What East Fishkill's Data Center Moratorium Actually Leaves Open

"No Data Center shall be permitted or considered within the Town for a period of three years." That is the line most people quote from the local law East Fishkill's Town Board passed after its June 25, 2026 public hearing. The headlines called it a three-year freeze. If you're comparing southern Dutchess towns and looking at homes near Route 52, I-84 or Lime Kiln Road, that headline probably sounded like the end of the question.

It isn't. The sentence keeps going after "three years," and the rest of it describes the one property in town where a data center was already being discussed. The grid side of these projects also runs through a separate state process, and the town law doesn't pause it. If you want to know what could be built near a house you're considering, the moratorium's title tells you less than three public records do.

The sentence keeps going

Here is the full clause from Section Two of the local law:

"While presently not a permitted use and until the completion of Federal and State studies with respect to the power consumption, water usage, noise and heat issues no Data Center shall be permitted or considered within the Town for a period of three years, unless they are ancillary to an existing or permitted use and less than 20 mw or eligible for an Economic Development Special Permit."

That clause contains two exceptions. A smaller facility under 20 MW that supports an existing or permitted use is one. A project eligible for an Economic Development Special Permit is the other. The law runs until July 1, 2029, and it takes effect once it is filed with the New York Secretary of State. The text never defines "Data Center," and it gives the Town Board the right to decide how the law should be interpreted.

Supervisor Nick D'Alessandro explained at the hearing that the moratorium wasn't a response to a filing. "Not because there's an application, there is not," he said. He called a data center a significant use that "deserves impactful thought and consideration." That matters for reading the exception. The law doesn't stop a pending case. It sets the rules for cases that haven't been filed yet.

Which property that exception describes

The town's own minutes show where the Economic Development Special Permit points. During public comment, resident Chris Duffelmeyer asked whether that permit is the same instrument as the Redevelopment Special Permit iPark 84 already holds. According to the minutes, "Supervisor D'Alessandro stated that is correct." When asked who grants these permits, the Supervisor said the Town Board issues them and they then go to the Planning Board for approval. The town attorney added that a public hearing is part of that process.

iPark 84 is the former IBM campus. Commercial Observer described it in August 2026 as a 270-acre, 1.8-million-square-foot former semiconductor site with room for another 1.5 million square feet. A speaker at the June hearing put the property at 418 acres. Neither source explains the difference, so the two figures may describe different boundaries. In the same comment, Mr. Duffelmeyer said his understanding was that the town's Master Development Plan mentions attracting data centers to iPark in two places. That is a resident's description from the public record. I haven't checked it against the plan text. The town's comprehensive plan page says the final plan was adopted September 25, 2025.

The campus also changed hands this summer. Commercial Observer reported on August 19, 2026 that a joint venture of Lincoln Property Company, Saber-Hightower and Waterfall Asset Management bought four National Resources properties for $450 million. iPark 84 was the anchor of that portfolio. The $450 million covers all four properties, not iPark alone. New owners of a large campus usually bring new plans. So the property with the clearest route through the moratorium's exception now has owners who haven't publicly said what they intend.

Two grid requests the town law doesn't pause

A data center needs two kinds of approval. The town controls land use. The state grid operator, NYISO, studies whether the power system can deliver the load. The East Fishkill law applies to the first and has no effect on the second.

NYISO's interconnection queue file dated August 31, 2026 lists two data-center load requests in East Fishkill:

The queue records a last update of June 30, 2026 for both entries. Request 1738 would connect to the East Fishkill to Wood Street 345-kV lines. Request 1760 calls for a new 115-kV line from Central Hudson's East Fishkill substation.

Food & Water Watch and local coverage describe request 1738 as Treetop's proposal: a campus of about 800,000 square feet "off of I-84 and Lime Kiln Road." The available reports don't give a parcel number or street address. Treetop Companies describes itself as a real estate investment firm founded in 2005 by Azi Mandel and Adam Mermelstein.

The timeline here is easy to misread. On June 26, the day after the vote, WAMC reported that Treetop's proposal no longer appeared on the NYISO queue. NYISO's later August 31 file lists request 1738 as active, with its system impact study in progress. A third queue entry, East Fishkill Storage 1 LLC, is labeled as an energy-storage generation project, not a data-center load.

None of these entries means construction is planned or approved. A grid study is not a town approval. As the Supervisor said in June, no data-center application had been filed with the town. But in both requests, the grid study kept moving after the moratorium passed. One of them is on the property the exception seems to fit.

The part of the law that expires first

The same local law has a shorter clock that gets less attention. Through December 31, 2026, town boards will not accept or review development applications in the Industrial Districts on land with no existing development. Land with existing approvals can still modify and expand, and any project granted an Economic Development Special Permit can proceed.

The law's intent section explains why the town is studying industrial zoning at all. It says that outside the former IBM site, industrial districts "were mapped primarily while the town was mostly rural." It adds that decades of residential development have made many of those sites "inappropriate and impractical to use as they are zoned." For a buyer, that is the town's own description of industrial zoning that now sits close to homes. It also signals that rezoning decisions could come before the year-end deadline.

The task force is moving slowly and without a public membership list. Councilmember Marianne Flores described its intended makeup as planning and zoning representatives, utility experts, environmental professionals, engineers, local business leaders and residents. On July 23, the Supervisor said he and Flores were meeting to set it up. At the August 27 meeting, a resident asked who was on it. The Board approved the task force on September 24, after more than an hour of public comment, much of it about the iPark exception. As of today, no roster has been published.

State rules add another layer, though not at the town level. Governor Hochul's Executive Order No. 62, issued July 14, 2026, directs the state's environmental agency to set aside certain incomplete state permit applications for data centers. The order expressly says it does not apply to local government permits.

Records to check before you make an offer near Route 52

When a buyer asks what could be built near a property, these are the documents that answer it:

1. The NYISO interconnection queue. NYISO posts updated queue files on its interconnections page. Look up entries 1738 and 1760 and see whether their status has changed since the August 31, 2026 file.
2. Town Board agendas and minutes. Requests for an Economic Development Special Permit start with the Town Board. East Fishkill posts agendas and minutes online. Upcoming Board meetings are listed for October 9 and October 22, 2026.
3. Planning Board public hearing notices. According to the Supervisor and the town attorney at the June hearing, a special permit then goes through Planning Board approval with a public hearing.

None of this is legal advice. For questions about a specific parcel, a real estate attorney or the Town of East Fishkill's offices can tell you how the law applies.

FAQ

Does the moratorium ban data centers at iPark 84? Not necessarily. The law exempts projects eligible for an Economic Development Special Permit. At the June 25 hearing, the Supervisor confirmed that this is the same instrument as iPark's existing Redevelopment Special Permit. Any approval would still require Town Board action and Planning Board review with a public hearing.

Is the Treetop proposal still active? NYISO's August 31, 2026 queue file lists request 1738 as active, with its system impact study in progress. That came after a June report that it had left the queue. An active queue entry doesn't mean a town application has been filed.

When do the town's restrictions end? The pause on applications for undeveloped industrial-zoned land runs through December 31, 2026. The data center provision runs until July 1, 2029.

If you're weighing a home near Route 52, I-84 or Lime Kiln Road, or you own one and wonder how this year's zoning news affects its value, I'm glad to go through the current records with you. I've been watching East Fishkill's market since I was licensed in 1994. Reach out to Debra Allan to request a free home valuation that accounts for what's on the town and grid calendars right now.