HAMDEN - After more than a year of revisions, debates and consultations with county planners, the Hamden Town Council scheduled public hearings on two proposed local laws: one updating the town’s sign regulations and another establishing a temporary moratorium on commericial data centers.
At a May 6 meeting led by Supervisor Wayne Marshfield, council members reviewed proposed amendments to the town’s site plan review law, including new standards governing signs. The changes, which have already undergone review by the planning board, were presented with highlighted revisions for the board’s consideration.
Sean Leddy, the Delaware County planning liaison assisting the town, explained that the proposal largely restructures and clarifies the town’s existing law rather than creating an entirely new framework.
“It’s an amendment to your already existing site plan review law,” Leddy said, “that adds regulations about signs.”
Under the proposal, signs under 10 square feet would be exempt from review, signs between 10 and 32 square feet would require only a permit from the code enforcement officer, and signs larger than 32 square feet would undergo site plan review.
Hamden’s site plan review law is intended to give the community additional oversight of developments and activities that may significantly affect surrounding properties, environmental conditions, community character, and the town’s ability to support growth in a safe, orderly, and efficient manner. Planning Board approval is required before a building permit may be issued for certain categories of development.
Council members discussed whether to hold the hearing in June or delay until July to give board members more time to study the revisions. Marshfield noted that the planning board and county representatives had already spent considerable time refining the proposal.
“There’s a lot of additions. We went back and forth. We’ve been working on this for over a year,” Councilmember Bret Sage said.
Leddy advised that another public hearing would only be necessary if “substantive changes” were made after the hearing process began.
Ultimately, council members voted to hold the public hearing on June 3 at 6:30 p.m. and approved sending the proposal to the Delaware County Planning Board for review under General Municipal Law 239.
Council members then turned to a second proposal: a temporary moratorium on commericial data centers, intended to give the town time to draft local regulations before such projects could be proposed.
“To create a temporary moratorium so we can have more time to look at these operations and draft up a local law to handle them,” Marshfield said.
He acknowledged that large-scale data centers were unlikely to seek development in Hamden because of the substantial infrastructure demands.
“They take such a massive amount of water and electricity, they gotta have major infrastructure,” Marshfield said.
The town’s proposed moratorium recognizes that commercial data centers may provide economic benefits, but notes that such facilities were not contemplated when the town’s comprehensive plan and land use regulations were adopted. Because data centers are a relatively new form of development with the potential for significant impacts- including increased energy demand, environmental and visual effects, and broader community impacts - the town determined that additional study is necessary before appropriate zoning and regulatory standards can be established.
The proposed law states that the town must evaluate how commercial data centers should be regulated and sited to ensure compatibility with surrounding land uses and to protect public health, safety, and welfare in the rural community. To preserve existing conditions while this review is conducted, the town proposes a temporary 12-month moratorium prohibiting the establishment of commercial data centers.
The public hearing on the moratorium was also scheduled for June 3 at 6:30 p.m.
Leddy noted that because the moratorium is temporary, it qualifies under state environmental review law as a “Type II action” under SEQRA, meaning it generally does not require further environmental review.
