Previously Published in The Messenger
By Matt Meduri
The national hot-button argument on data centers and AI at large has come to Suffolk.
The Town of Brookhaven held a contentious meeting last month that resulted in a unanimous 18-month moratorium on all data centers while the Town Board works to study and classify them within Town Code. A full ban is not off the table.
New York State, by executive order of Governor Kathy Hochul (D-Hamburg), passed a one-year moratorium on data centers, but only those above 50 megawatts (MW) in usage – “hyperscale” data centers.
The Islip Town Board unanimously approved the moratorium earlier this month. It is in place until February 28, 2028. Like Brookhaven’s measure, and unlike New York’s ban, the Islip moratorium does not exclude facilities under a certain size threshold.
Part of Islip’s prerogative is no different than what other municipalities are facing. The Town Code simply does not include the definition of what qualifies as a “data center.” The definition now includes facilities whose main functions are to house Artificial Intelligence processing.
Islip currently has no data centers and there are none in active development, according to a Town spokesperson.
“Our whole world is evolving every day,” Islip Town Councilman John Lorenzo (C-West Sayville) told The Messenger by phone. “We need to pump the brakes and figure out how to adjust for it.”
Lorenzo added that while there “might be a place” for large-scale data centers, Long Island isn’t one of those places.
“I don’t personally believe at this moment that a large data center has any home in Islip.”
Lorenzo further stated that the mission of defining the code and allowing the Town to learn about these centers can be a double-edged sword. He stresses not alienating small businesses who might rely on some type of computing that isn’t necessarily a large-scale data center, similar to the one proposed in Yaphank that was halted by Brookhaven’s moratorium.
Suffolk County Legislator and Presiding Officer Anthony Piccirillo (R-Holtsville) wrote in favor of the moratorium in a statement and heralded Councilwoman DawnMarie Kuhn’s (R-Bohemia) role in the matter.
“This proactive approach to government is exactly why she was elected overwhelmingly last fall,” said Piccirillo.