Methodology

What the collection covers

The 97 records cover US decisions and the leading EU and UK planning actions, including permits, rezonings, special uses, moratoria, incentive measures and hearing outcomes. A record represents a particular instrument or decision milestone. Local refusals and subsequent appeal decisions can have separate rows; row counts are not campus counts. The same campus can appear under an air permit and a separate utility decision. County groups describe geography; incorporated cities retain their own land-use authority.

Sources include the California Energy Commission, Maryland Department of the Environment, US Army Corps of Engineers, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, Louisiana Public Service Commission and local governments, plus UK decision letters, Dutch official publications and the Frankfurt planning authority. Named local newsrooms and DatacenterDynamics supply reported votes where minutes are not yet posted, and each reported outcome keeps its report date. Official city directories and Santa Clara LAFCO supply county geography when the project page supplies only a city. The JSON download preserves each source URL, accessed date and supported field keys.

How fields are checked

We read the agency’s project page or instrument, identify the action and record its scope. A populated field links directly to its supporting source. We retain the source’s power basis and the area of the parcel or campus covered by the action. Policy size thresholds never populate project MW or acreage. Acres are reported only when the source supplies acres; hectares and floor area are not treated as land acreage. An empty field means no value is recorded for that action; county policy records carry no project MW value.

Automation assembles the table, related records and downloads from the reviewed data. The source-check date records when a linked document was read. A decision or notice date records the event stated in that document. Every row carries a day-level decision, notice or meeting date. Historical dates stay attached to the action, never replaced with the build date.

Status means the cited action

Adopted

The authority records a policy vote or executive action. Territorial scope, grandfathering and termination conditions remain in the source.

Approved / Denied

The deciding body granted or refused the named application or instrument. Appeals and court rulings get their own rows.

Recommended approval / Recommended denial / Recommendation withheld

An advisory planning or committee outcome. The final vote gets its own row.

Approval voided / Challenge dismissed

A court outcome on the specified plan or challenge, dated to the ruling.

Direction issued

A UK Section 35 decision routes an application into the development consent regime; it grants no development consent itself.

Enacted / Announced / Consultation published / Voters approved / Meeting recorded

Respectively, signed legislation, an announced incentive decision, publication of a draft consultation, a reported ballot result, or an administrative meeting record. Read the scope and dated evidence for the particular milestone.

Deferred

A decision or discussion moved to another meeting. The proposal has no adoption recorded in the cited notice.

Under review

The agency project page labels that proceeding as under review on the source-check date.

Exempted

The California proceeding received an SPPE. The CEC explains that the developer must secure applicable local, state and federal permits after an exemption.

Permit issued

The source is an issued permit for the identified equipment and conditions.

Notice published

The authority published the application or proposed-permit notice. The issuance or denial becomes its own row.

Approved settlement

The regulator approved the resource settlement identified in the row. The status applies to that particular decision.

Power and meeting dates

Reported MW comes with a Power basis. Backup generation, IT capacity, maximum demand, proposed phase capacity and potential campus capacity describe different quantities. We preserve source-stated figures without adding redundant generators or computing a campus total. Compare MW only within the same basis.

Meeting dates include historical hearings and announced future meetings. Each has a type: public hearing, board meeting, workshop or informational update. The Washington County, Maryland workshop permits attendance and takes questions separately by correspondence; its agenda says public comment occurs at future public meetings. Comment deadlines from notices appear in a separate field.

What qualifies

A record needs a specific public instrument, a deciding or publishing authority and a dated milestone. Investment announcements without an instrument stay out of the table.

Corrections and reuse

Email hello@datacenterpermittracker.com with the record and a public source. A substantive correction updates that record’s source-check date. Sponsorship is labelled and leaves the underlying sourced data and sort order intact.

Our compiled data is available under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to Data Center Permit Tracker. Source documents remain subject to their own terms. Download CSV or JSON.