A fair process for your community
For county and city leaders, planning and zoning boards, regional development groups, and residents facing a proposed data center.
Why timing matters
A community usually forms its view of a data center within two to eight weeks of first hearing about it. That is often before the first public hearing, and before a permit is even filed. What your community knows then is what it has to work with.
We are not your advocate. We run the process between your community and the developer. That is why everyone in the room can trust what we find, including the people you will need to convince.
Identify Unresolved Issues
We start by finding out what has been filed, with whom, and on what date. Then we sort the decisions your local government still gets to make from the ones the law already requires it to approve.
What your community gets: an honest picture of what it can still shape, and where its real leverage is.
Adopt Standards Before Applications
In many places, the local code does not even define a “data center.” We help your local government write clear siting rules, and policies on secrecy agreements and tax breaks, before any developer files an application.
What your community gets: rules that are fair to everyone and cost nothing to adopt now. They are much harder to put in place once an application is on the table.
Define the Negotiation Scope
Before talks begin, everyone agrees on what is up for discussion and what is not. Both sides agree on one set of facts, using independent experts the community chooses, paid for by the developer.
What your community gets: a real voice while decisions are still open, and facts it can trust, without paying for its own team of experts.
Document Agreements
Every promise is written down with numbers, dates, who is responsible, and what happens if it is broken. The promises go into both the permit and a contract, and they bind any future owner of the site.
What your community gets: commitments that still apply years after the project opens, yearly public reports to check them, and a closing report on what we heard and what changed because of it.
Why you can trust the process
Our terms are public before the first meeting, so you never have to take our word for any of it.
We are paid the same whether the project is approved or not. Our fee cannot change with your vote. That is why a finding in the developer’s favor means something, and so does a finding in yours.
The developer usually pays. Your local government chooses us. The money goes into a separate account (called escrow) before we start. The developer pays, your local government hires and directs us, and neither side controls what we find. Better still, adopt this as standing policy before any application arrives.
No follow-on work for either side. No contract to build the project, no public relations work, no advisory job after the process ends. There is nothing for us to angle for.
Limits on any one client. We publish a cap on how much of our yearly income can come from a single client, and a list of the jobs we have turned down. Ask that of anyone who offers to help you.
We will never tell you a project can be stopped when it cannot. We will not run a process whose outcome is already decided without saying so publicly. And we will not advise you to sign a secrecy agreement that covers information about community impacts.
Start a conversation
Tell us where the project is, who is involved, and how far along it is. A short call is usually enough to see whether we are the right fit.
nathan@commonwatts.com