Project Hazelnut data center, Hazle Township, Pennsylvania

On November 14, 2025, the Hazle Township Board of Supervisors in Luzerne County unanimously rejected NorthPoint Development's land application for Project Hazelnut, a data center campus beside the north zone of the Humboldt Industrial Park. More than 200 residents packed the meeting where the vote happened. The stated reason was procedural: data centers were not specifically permitted on the property, and the application should have first gone to the zoning hearing board for a special exception, which had not happened.

Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, the eastern Pennsylvania senior organizer for Food and Water Watch, which worked with residents on the campaign, said: “There is a reason why communities are pushing back on data centers, with residents showing up and speaking out, filling township meeting rooms in opposition: they serve private interests at the expense of the community.”

NorthPoint told the county the buildings would rely mainly on air cooling, with gray water from the West Hazleton wastewater treatment plant as a backup water source instead of the public water system, and diesel generators for backup power during outages. The company said normal operations would sound like a dull conversation, and it put permanent employment at about 900 jobs.

Before the township vote, NorthPoint had also been seeking a Luzerne County tax break on the site. In a February 2025 proposal it asked for relief on county real estate taxes at 90 percent for the first seven years, tapering to 80, 70 and 60 percent, plus payments of $2,500 an acre for land carrying buildings; township and school district tax breaks had already been approved.

County council's infrastructure committee, chaired by Jimmy Sabatino with Harry Haas and Patty Krushnowski, advanced the request to a council work session set for March 11, 2025. No result from that session has been published, and the county tax question became moot once Hazle Township rejected the project itself in November 2025.