Don’t Fall for the Spin: Cumru Taxpayers Deserve the Truth About Development

A comparison of the Flying Hills housing proposal and Titus Station data center, with charts explaining potential school, infrastructure and property-tax pressures.

Why residents need to pay attention to the Flying Hills TND and the Titus Station data center proposal By Lazaro L. Castellon If you live in Cumru Township, pay attention. What happens at this week’s Planning Commission and Board of Commissioners meetings could have consequences for the future of our community—and potentially for the taxes we pay to live here. Two very different development proposals deserve very different levels of scrutiny: the proposed 537-unit Traditional Neighborhood Development at Flying Hills and the proposed Data Center Review Protocol for Titus Station . Residents should not allow developers, consultants or politicians to sell either proposal with polished presentations and trendy phrases like smart growth or economic development. Look at the numbers. More importantly, ask one simple question: What does this development cost existing taxpayers, and what does it contribute in return? 537 Residential Units: Who Pays for the Growth? The Flying Hills sketch plan calls for 537 residential units : 256 apartments 175 townhouses 106 single-family homes Approximately 9,270 square feet of retail space Approximately 30 acres of open space Flying Hills TND: 537 Proposed Residential Units The proposed sketch plan includes 256 apartments, 175 townhouses and 106 single-family homes. Chart 1. Housing counts from the supplied commentary; not independently verified against the sketch plan for this chart. The number of homes does not establish the number of school-age children or a tax increase. The Numbers Tell the Story The chart puts the proposal into perspective: 537 residential units on one site. That is a substantial amount of residential growth for one location. And that's why taxpayers should be asking the hard questions now—not after the homes are built and the bills arrive. How many students could this development generate? How much additional police, fire, road, sewer, infrastructure and municipal service capacity could be required? What could the Governor Mifflin School District need to spend to accommodate enrollment growth? And most importantly: Will the additional tax revenue generated by these homes actually cover the additional costs they create? Those questions shouldn't be answered with opinions or marketing language. They should be answered with an independent fiscal and school-impact study backed by actual numbers. Now Compare That With Titus Station This is where the conversation needs to become more sophisticated. There is a legitimate debate about data centers. Residents should ask about electricity, water, noise, backup generators, emergency planning, infrastructure, environmental impacts and long-term land use. Those questions deserve answers. But automatically rejecting a data center simply because it is a data center makes little sense if our goal is to protect taxpayers. A properly regulated data center can be fundamentally different from a large residential development. Why Treating These Projects the Same Is Wrong This is perhaps the biggest problem with the current debate. Not all development has the same fiscal impact. A 537-unit residential development creates something a large data center does not: hundreds of new households. Those households may mean additional children attending local schools, additional traffic, additional demand for public services and additional infrastructure requirements. A data center, by contrast, is primarily a commercial/industrial operation. That doesn't mean a data center has no costs. It does mean the type of costs and potential revenue are different. That distinction should be at the center of Cumru's decision-making. TND vs. Data Center: The Taxpayer Question Editor's note: The comparison below identifies potential impacts, not measured scores or a dollar-for-dollar fiscal forecast. Neither project’s net effect on existing homeowners’ property-tax bills has been established here. Chart 2. A qualitative comparison of potential impacts—not a numerical ranking. Project-specific studies are needed to determine the size of each effect. A data center does not automatically lower taxes. Here's Why This Matters to Every Cumru Taxpayer Look at what the chart is showing. On the residential side, the biggest concern is new households and potential school enrollment . That's not a political talking point. It is a basic consequence of building hundreds of homes. On the data-center side, the potential benefit is different: a large commercial tax base without creating hundreds of residential households. That doesn't automatically make the data center a better project. It means it deserves to be evaluated on its own merits. And that's exactly what appears to be missing from much of this debate: a true apples-to-apples financial comparison. Before Cumru approves a major residential development, taxpayers should know: How much additional property-tax revenue will be generated? How many additional students are projected? What will those students potentially cost the school district? What additional municipal services will be required? What infrastructure improvements will be necessary? Who pays for those improvements? And before Cumru approves a data center, taxpayers should ask: How much taxable investment will the project create? What will the expected annual tax revenue be? What infrastructure will be required? What will electricity and utility demands mean for the community? What are the noise, water, environmental and emergency-service impacts? Who pays for the required professional reviews? Those are the numbers the public deserves to see. Chart 3. An explanatory framework, not a tax forecast. Compare one-time construction obligations separately from recurring annual costs and revenue. Tax abatements, assessment appeals, phasing and developer commitments can change the result. The Real Question Isn't "Do You Like Development?" That's the wrong question. The real question is: Which development provides the best financial outcome for the people who already live here? A developer may benefit from building 537 homes. A data-center company may benefit from constructing a massive facility. But what about the homeowner in Cumru? What does that homeowner receive? And what additional costs could that homeowner eventually be asked to absorb? That's where government officials need to focus. Don't Give the Data Center a Free Pass To be fair, the answer isn't to automatically approve the Titus Station data center. Cumru needs strong regulations. It needs independent experts. It needs transparent financial projections. It needs environmental and infrastructure safeguards. And residents need to know exactly what they are getting in return. If the numbers don't work, say no. But if the numbers show that a properly regulated data center could produce substantial tax revenue while avoiding the school-enrollment pressures associated with hundreds of new homes, taxpayers deserve to know that too. Rejecting that possibility without looking at the numbers isn't fiscal responsibility. It's ideology. The Taxpayer-Funded Question There is another issue residents should be watching closely: Who pays for the studies and oversight? If Cumru requires specialized engineering, traffic, environmental or other professional reviews for the data-center proposal, residents should know exactly what portion is paid by the developer and what portion is paid by taxpayers. The same principle should apply to residential development. Make the developer prove the project works. And make the numbers public. September 14 and 15: Show Up A sketch plan may not be final approval, but residents shouldn't wait until the final vote to become involved. Once a development has moved through multiple stages of planning, engineering and negotiation, changing its direction becomes much more difficult. This is the time for residents to speak up. Ask for an independent fiscal analysis. Ask for a school-impact analysis. Ask for realistic traffic projections. Ask what infrastructure will be paid for by the developer and what will ultimately fall on taxpayers. And when it comes to Titus Station, don't demand rejection simply because the words "data center" make people nervous. Demand strict standards, independent review and a clear accounting of the financial benefits and costs. The Bottom Line The debate shouldn't be: Development versus no development. It should be: Good development versus bad development. Revenue-producing development versus development that creates costs taxpayers must absorb. Responsible growth versus growth that leaves existing taxpayers holding the bill. Cumru residents have every right to demand answers. And this week, they should. Show up. Ask questions. Demand the numbers. Because when the bills come due, it won't be the developer paying your property-tax bill. It will be you.