For years, the path to project approval ran through economic development offices, with discussions centered on capital investment and job creation. Once zoning and permitting approvals were in hand, financing was secured, and incentives were negotiated, success could be seen on the horizon.
Not anymore.
Today, there is a new sheriff in town—and it is not the mayor, county commission, planning department, or economic development agency. It is the community.
Across the country, local residents are exercising increasing influence over the future of their neighborhoods, towns, and regions. Whether the project is a manufacturing plant, logistics hub, data center, renewable energy facility, or mixed-use development, community acceptance has become one of the most important determinants of success. If not handled correctly, community opposition can make or break a project. Traditionally, project development followed a predictable process. Developers worked with planners, engineers, utility providers, and government officials to navigate regulatory requirements and obtain public approval from the community.
Communities have become more organized and engaged. Distrust may sometimes develop from agreements that were signed early in the process. This viewpoint can mobilize opposition groups that can greatly slow down approvals or, worse yet, extinguish them. While the permits provide legal authority to build, today the community approvals often give the necessary green light. As a result, community engagement can become as important to many projects as permitting and environmental review, and is increasingly a core component of project legal strategy.
Community Benefits Agreements and confidentiality agreements serve different but complementary purposes: one creates accountability, the other protects innovation.
Changing community expectations
There is a shift in the reception of sectors such as advanced manufacturing, data centers, and battery storage projects, among others. In the past, these projects were frequently seen as a large tax generator and created economic growth for a community. Economic incentives and infrastructure support were readily provided so states could compete. As some projects have expanded from tens of megawatts to campuses measured in hundreds of megawatts and, sometimes, gigawatts, public attitudes have evolved. Communities are increasingly asking what this power project will do for their community. For example, what infrastructure will the project developer contribute to the community, i.e., transmission lines, substations, and reusable water among many other things. For the advanced manufacturing facility, renderings are often being more closely monitored for community and neighborhood approval. Increasingly, communities also want to know what commitments will accompany a project and how those commitments will be enforced. In many jurisdictions, support is becoming tied not only to project impacts but also to the mechanisms used to address them.
The importance of early engagement
The timing of community engagement can materially affect a project’s prospects for success. For companies evaluating sites for advanced manufacturing facilities, data centers, and other large-scale projects, community sentiment is increasingly an early consideration in project timing, approval risk, and ultimately site selection. When a community first learns of a project late in the approval process, stakeholders may conclude that key decisions have already been made and that their input will have little practical effect. Even a project offering substantial investment, jobs, and tax revenue can encounter resistance if the community believes it has been excluded from the process.
For that reason, early engagement—often before permit applications are filed—can be an important component of a successful location strategy. Listening to community concerns before formal presentations and hearings gives developers an opportunity to understand local priorities, address potential objections, and explain how the project may benefit the community. It also demonstrates that engagement is more than a procedural step undertaken after the project is substantially defined.
The rise of community benefits agreements
One of the most important legal tools emerging from this new dynamic is the Community Benefits Agreement, or CBA. Rather than leaving community commitments as informal promises made during the approval process, a CBA can memorialize negotiated obligations in a legal document, creating greater accountability to the community and greater certainty for the project. Depending on the project and jurisdiction, those commitments may address local hiring and job creation, workforce development, infrastructure improvements, landscaping and buffers, setbacks, environmental mitigation, water conservation, public amenities, and other locally significant benefits.
The role of counsel is no longer confined to the permit application, the incentive agreement or the closing table.
Properly structured, the CBA can become part of the project's broader legal and risk-management strategy. It can define the developer's commitments with specificity, establish expectations concerning implementation and enforcement, and provide a concrete framework for demonstrating that community concerns have been addressed. This shifts community engagement from a public-relations exercise toward a negotiated legal framework that can help support project approvals, preserve community relationships, and reduce the risk of later disputes. As CBAs become more significant to major developments, counsel's role increasingly includes negotiating these agreements alongside permits, incentives, development agreements, confidentiality protections, and other core project documents.
Balancing community engagement and confidentiality
Early engagement, however, creates its own legal and business challenges. Communities understandably seek transparency, while developers may possess proprietary technology, customer information, cybersecurity protocols, energy strategies, site-selection analyses, and future expansion plans that cannot be publicly disclosed without creating competitive risks or exposing trade secrets. The challenge, therefore, is not simply whether to disclose information, but when and how to engage while protecting legitimate confidential interests. Community Benefits Agreements and confidentiality agreements serve different but complementary purposes: one creates accountability, the other protects innovation.
Finding that balance requires careful planning early in the site-selection process. Developers and economic development officials should consider what information can appropriately be shared, what information constitutes protected trade secrets or confidential business information, and how stakeholder discussions can occur without compromising competitive advantages or creating unintended disclosure obligations. Treating community engagement and confidentiality as complementary elements of project planning, rather than competing considerations addressed only after controversy arises, can help companies reduce approval risk and improve project certainty.
The expanding development strategy
The communities hosting these projects are demanding a stronger voice in how growth occurs, how resources are used, and how benefits are shared. As a result, developers are expanding and recreating their traditional development strategy. Community engagement plans, stakeholder advisory groups, Community Benefits Agreements, development agreements, confidentiality protections, and other legal risk-management tools are part of the project’s success as much as environmental studies, utility analyses, and incentive packages.
Community sentiment is increasingly an early consideration in project timing, approval risk and ultimately site selection.
The evolving role of counsel
This evolution is also changing the role of project counsel to become more complex. Lawyers are increasingly involved long before permits are filed, helping clients navigate stakeholder outreach, structure community commitments, negotiate Community Benefits Agreements, protect confidential information, manage public disclosure obligations, anticipate litigation risks, and develop engagement strategies that support both project approvals and long-term community relationships.
These new rules can be viewed as a challenge or as an opportunity. All of these factors that include early engagement and community benefits with protections for trade secrets become combined into a process that must work together to make the project successful along with the necessary permitting.
Another significant change is that of the counsel. The role of counsel is no longer confined to the permit application, the incentive agreement, or the closing table. Today's project lawyers are helping shape development strategy from the outset, advising on stakeholder engagement, negotiating community commitments, protecting trade secrets, managing public disclosures, and helping clients earn both the legal right and the community approvals to build. As a result, the most knowledgeable developers are asking their lawyers to be engaged very early in the process.
Today, with this new landscape, there is definitely a new sheriff in town.
