MAMAKATING — “Everybody is here because of social media, they blew it completely out of proportion, and nobody knew our side,” Town of Mamakating Councilman Michael Robbins told a concerned crowd of town residents Tuesday evening. Robbins was citing the aftermath of the town’s August 18 board meeting, where internal discussions turned to a request for public research and feedback on potential data centers in the town.

To widespread applause from meeting attendees, the town board announced that it would explore a temporary moratorium on data center development while officials research and decide how the growing technology should be approached in the town.

With this settled, the town board voted to greenlight the preparation of a local law that would place a moratorium on data centers, while still allowing the public to come forth in a dedicated session to say what they wanted. This session saw residents expressing concern over potential environmental and infrastructure impacts of such developments.

The moratorium, Robbins explained, will be put in place to give the town the leeway to develop its own regulations as it awaits further information from New York State, which currently had a one-year moratorium on large-scale data centers in place.

“Nobody [applying to open a data center] has ever come to us, so this is a good way to do a moratorium now, before somebody does,” Robbins said.

Town Attorney Benjamin Gailey will prepare a proposed local law that the board will review. It will then be subject to a proper public hearing prior to the board formally adopting it.

As for how long this moratorium will be, that information is not yet set in stone, though the board suggested a possible timeline of at least a year.

Gailey pointed out that similar local laws are usually effective for 12 to 18 months, but provisions can extend them. To this comment, some residents spoke up with the sentiment that the moratorium should be permanent.

Supervisor Peter Goodman pointed out the difficulty in determining what classifies as a data center, since smaller-scale facilities can greatly differ from larger-scale facilities.

“Our main goal is to make sure that we don’t get something coming into town here that’s going to be drawing our water, with super high-power [energy] usage, things like that,” stated Goodman.

Many of the residents who came before the board to speak shared similar concerns around electricity and water usage, as well as impacts on the local Bashakill wetlands.

Bashakill Area Association Treasurer Lisa Snitzer was happy the board was proactive in addressing the issue before an actual proposal came to them.

“It’s not about being against technology or economic development,” stressed Snitzer. “It’s about protecting what makes Mamakating worth living in.”

Other residents urged the board to carefully craft the local law to avoid possible technicalities and abuses. Resident Matt Vrydaghs noted that large corporations have the resources to test or bypass local regulations.

The resolution to create a proposed local law for a moratorium was passed with a motion by Robbins and a second from Goodman, with the entire board in favor. While an official date for the public hearing wasn’t set, it was expected to happen within “the next couple of meetings.”