Chester board weighs battery storage proposal, vows to block sites

Chester is moving toward a lasting ban on large-scale battery storage, and the fight is now as much about land use as it is about energy. The proposed site on Sugar Loaf Mountain Road has become the trigger for a broader question: whether the town is trying to stop one project or write an anti-storage policy into its long-range plan.

At the May 13 Town Board meeting at Town Hall, 1786 Kings Highway in Sugar Loaf, Eamon Reilly of AYPA Power, a Blackstone-owned company, pitched a lithium-ion battery project designed to store 300 megawatts for four hours. Reilly said the project would bring tax revenue and open-space concessions, and argued Chester should rely on stronger code enforcement instead of ruling out the technology altogether.

Supervisor Brandon Holdridge then took the debate in a harder direction. He said Chester would not allow battery energy storage sites in the upcoming comprehensive plan and zoning amendments, and he said the town’s fire department does not support the projects because of the perceived fire hazard. Holdridge also signaled that the current moratorium would become permanent when the comprehensive plan is approved.

That posture is rooted in a year of local action. Chester adopted Local Law 8 of 2024 to create a temporary moratorium on large-scale battery energy storage system installations, then extended it again in Local Law 10 of 2025 on July 23, 2025. Town comprehensive-plan materials now show a proposed Article 11 for Battery Energy Storage Systems and Equipment as part of the 2025 Comprehensive Plan Update and Proposed Zoning Amendments, and AYPA Power has filed formal comments supporting the draft ordinance. That means the dispute is not just about one parcel on Sugar Loaf Mountain Road, but about what Chester wants future development to look like.

Residents used the public-comment period to argue both sides of the issue. Steven Smith warned that if a facility burned, it could damage the mountain ecosystem and create a fire danger. Supporters, including union and political backers, said the project would create jobs and help address an energy system crisis. For property owners along Sugar Loaf Mountain Road and nearby parts of the mountain corridor, the stakes include whether battery storage remains a possible land use, how the town’s tax base could change, and how much control Chester keeps over future development.

The local debate has also been sharpened by nearby Warwick, where a battery energy storage site at 28 Church Street had an incident on December 19, 2025. Warwick says an April 3, 2026 environmental assessment found no evidence of adverse environmental impacts, and the village recorded a March 9, 2026 Zoom meeting with NYSERDA and Governor’s Office representatives. State officials previously said the 2023 Warwick battery fire showed no significant off-site migration of contaminants and no reported injuries or harmful toxin levels, while the state later adopted updated battery-storage safety codes in 2025. In Chester, that regional history has made the zoning fight a test of how far a town can go to shape what gets built within its borders.