A rural Columbia County town with no battery proposal on record adopted, then extended to a full year, a moratorium covering all battery storage while it drafts zoning.
Town of Livingston · Columbia County · Energy storage · Status: never-proposed (precautionary moratorium)
No battery storage project has been proposed in Livingston. The town acted because its comprehensive plan never contemplated BESS: after an initial short moratorium (Local Law 4 of 2024, adopted unanimously in April 2024), the board adopted Local Law No. 5 of 2024, a twelve-month moratorium on all battery energy storage systems, following a June 2024 hearing. The law bars Planning Board review, permits, certificates of occupancy, and variances for BESS while the town drafts regulations. (Local Law 5 of 2024; April 2024 minutes)
Note that the statewide tracker labels Livingston "utility-scale," but the law's own definition covers all BESS regardless of size — a scope correction that recurs across the Columbia County towns.
Livingston is a textbook precautionary moratorium: a small rural town with no application before it, buying time to write zoning rather than reacting to a developer. Its main open question is not why but whether it still binds — the 12-month law would have lapsed in 2025, and the public record does not yet show a renewal or a permanent BESS ordinance. The pattern — fire-safety concern, a comprehensive-plan gap, a NYSERDA-model-law drafting process — is shared with neighboring Stockport and Claverack.