The online shopping frenzy pushed warehouses into Pennsylvania's once quiet Lehigh Valley. Unhappy locals are pushing back.

An Atlanta developer named Core5 Industrial Partners planned to build a 100,569-square-foot warehouse on a plot of land in a busy area of Lowhill Township, a community of just over 2,100 people in the Lehigh Valley.

The locals at the firehouse had plenty of concerns. The Core5 warehouse was one of three proposed industrial buildings totaling about 700,000 square feet, all in the same part of the township. Residents had heard the new developments would add at least 175 trucks to the area's winding, two-lane country roads during peak hours. Along with the likely traffic, they would disrupt school-bus routes serving the day-care center across the street from one of the proposed warehouse locations.

The warehouses would also mar the views of the rolling Appalachian Mountains that surround the valley's open fields and trees, some residents say. The expanse of pavement could increase water runoff and cause flooding, some said.

"There's nobody in that room that wants this to happen," Debra McDermott, a 68-year-old who lives in the neighboring community of Schnecksville and attended the August meeting, told Insider. "Not one person wants this to happen, except whoever is going to make a financial benefit from selling the land."

People moved to Lowhill Township and the surrounding area for its country lifestyle, she said. "This warehouse thing," she continued, "is going to change the whole complexion of our community."

In early October, township leaders tabled the proposal for the three warehouses after residents continued to voice their concerns, securing at least temporary relief for those opposing the developments.

The East Coast's inland port

Lowhill Township is just one of many municipalities in the middle of the warehousing boom that has swept over the Lehigh Valley in recent years, fueled by America's growing attachment to e-commerce. An eastern complement to Southern California's Inland Empire, the region is connected by major highways to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, DC. It's within a day's drive of more than a third of US residents.

"It's a confluence not of rivers, but of interstates," said Karen Pooley, the director of the environmental-policy program at Lehigh University. "We really are one of the hot spots nationwide for warehouse development."

Over in Plainfield Township, 34 miles east of Lowhill, residents are speaking out against a proposed 1 million-square-foot warehouse that the St. Louis firm CRG Services Management plans to build on an empty rural plot along a quiet road.

"The only people in favor of it are the people building it and going to make money off of it," said Pat Sutter, a resident of the neighboring Wind Gap, who works as a tax collector. "They don't even live around here." She cited the same concerns voiced by those in Lowhill: Warehouses bring congestion and noise, spoiling the peaceful quality that drew many to the Valley.

This tension isn't unique to this bit of Pennsylvania. A new bill under consideration in California's Inland Empire would stop developers in two counties from building or expanding a warehouse within 1,000 feet of most nonindustrial property. Residents are also pushing for laws to limit warehouse development in the area, the nonprofit newsroom Grist reported.

But in the Lehigh Valley, development is especially energetic — and to many, troubling.

Space race

The Lehigh Valley is home to nearly 143.5 million square feet of industrial space, according to CBRE's most recent snapshot, the equivalent of nearly 2,500 football fields. Per CBRE, another 11 million square feet are under construction.

Since 2018, Amazon, FedEx, and the Whole Foods supplier United Natural Food have moved into the area. In the past two years, as the coronavirus pandemic supercharged e-commerce, 21 new warehouses occupying 9.7 million square feet have opened in the valley, according to Yardi data. Many sit in communities of fewer than 8,000 people.

Despite an influx of city-dwellers during the pandemic, the Lehigh Valley remains a largely blue-collar region. The median family income sits between $66,000 and $73,000, just above the national median, according to the 2020 census. The most common jobs are in trade, transportation, and utilities, followed by education and health services, according to the US Department of Labor.

Some of those workers are happy to have the warehouses, which have created jobs, boosted tax revenue, and made land more valuable. Nearly 30,000 jobs were added in the Lehigh Valley from 2010 to 2020, per the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, which didn't specify how many of those were in warehouses.

David Jaindl, 67, a farmer and industrial developer who has lived in the Lehigh Valley his whole life, appreciates the economic boost. "These warehouses only exist because there's a need and because of our location," he told Insider. "Folks today, you know, they want things the next day and these sites help provide that."

Zone defense

Historically, warehouse development was largely limited to the Lehigh Valley's industrial areas, especially the cities of Bethlehem, Allentown, and Easton. Since 2010, as those pockets filled up and e-commerce accelerated, developers have been branching into rural areas that had no rules to stop them.

"If you have a zoning code that was written at a time where the thought of a million-square-foot warehouse wasn't even a remote possibility, then you've got a set of regulations that can't account for a warehouse that big and all of the consequences that that it might bring," Pooley said.

Over half of residents surveyed by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission in 2018 said warehouses were one of their least favorite things about living in the region, while two out of three named truck traffic.

The planning commission, which is responsible for establishing region-wide directives and coordinating between communities to plan for the region's future, is now working with 62 municipalities to build consistent development goals and policies. The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission's executive director, Becky Bradley, said the commission wasn't against warehouse development per se, just rapid and unregulated warehouse development.

The commission's ability to slow new development is limited by the fact that Pennsylvania is a right-to-develop state, said Chris Amato, a chair on the planning commission from Northampton County. If local planning boards don't have laws that restrict certain development in certain areas, developers have a right to build there.

"As a regional, multimunicipal planning board, we're utterly helpless to stop things," he told Insider.

Some residents dispute that. "The whole reason for the planning board, and the zoning board being in place, is to operate in the best interests of the township. Well that's not being done," said a resident named Bill Pleban, who lives in the New Tripoli community. "What's happening is it's operating in the best interests of a few people who stand to gain financially."

Other sticking points go beyond the bureaucracy or lack thereof. Amato estimates that the price to upgrade the area's infrastructure — from improving roads to building new ones — to keep up with the warehouses is in the billions. He isn't sure how the Lehigh Valley would pay for it, especially given that the region is running a $4 billion deficit.

"We have absolutely no idea how we're going to cover that gap," he said. "By the time we realized that the industry was becoming as large as it was, the horse had already been let out of the barn."

The commission has, however, helped these small municipalities push back. In that August firehouse meeting, armed with a review produced by the planning commission, Lowhill Township officials were able to block the development until it addressed issues the township had.

Plainfield Township is considering changing its laws to make it harder to build a huge warehouse, but in the meantime the million-square-foot-warehouse proposal remains intact.

Warning bells

For now, it seems the insatiable demand for warehouse space is outpacing land-use policy.

"If land is zoned for a particular use and the property owner does everything that the ordinances require, they have the right to do it," said Blake Marles, an attorney who represents CRG and other developers building warehouses in the region.

And some think this means locals have lost the right to determine the future of their towns.

"The issue is, quite frankly, the industry is unsustainable at this point," Amato said. "Everything in balance is good. But unfortunately, the scales have tipped and now there's a tremendous amount of inequity between the warehousing industry and the people who live here."

For people in the thick of it, like McDermott, the warehouse takeover is a warning to other places that have access to key highways and a lot of land.

"If it can happen to us, it can happen to anybody," she said. "But if we can set a precedent, maybe in the future, it can help them."