The Plattsburgh Common Council tonight will hold a public hearing and then vote on a temporary moratorium on “certain high energy use facilities.”
On June 17th, the Common Council unanimously passed a local land-use and economic development law to “regulate high-energy-intensive uses, including cryptocurrency mining operations, blockchain validation facilities, and large-scale data centers.”
A supplemental law introduced on August 20th and initially planned for action in September would impose a moratorium on such facilities as the city conducts a comprehensive zoning review. It was referred to the county planning board and is now back before the city council for consideration.
Local Law P-2 states that as part of the comprehensive zoning review, “the City is considering whether its existing zoning and land-use regulations, including Local Law No. 1 of 2026, should be supplemented or modified with respect to the siting, expansion, intensity, infrastructure demands, noise, cooling systems, emergency response, decommissioning, and compatibility of High Energy Use Facilities with surrounding uses and the City's long-term land-use plan.”
The document also states that “new categories and configurations of high-energy computing operations, including artificial intelligence computing, cloud computing, data centers, server farms, colocation facilities, cryptocurrency mining, blockchain validation, and similar uses, continue to evolve rapidly.”
A public hearing will be held on the temporary moratorium at 5:30pm tonight in the Plattsburgh City Hall Council Chambers in advance of the council’s vote during its regular meeting.
