Hamburg votes unanimously to pause data centers for a year, and officials say nothing is proposed

By Bridget Halloran

HAMBURG — Hamburg’s Town Board voted unanimously Monday night to put a one-year hold on data centers, giving itself time to rewrite the rules before anyone asks to build one.

The 5-0 vote adopts a local law that Spectrum News reported temporarily bars the town from issuing, or even considering, permits, applications and other approvals tied to building, expanding or operating a data center. The pause takes effect once the law is filed with the New York secretary of state. The board could end it early or extend it.

The vote closes out a question the Chronicle previewed Monday morning. The measure amends Chapter 280 of the town code, the zoning chapter, according to the resolution read at the meeting. A recording is posted on the town’s Swagit video and in a meeting recap.

No project is waiting

Planner Joshua Rogers told the board the pause is not a response to a live application.

“Obviously, right now there aren’t any proposals or any data centers here in the town of Hamburg,” Rogers said.

He said the town had already narrowed where a data center could go. “We looked at our zoning. We changed our M-3 district, which is the general industrial district in the town. Right now, that would be the only place where data centers would be allowed, and that would require a special use permit by the planning board,” he said.

Even so, he said, data-center proposals have been moving quickly around the state, and the town wanted more time to review its own code. “This isn’t because something is coming down the pipeline,” Rogers said. “This is just the town being proactive instead of being reactive.”

The resolution adopted Monday makes the same point. “Although the Town of Hamburg currently regulates artificial intelligence data centers under its zoning laws, the Town Board wishes to further review those regulations in light of the rapidly evolving nature and scale of these facilities,” it said, according to Spectrum News.

It added that a one-year pause “would provide the Town with an opportunity to study these issues and determine whether additional regulations are necessary to protect Town residents, infrastructure, natural resources, and neighboring properties.”

Power, green space and quality of life

Councilman Frank Bogulski, who has pushed the town to take a harder look at data centers, thanked Rogers and his colleagues after the vote.

“I know one of the things that we all collectively hear in Hamburg is that people are concerned about the overdevelopment of our town and the loss of green space, but also for data centers, especially the use of power, our resources, and quality of life issues,” Bogulski said.

“I’m proud that our board and our planning department is looking proactively to protect the integrity of our town and to look at this matter proactively,” he said.

Hamburg is not the first local government to hit pause. West Seneca’s Town Board passed its own one-year moratorium in October, Spectrum News reported, and Buffalo officials have discussed a longer hold. In July, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order pausing new state environmental permits for “hyperscale” data centers for up to a year while the state writes uniform standards. That state pause covers state permits. Local zoning is still the town’s call.

The board’s Nov. 2 agenda described a broad definition of a data center, covering buildings used mainly to house, process, store or transmit digital data, including cloud, artificial-intelligence and high-performance computing operations. During the year, the town said it would study land use, zoning, environmental, infrastructure, public safety, utility demand, noise, traffic and community-character impacts before deciding whether to change its comprehensive plan or zoning rules.

What else the board did

Monday’s meeting was not only about data centers. The board formally established the Town of Hamburg Ambulance District, covering properties in the town except the villages of Hamburg and Blasdell. It also adopted amendments to the 2027 supervisor’s budget that, the resolution said, do not change any proposed tax rates, and it set a Dec. 14 public hearing at 6 p.m. on the Woodlawn Gateway Brownfield Opportunity Area plan.

The next Town Board meeting is Nov. 16. The Nov. 2 agenda is posted on Southtowns Record, and meeting information is on the town website.