Public hearing set after plans emerge to build massive data center in southern Dutchess
A data storage center in Orangeburg, New York.
A public hearing will be held this week after plans for a 1-gigawatt data center on 137-acres, set to be the largest in New York State, began to surface last month.
The development of data centers have been rapidly expanding across the country to help assist the increasing need for cloud-based internet storage – for streaming movies, playing online games, using online banking or scrolling through an influx of artificial intelligence-generated content.
According to reports, plans from the New Jersey-based developer, Treetop Companies, on a parcel originally slated for a 765,000-square-foot warehouse, would require the use of 1,000-megawatts of electricity to fuel the proposed data center.
To date, Treetop has submitted a request for an assessment from the state to see if the site can support the proposed electric capacity, but no official applications or site plans have been submitted to the Town of East Fishkill, according to the Town Supervisor Nick D’Alessandro.
Local residents have expressed concerns about the proximity of the data center to adjacent neighborhoods, the impact on the region’s already-sky-rocketing utility bills, the amount of water needed to cool the data center equipment, and whether that would strain critical infrastructure like drinking water for the surrounding communities. An online petition against Treetop’s proposal currently has over 1,877 signatures.
On Thursday, June 25, 2026 at 6pm, the Town of East Fishkill will hold a public hearing on extending the town’s moratorium on industrial development. The town moratorium was first enacted in 2024 “to allow the town additional time to review and evaluate industrial development regulations, zoning considerations, infrastructure impacts, and long-term planning objectives affecting the community,” D’Alessandro said. The town’s current industrial moratorium, which also applies to warehouses, expires on June 30, 2026.
New York State is one of 14 states proposing a state-wide moratoriums on data center construction. On June 4, the Responsible Data Center Development Act, introduced by Hudson Valley-based Assemblymember Didi Barrett, passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly, and is currently awaiting passage by governor. If signed, the act would be the first in the nation to enact a statewide moratorium on data centers by establishing a one-year moratorium on new permits for large data centers with a peak load of over 20 megawatts, as well as requiring public hearings, DEC environmental impact reports, in addition to establishing energy efficiency goals for data centers with a peak load of over five megawatts.
“For too long Big Tech has benefited from under-regulation, writing their own rules on large scale data center development with little accountability or transparency on local impacts,” said New York State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, who sponsored the act. “Technology should improve peoples’ lives, not drive up our energy bills or exhaust our natural resources and increase pollution.”
The public hearing to extend the town’s moratorium will take place as part of the regularly scheduled Town of East Fishkill Town Board meeting on Thursday, June 25, 2026 at 6pm, located at 330 Route 376, Hopewell Junction.
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