New York’s East Fishkill is debating AI infrastructure. The town, located about 70 miles north of New York City, was once a major semiconductor manufacturing hub, with IBM operating a 460-acre campus there for nearly 50 years. However, a proposed 1-gigawatt artificial intelligence (AI) data centre has prompted residents to question whether the project would benefit the community or put additional pressure on its electricity supply.The data center developer Treetop Companies is exploring plans for a facility spanning more than 1 million square feet across approximately 143 acres. Residents have organised protests and pushed for restrictions, arguing the project could raise electricity costs, harm the environment, and offer limited long-term employment.
East Fishkill imposes a three-year moratorium on data centres
East Fishkill’s town board unanimously adopted a three-year moratorium in late June 2026, preventing the consideration of new data centres larger than 20 megawatts until July 2029. Officials said the pause would give the community time to study the potential effects of such facilities on water resources, local ecosystems and the area’s character.The opposition gathered momentum even before the developer submitted a formal data centre application to the town. Residents attended public meetings, organised rallies and called for restrictions on large-scale projects.“I just think that we’re at this moment where things are happening very quickly; we need to get our ducks in a row and think about the various ways in which data centres and new energy usage will affect our long-term community cohesiveness, environmental quality, and character,” said East Fishkill resident and professor Tanya Radford.The proposed development has also drawn attention because of its expected electricity demand. Residents fear that adding a facility of this scale could strain the grid and raise power bills.
Why the proposed 1-gigawatt AI data centre has raised concerns
The controversy began after Treetop Development purchased property in East Fishkill while initially pursuing approvals for a warehouse project. Residents later discovered that Donovan Drive Holdings, a local property owner associated with the development, submitted a request to the New York Independent System Operator’s (NYISO) interconnection queue for about 1,000 megawatts of electrical service.NYISO manages New York’s high-voltage electricity grid and reviews requests from large projects seeking to connect to it. The request raised concerns because a 1-gigawatt data centre would consume more electricity than the entire city of Buffalo, which has approximately 275,000 residents. East Fishkill, meanwhile, has a population of around 30,000.Fran Caracappa, a resident and county legislature candidate, said the project’s scale was central to the opposition.“The pushback is really to the size,” resident Fran Caracappa, a candidate for county legislature, said. “The Treetop center would be 1,000 megawatts. People do not want to pay higher electricity rates because of a larger data centre coming in and putting pressure on the grid.”Residents have also questioned whether the facility would create enough permanent jobs to justify its electricity demand and land use.“It’s not going to provide work to keep people here like the previous tech businesses did,” Caracappa said. “So what’s the benefit to the town?”
IBM’s legacy shapes opposition to the development
East Fishkill’s resistance comes despite its history as a technology centre. IBM’s semiconductor operations employed thousands of workers and helped establish the region’s industrial identity. Parts of the former IBM campus now form iPark 84, a mixed-use development that houses commercial, residential and technology facilities.Residents have made it clear that they oppose not technology itself, but the size of the proposed project and its potential impact. The industrial past of the region has raised concerns about contamination of groundwater from semiconductor manufacture . There are still several polluted Superfund sites in the area .Other issues residents raised include noise, diesel backup generators, wetlands, property values, and the loss of the area’s rural character.
Developer challenges the town’s data centre ban
Treetop has appealed the moratorium. In a 17-page objection letter submitted to the town board, the company’s attorneys argued that the measure unlawfully targets its property and effectively amounts to a permanent prohibition rather than a temporary planning measure.The company said it had spent years and significant resources advancing development plans, including environmental reviews, wetlands investigations, traffic studies and utility coordination.However, the town’s officials have maintained that no formal data centre application has been submitted and that the moratorium will allow them to assess how local zoning should address large-scale facilities.
