment-Data-Center-Overlay.pdf).

3. Power

  • Serving utility: PPL Electric Utilities serves Tobyhanna Township (PPL's Monroe County territory includes Tobyhanna, Coolbaugh, Pocono, Paradise and neighboring townships; Met-Ed/FirstEnergy serves other parts of the county). (PPL service-area tariff; PMEDC)
  • Grid: PJM Interconnection. PPL has confirmed data-center-driven transmission projects elsewhere in NEPA (e.g., Lackawanna County), and a large Amazon load near Hazleton (~20 mi away, Luzerne County) is already reshaping regional transmission. (WVIA; Delaware Currents)
  • Regulator: Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PA PUC) — large-load/cost-allocation questions. On-site generation/fuel storage for the Pocono Manor site: raised as a community question, details Not found as of 2026-08-02.

4. Water & Drought

  • Water for the Pocono Manor Investors site: township officials described a pair of existing water wells, one rated to draw 400 gallons per minute. Attorney Brigitte Meyer publicly raised the risk to residents' private aquifer-fed wells. (Delaware Currents)
  • Watershed / regulator: The area drains toward the Lehigh River within the Delaware River Basin. The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is inventorying existing data centers and their water sources; no data-center water-withdrawal application was pending in DRBC's jurisdiction at the time of reporting. (Delaware Currents)
  • Scale concern: large data centers can consume up to ~5 million gallons/day; on well water in a wetland-laced headwaters area, that is the central local fear.
  • Drought: check current Monroe County status at droughtmonitor.unl.edu.

5. Population & Who Lives Here

  • ZIP 18349 (Pocono Manor): 74.4% Black, pop 215 (ACS 2023). This is a very small-population ZIP — a high Black share on a ~200-person base — attached to a resort hamlet. Treat the percentage as a small-sample figure, but the pattern is real: Monroe County is one of Pennsylvania's most diverse "rural" counties, 14.5% Black and rising (white non-Hispanic share fell from 70.6% in 2010 to ~62.6% in 2021), driven substantially by Black and Latino migration from the NYC/NJ metro into the Poconos. (Data USA; Census QuickFacts)
  • Schools: Pocono Mountain School District (~7,911 students). Roughly 6,274 students — ~80% — attend campuses within the impact radius of proposed Pocono/Tobyhanna data centers (East campus ~3 mi; West/Sullivan Trail ~1.8 mi). (monroecountypa.com)

6. Money — Abatements, Incentives, Jobs

  • LERTA: Residents have specifically raised concern about LERTA tax abatements and other public tax breaks being sought for Poconos data-center projects. Exact LERTA terms for the Pocono Manor site: Not found as of 2026-08-02 — request from the township and Monroe County. (Pocono Review; monroecountypa.com)
  • Incentives: The Pocono Mountains Economic Development Corporation (PMEDC) administers regional incentives (pmedc.com/financing-and-incentives).
  • Jobs: Hyperscale data centers employ few permanent workers relative to land, power and water consumed; specific permanent-job commitments for this site were not found as of 2026-08-02. (Kalahari itself is the area's large employer.)

7. Community Reaction & News Coverage

  • Local outlets: Pocono Record, monroecountypa.com (local news hub), Fox56 (WOLF), WNEP, WVIA (NEPA public media), 28/22 News (WBRE/WYOU), and The Pocono Review. Statewide/watchdog: Spotlight PA, Delaware Currents, PennFuture (which commended Pocono municipalities for adopting protective model ordinances).
  • Organized opposition: the Stoddartsville Association and the named resident appellants (Lippi, Beardsley, Ruppel, Millington, Laytham) challenging Ordinance 580; broad opposition to the Kalahari-area, Glacial Till, and "Covington" data-center proposals citing threats to students, wells, and natural assets.
  • Community's own question list (from hearings): site boundaries and total acreage; number/size of buildings; electric demand; cooling method; water use and source; effects on wells/groundwater; generator and fuel storage; noise; lighting; construction traffic; school-bus route impacts; emergency response. (monroecountypa.com)

8. Find Out For Yourself

Tobyhanna Township — 105 Government Center Way, Pocono Pines, PA 18350 · (570) 646-1212 · tobyhannatownshippa.gov

  • Board of Supervisors (per township site): John Kerrick (Chair), Joseph Colyer (Vice Chair), Rachel Schickling (Treasurer), plus two additional members — confirm the full 2026 board and the Zoning Officer at the township office. Agendas/minutes: tobyhannatownshippa.gov (Board of Supervisors 2026; Zoning Hearing Board 2026).
  • Data Center Overlay ordinance text: tobyhannatownshippa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Ordinance-Amendment-Data-Center-Overlay.pdf
  • Monroe County Planning Commission — monroecountypa.gov (county model data-center ordinance; municipal directory).
  • Power: PPL Electric Utilities — pplelectric.com (public affairs); regulator PA PUC — puc.pa.gov (file comments; large-load dockets).
  • Water: Delaware River Basin Commission — nj.gov/drbc (withdrawal review); PA DEP Northeast Regional Office (water/air permits).
  • Schools: Pocono Mountain School District — pmsd.org (board meetings; the district is a directly affected party).
  • News tips: Pocono Record (poconorecord.com), monroecountypa.com, Spotlight PA (spotlightpa.org).

Questions worth asking:

  1. What is the guaranteed megawatt draw and building footprint of the Pocono Manor Investors project, and did PPL file a large-load interconnection/transmission plan for it?
  2. Exactly how much water per day, from the 400-gpm wells or a public system, and what modeling shows the effect on neighbors' private wells and wetlands?
  3. Is the township's overlay spot zoning for one landowner (the core of the Ordinance 580 appeal), and how does the ruling affect the Kalahari-area parcel?
  4. What LERTA or other tax abatement is being sought, for how many years and how many dollars — and what is the hit to the Pocono Mountain School District?
  5. How many permanent local jobs (not construction), in writing?
  6. What are the noise, light, generator and fuel-storage limits in the overlay, and who enforces them?

9. If You're Thinking About Moving Here

This is early-stage but serious: no construction yet, but the zoning that would allow a ~40 MW hyperscale campus next to Kalahari and a second 520-acre site by the Lehigh River is already on the books, and residents are in court over it. The specific risks here are water and school-district scale, not urban air pollution: most homes run on private wells over the same aquifer a data center would tap, ~80% of the school district sits within the impact radius, and the parcels are wrapped in wetlands and conservation land in the Delaware River headwaters. The upside: Monroe County adopted protective model ordinances (PennFuture praised this), the DRBC is watching withdrawals, and an organized resident coalition is actively contesting the zoning. Anyone weighing a move should read the Tobyhanna overlay ordinance, attend a Zoning Hearing Board session, and ask the water questions above before treating the project as either certain or dead.

10. Sources

Lead source: resident reports on the Brockovich AI Data Center community map, then independently verified against public records. Research, not legal, financial, real-estate, or investment advice. Some resident-reported pins remain uncorroborated and are labeled as such above.