Patrick Robbins

hearing in New York City on fire safety, which is usually what people talk about when they talk about objections to batteries.

You had the hazmat commissioner for the FDNY and one of their deputy commissioners saying, we have the highest safety standards.

In the country, we have 30 of these already up and running in the city.

You know, they seem extremely unconcerned with new battery construction here.

And, you know, as somebody who is not a fire expert myself, I'm inclined to take the word of the people whose job it is to know about and care about that issue.

There was a case in...

in up near Vassar, actually upstate in near Poughkeepsie, I believe it was where they were considering a moratorium on new battery construction for that reason.

And it was just one local guy who was, you know, this isn't even his job.

He's like a professor.

He took it on himself to just like have meetings with the local fire department and the fire department ended up coming out in favor of the battery projects.

And that really changed the

political calculus so that that moratorium was taken off the table.

So I think that engaging in good faith with the concerns that people have and figuring out ways to have those conversations early on.

The last thing I'll say is I really do think it's incumbent on the developer to be a good partner in all of this.

you know, for all of this to work, they have to be a good neighbor.

You know, I've seen or heard about cases where developers are, you know, negotiating down the payment in lieu of taxes that they have to pay.

And, you know, I don't think that's so great either.

I mean, they should be benefiting the host communities where they're sited.

So I do think that it cuts, you know, it goes both ways and we should expect a high standard for businesses that are building in our areas.

Well, you know, we take kind of an affordability lens on this.