Elected officials in the town of Lansing in Tompkins County will discuss a proposed zoning moratorium Wednesday night. However, Town Supervisor Ruth Groff said the board will save an actual vote on the issue for another day.
The town’s plans to rewrite its zoning rules have been complicated by debate over a planned AI data center on Cayuga Lake. Its supporters and opponents packed Lansing Town Hall last month when the board considered the moratorium, which would likely stall the data center’s progress.
As written, the proposal would pause most large-scale development in the town for at least a year. Town Supervisor Ruth Groff said that is supposed to allow for time to rewrite Lansing’s zoning rules.
“We have not had a total zoning rewrite since, from what I understand, maybe the early 2000s and it was time to update it to keep up with the times,” she said.
The town adopted a comprehensive plan in 2018 and has been updating its zoning rules piece by piece to match. Groff said that after winning a grant from New York state, the town was ready to take a bigger step and totally rewrite Lansing’s zoning.
“We decided that we ought to consider putting in a moratorium while we're doing this zoning rewrite, so something doesn't come in that would ultimately be zoned out,” she said.
That plan has been complicated by an August statement from a company called TeraWulf, which announced plans to build an AI data center at a former coal fired power plant on Cayuga Lake in Lansing.
The likelihood that the moratorium would halt construction on the data center has spurred a surge of support for the pause from people who do not want to see the data center built. Many have expressed concerns about environmental and climate impacts, noise, higher energy bills, plus the social and economic consequences of increased AI usage.
Supporters of the data center plan, including some Terawulf employees, have come out in full force to oppose the moratorium. They say the data center would provide jobs and increase Lansing’s tax base.
Groff believes the board will probably make some changes to the moratorium before they make a final decision. Making any changes to the moratorium would trigger another public hearing before the board is able to vote.
If the moratorium passes, and Groff calls it a “a big if,” there is a way that developers could continue their projects. The proposal allows developers to ask the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals for an exemption, or variance.
However, the moratorium’s current language outlines a number of qualifications needed to get a variance, including that “the impact and harm to applicant in denying a Variance will not be outweighed by the benefit to the community in preserving the status quo pending completion of the work envisioned by this local law.”
The town board will meet at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the Lansing Town Hall.
