A new proposed local law, amending zoning on data centers & crypto mines, was voted to proceed to a public hearing (11/17) followed by a vote by the Town Board (11/18).
2/5 Board Members (Christine and Judy) voted no to hold a public hearing for the proposed law. With 3/5 majority, the proposed law will proceed to the Lansing planning board and the county planning dept. before being voted on.
What’s next? November 17: Public Hearing on the proposed local law at Lansing Middle School Auditorium. November 18*: Town Board vote on the proposed local law.
*Tentative, assuming no substantial changes to the law are made.
Watch the replay of the meeting here. Read the new proposed local law here page 74.
What did each board member have to say?
Judy: Said she will not vote for the proposed law. Does not want to ban data centers in all of Lansing. Thinks the town has not done their due diligence to hire consultants and never had a presentation from "the organization" [TeraWulf, despite the law being for all data centers]. She said “I do not feel like we are educated enough.” She expressed concern about the focus being on one specific site, “but this would be banning it [data centers] for all of Lansing and we have other areas that it [data centers] would be feasible."
Christine: Said “there are a lot of other things I wanted to do on the town board and I... don’t want to waste any more time dealing with banning data centers when we need some investment in this town.” Said she might vote for a moratorium “until the state finishes their recommendations.” Asked the visiting lawyer if the board could use the list of speakers from 9/29 special meeting and start with folks who didn’t get to speak. The lawyer said they “want to be careful the board is not inadvertently either violating some of the laws that apply to amending the zoning code, or violating any first amendment issues.”
Laurie: Clarified that the company did give a presentation at a previous meeting. Thinks the board actually does have “quite a bit of information about both the concerns about data centers in communities in general” and “there is already very good national data on how data centers are impacting other communities that are very similar to ours.” She said “there are examples of other towns with data centers in their communities not receiving benefits that were promised to them” and that the Board has done their due diligence.
Joe: Stated that he has been reading an immense amount about data centers this year. He has also talked with towns around the state and the general consensus is that data centers (as a industry) are not a mitigable problem. He highlighted issues such as potential electricity limits on consumers, neighboring property values decreasing, noise pollution, e-waste, PFAs, and more. He said the data center industry as a whole does not follow through on promises and it’s cheaper for them to sue the municipality. Lansing does not have the resources to force every company who makes promises to the town to keep them.
Ruth: Thinks it will be a mistake if the Board waits to make a ban. Said “I am tired of fighting to just maintain the quality of life that we have here in Lansing right now.” Also said she is all for pushing the proposed law forward. Later said that a moratorium followed by a ban would open them up for more issues down the road. The lawyer confirmed that if the Board went with a moratorium followed by a ban, there would be two instances for a data center company to sue them, as opposed to the one opportunity with just a ban.
