Public hearings in the Town of Clay are scheduled to the minute. On the July 20 agenda, one was set for 7:38 p.m., the next for 7:41, the next for 7:44.

Three minutes apiece. That is what the town allots to an item it expects to adjourn again.

All three of those hearings concerned battery energy storage systems, and all three had been on the board’s plate since the first week of February.

### What is being proposed

The three applications are for special permits under the same section of the Clay zoning code, Section 230-27 I.(2)(e)[1][a] covering utility substations and [1][i] covering other public utility uses.

Town Board Case #1243 comes from Nexamp, Inc., doing business as Wetzel Storage, LLC. It proposes a battery energy storage system using Tesla Megapack batteries with an interconnection to the National Grid distribution system, at 4664 Wetzel Road, Tax Map No. 087.-01-12.0, on a parcel of roughly 0.92 acres in the I-1 Industrial 1 District.

Town Board Case #1244 comes from Nexamp, Inc., doing business as Long Branch Storage, LLC. Same technology, same interconnection, on Long Branch Road, Tax Map No. 104.-02-09.1, roughly 0.78 acres, in the RC-1 Regional Commercial District.

Town Board Case #1245 comes from Carson Power, LLC. It proposes a battery energy storage system using twelve units at 7846 and 7850 Goguen Drive, Tax Map Nos. 087.-01-53.0 and 087.-01-08.2, roughly 2.65 acres, also in the I-1 Industrial 1 District.

These are small parcels. Under an acre for both Nexamp sites. Battery storage does not need much land, which is part of why it turns up on leftover industrial and commercial lots rather than on farmland.

### The adjournment record

The interesting part of these applications is not what they propose. It is how long they have been pending.

All three first appeared at the February 2, 2026 town board meeting, where they were adjourned and referred to the Planning Board. That referral is standard: a town board considering a special permit routinely asks its planning board for a recommendation first.

They were adjourned again from the March 2 meeting, at the applicants’ request.

Then adjourned from March 16. Then from May 18. Then from June 15.

That brings them to July 20, five adjournments deep, and two of the three did not go forward that night either. The agenda records that the applicant for Case #1243 requested a continuation of permit review by email received July 13, 2026, and that the applicant for Case #1244 asked to be adjourned to a future meeting by email received the same day.

Case #1245, the Carson Power application, carried no new adjournment request on the July 20 agenda.

From February 2 to July 20 is five and a half months. For a special permit on a parcel under an acre, that is a long time to sit in process.

### Who is doing the waiting

It is worth being precise about whose delay this is, because the record does not support a simple story about a town stalling.

At least three of the adjournments were requested by the applicants themselves. The March 2 adjournment is recorded as being at applicant request. Both July 13 emails came from applicants. That is a company managing its own timeline, not a board refusing to act.

Applicants ask for adjournments for practical reasons. Interconnection studies with the utility take months and can come back with cost numbers that change a project’s economics. Fire code and safety standards for battery storage have been moving. Financing and tax credit timelines shift. A developer with an application pending would rather hold it open than withdraw and refile.

What the record does not tell us is why the March 16, May 18 and June 15 adjournments happened, or what the Planning Board recommended after the February referral. Those answers live in the meeting minutes for each of those dates, and the town posts them.

For comparison, the same July 20 agenda shows how fast the process can move when nothing is contested. Case #1257, an AT&T Mobility application for a utility substation special permit to install an antenna, equipment cabinets and a generator at 7200 Henry Clay Boulevard on about 3.61 acres, went to the Planning Board on June 10, which found no concerns with the request, and came back to the town board after a single adjournment from June 15.

One referral, one adjournment, done. That is the normal path. The battery applications are not on it.

### Why battery storage is different

Battery energy storage systems occupy an unusual place in local land use.

They are industrial equipment that produces nothing, employs almost nobody once built, and mostly sits still. They exist to absorb electricity when the grid has a surplus and release it when demand spikes, which is a function the grid increasingly needs as more intermittent generation comes online.

They also carry a specific hazard profile. Lithium ion batteries at utility scale can enter thermal runaway, and the fires are difficult to extinguish with water. That has made emergency response planning, setbacks and fire suppression standards central to how towns review these projects, and it is why fire districts are typically consulted.

New York has pushed hard on storage deployment at the state level while leaving siting largely to local boards, which is how you end up with a Tesla Megapack installation waiting five months for a special permit on a 0.92 acre lot in a town of about 60,000 people.

None of the Clay applications has been denied. None has been approved. They are simply still open.

### What a special permit actually decides

A special permit is not a rezone. The underlying zoning already contemplates the use, and the permit is the town’s chance to attach conditions before allowing it on a particular site.

That distinction explains why these applications sit in front of the town board rather than the planning board alone. In Clay, utility substation uses require town board action under Section 230-27, with the planning board serving in a referral and advisory role. The town board is the body that can say yes, say no, or say yes with conditions attached.

The conditions are where the real negotiation happens on a battery project. A board can require specific setbacks from property lines, fencing and access controls, a fire suppression and emergency response plan developed with the responding fire district, noise limits on cooling equipment, screening and landscaping, and a decommissioning agreement with financial security so the town is not left with abandoned equipment in twenty years.

Working those terms out takes time, and it usually happens between meetings rather than at them. A string of adjournments can mean a stalled project, or it can mean the exact opposite: a project whose conditions are being negotiated in detail before anyone votes.

### What else the board handled that night

The July 20 agenda was not only battery storage. Several items show a town actively managing growth.

The board took up a resolution establishing Chapter 210 of the town code to codify Local Law No. 7 of 2026, the Large-Scale Development Permit and Community Host Agreement Authorization Law. That law was adopted at a special town board meeting on July 7, 2026 by a vote of six to zero. It is the legal machinery behind the kind of host agreement Clay negotiated with Micron, and codifying it into a numbered chapter is how a one-off law becomes standing policy for every large project that follows.

The board also handled the Michael’s Farm Subdivision, taking up resolutions on extending a public sanitary sewer main and storm drainage system to be known as Michael’s Farm Sewer District, Contract No. 1 and Michael’s Farm Drainage District, Contract No. 1, on whether it is in the public interest for the town to approve construction and acquire those facilities, and on approving the contract documents. The agreement for construction and acquisition is with LOK Development, LLC.

A separate sewer item authorized a sanitary sewer connection at 4793 Buckley Road to the existing Summerwood Sewer District, Contract No. 1 Lateral, at the written request of Calocerinos Engineering, PLLC. The agenda specifies that the Town of Clay will bear no construction expenses, and that the property owner pays all town and private costs plus annual town and county charges thereafter. A check for engineering, legal and administrative fees was received June 16, 2026.

The board also considered authorizing a grant application to the Empire State Development Strategic Planning and Feasibility Studies Program to fund a Town of Clay Parks and Recreation Master Plan, and an appointment to fill the unexpired term of Michael Becker as an alternate member of the Zoning Board of Appeals, running to December 31, 2026.

### How to follow it

Clay town board meetings are held at the town offices, and agendas and approved minutes are posted at townofclayny.gov.

Anyone tracking the battery storage applications should watch for Cases #1243, #1244 and #1245 by number. Because they keep getting adjourned rather than decided, they will reappear on a future agenda, and the notice that matters is the one that does not carry an adjournment request.

The board’s next scheduled public hearings are on August 17.