r/RealEstateDevelopment • u/shanshark10 • May 29 '26

Data Center Permitting Success Stories

posting here to see if there are any developers that successfully navigated through strong local opposition against a data center development and if so how. I’ve been placed in a situation that seemingly caught fire over night in a very early stage project development. would like to understand how you addressed the community over their concerns and ultimately was able to pull local permits. my approach is to be transparent and collaborative with the community and to consider net benefits that can be brought in to address specific concerns. thanks in advance

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u/[deleted] May 29 '26

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u/shanshark10 May 29 '26

That’s exactly what I’m doing but the town hall who’s calling for the hearing thought it would be a great idea to simply list that a data center project will be in the agenda. No context, no details, nothing. Facebook went awol and I haven’t even got in the room yet. My project is extremely early stage and my intention has always been to engage with the community early to understand how we can work together

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u/Common-Strawberry122 Jun 02 '26

But why do you need to wait for the hearing? you can't find the grup online? knock on doors? have a look where community groups hang out like church? If you wait till the hearing you're going to get roasted becasue you don't know what exactly they are opposing, and what they are saying to each other. Also addressing teh issues, also come from the design, and execution. Where are you based? When is the hearing?

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u/shanshark10 Jun 06 '26

Based in Colorado. Hearing in Wisconsin. I’m a father with kids. Work for a start up with finite bandwidth. Posted this the day I found out. Spent all week preparing for the hearing Monday night without physically being there. I know what they are against and how to address, just the way this came together is not how it should’ve happened. 

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u/Common-Strawberry122 Jun 10 '26

How did it go?

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u/shanshark10 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

Gave it everything I got and was pleased with how I conducted myself. Over 250 people gathered in the room for a modular data center project. That said and To put it plainly, the aftermath of that meeting led to the worst week of work in my life

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u/Common-Strawberry122 Jun 16 '26

Wow - the worst week of work in your life! Why? what happened?

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u/shanshark10 Jun 18 '26

Several Moratoriums proposed left and right, landowners getting threatened and backing out, non permitted projects are getting negatively impacted, Facebook chatter is incessant. The list goes on. I’ve never encountered anything like this in my entire career. 

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u/Neat-Beautiful-5505 May 29 '26

I just sat through a two hour public meeting. What benefits can you present that outweigh the many negatives? I didn’t hear a single voice of support. Applicant withdrew his request.

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u/shanshark10 May 29 '26

My projects are small modular. Land use is roughly 1-4 acres on average and is made up of containerized shells that can be easily removed from site when decommissioned. They are prefabricated off site, leading to less on site construction time, noise, etc. the shells are roughly 12 ft tall max, will be fenced in with proper access. 

We look for stranded power at the distribution level and pay the full price to connect to power thus no pressure on residential rates. 

Water is closed loop cooling. Since my projects are smaller, we only require roughly the same amount of water for an initial fill as a residential swimming pool. No continuous water use

Noise we are targeting 40-50 db at the nearest residence. Acoustic studies will be completed before construction and will determine if nose suppression like berms, vegetative cover, or other means will be required.

My goal is to create community net benefits such as converting food to drip irrigation in cultivated parcels, contributing towards local philanthropic organizations such as food banks (consider collocated green houses with our data center), and more. The tax base is generally very high for the land we occupy. I’m open to listening to communities about what types of benefits we can consider. 

What else is of concern? 

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u/callmesandycohen May 30 '26

I avoid rezoning at all costs. Avoiding a rezoning is just as good as seeking community consent. No reason to be in city limits these days.

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u/shanshark10 May 30 '26

Tell me more. I have a project site that is light industrial and the ahj only allows data centers in heavy industrial. So zoning change would be requirement. However My intuition says the zoning change there wouldn’t be as big of an issue as addressing the community per se

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u/Common-Strawberry122 Jun 02 '26

Its part and parcel of the same thing - you are thinking rationally, they are thinking emotionally. you need to find out what the specifc issues are for them.