East Fishkill to pass moratorium on data centers as developers float possibility of project in town
Town Supervisor Nicholas D'Alessandro told News 12 Thursday that any landowner and/or developer is free to explore new uses for their land, but that exploration is far from any approved project.
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Ahead of Thursday evening's protest against a proposed giant artificial intelligence data center in East Fishkill, several area residents and elected officials were in agreement that such a project on the edge of town should not happen - at least not now and probably not ever.
Developer Treetop Companies is asking the group that manages the state's power grid to look into whether the local infrastructure would be able to handle a one-gigawatt AI data center on the edge of town, just south of Interstate 84.
Treetop's request to the New York Independent System Operator for review spooked some locals and environmental activists.
Recent college graduate James Quinlin is concerned about the massive amounts of electricity needed to power such complex systems and the water needed to cool them. He is glad opposition has started early, even before the company submits any site plan or zoning law requests to the town.
"The more people approve of it, and more people who are near it approve of it, the more that they're going to be overall in the U.S.," he said as he was getting a haircut at a barbershop a few miles from the proposed site.
Town Supervisor Nicholas D'Alessandro told News 12 on Thursday that any landowner and/or developer is free to explore new uses for their land, but that exploration is far from any approved project.
D'Alessandro has been reminding the community that Treetop has never submitted a formal application for the project nor a site plan, and that current zoning laws do not allow standalone data centers.
To go even further and to address fears and concerns, the town board went into Thursday evening's meeting, likely to pass a three-year moratorium on new data center projects.
"That alone would halt an application," D'Alessandro said Thursday afternoon when reached by phone, "but I think that those large data centers — I don't see a future for them in the Hudson Valley. We just don't have the space."
Neighbors and environmental activists were back outside town hall Thursday evening to try to ensure the moratorium passes.
Lawmakers from both major parties are supporting similar measures at the state and federal levels.
D'Alessandro said the moratorium will give the town time to adjust its zoning laws and to wait for the state legislature to pass statewide laws, which may also further restrict large data center projects.
He said at a May board meeting that smaller data center projects might be in the town's future, and advised against swearing off all data centers altogether.
