BACKYARD NY / PROJECT REGISTRY
REC #013 · STATUS: ∅ NEVER PROPOSED
∅Never proposed

Stockport BESS Moratorium

Town of Stockport · Columbia County · Hudson Valley

A small Columbia County town with no battery proposal on record has kept battery storage on hold while a committee drafts zoning from NYSERDA's model law.

IMG · GOOGLE PLACES Town of Stockport · Columbia County
Sector
ENERGY-STORAGE
Location
TOWN OF STOCKPORT · COLUMBIA COUNTY · HUDSON VALLEY
Process
MORATORIUM BANA local pause (moratorium) on new projects while rules are studied — or an outright ban. · LOCAL ZONINGLocal zoning — town/village land-use rules and special-use permits. Standalone battery storage is sited locally under home rule.
Source confidence
HIGHhigh — the full text of Local Law No. 1 of 2026 (and the 2024 hearing notice) plus the zoning-committee minutes were read directly, confirming an all-BESS, all-districts scope (broader than a tracker's 'utility-scale' label) and the town's official site (stockportny.gov). Open: whether the 2024 and 2026 moratoria ran continuously or with a gap, and whether permanent zoning has since been adopted.

Background

Town of Stockport · Columbia County · Energy storage · Status: never-proposed (precautionary moratorium)

A committee, not a project

Stockport has no battery application on record. Its Battery Storage Zoning Law Committee has been drafting rules from NYSERDA's Model Battery Storage Facility Law and an Orange County ordinance, and the town has kept a moratorium in place to hold the line while it works: an original Local Law No. 1 of 2024 (twelve-month, June 2024) and, most recently, Local Law No. 1 of 2026, a three-month moratorium applying to all districts and all property. (Local Law 1 of 2026; Zoning Review — Battery Storage)

As with its neighbors, the law's scope is all BESS — not the "utility-scale" the statewide tracker lists.

Chronology

For it

  • No BESS developer or local proponent surfaced in the public record

Against it

  • Town of Stockport Town Board — adopted Local Law No. 1 of 2026, a three-month BESS moratorium continuing the pause while zoning is finalized (applies to all districts and all property) [source]
  • Stockport Battery Storage Zoning Law Committee — drafting rules from NYSERDA's Model Battery Storage Facility Law and an Orange County ordinance [source]

Context — not for or against

Analysis

Stockport is the clearest "rule-making, not project-blocking" case in the inventory: the documented activity is a committee adapting a state model law, with the moratorium simply preventing an application from landing before the rules exist. It shares the Columbia County template — definitions, SEQRA Type II finding, NYSERDA-model sourcing — with Livingston and Claverack. The case is worth watching mainly to see what the finished zoning permits, which is the part a moratorium defers rather than decides.

Sources

// every field traceable to a primary source · outcome classified per documented record · BACKYARD NY