Islip Town Board sets 18-month ban on new data centers in community

The Islip Town Board on Tuesday voted unanimously to ban construction of large-scale data centers in the community for at least 18 months.

The centers are used to support the rising demand for artificial intelligence. Last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul implemented a 12-month statewide ban on centers that exceed 50 megawatts, citing the need to establish regulatory guidelines for the facilities, Newsday reported.

Islip’s moratorium is in place until Feb. 28, 2028. The town’s ban did not exclude facilities under a certain size threshold, unlike the state’s 50-megawatt limit, but Islip’s reasoning for the ban mirrors Hochul’s.

"There’s so much more that needs to be investigated for the data centers [and] we have to amend our code so it all fits," Councilman John Lorenzo, a conservative, said. "Right now, we’re pumping the brakes."

The proliferation of data centers has prompted fierce opposition.

In Brookhaven, scores of speakers at a July 16 town board meeting weighed in on a proposed moratorium. Their concerns ranged from noise to potential rate hikes and environmental impacts caused by data center power usage, Newsday reported.

The board unanimously adopted a data center ban for 18 months at that meeting. They too cited a need to update their codes to properly regulate the facilities.

Islip Town’s code includes a definition of "data center," which town code previously lacked. The definition prohibits facilities with main functions ranging from housing artificial intelligence processing to maintaining computer systems. It does not set a maximum size for banned facilities.

There are currently no data centers operating in Islip Town or that are actively in the development pipeline, according to town spokesperson Caroline Smith.

Islip’s new code states the data centers present a slew of infrastructure, planning and quality-of-life issues that the town needs time to address.

"The existing zoning regulations do not adequately address these issues and that additional study is necessary to develop comprehensive regulations," the code states.

By Sam Kmack

sam.kmack@newsday.com

Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.