Site Selection, Permitting and Municipal Approvals

What you'll learn

• Evaluate candidate data centre sites for power capacity and timing, fibre and latency, water, hazards, land and regulatory climate using staged screening and weighted scoring
• Analyze data centre markets, workload latency needs and the site search process, and test site rankings for robustness
• Navigate provincial planning frameworks, official plans, zoning bylaw amendments, minor variances and site plan approval, and assess noise and other planning issues
• Structure land agreements and plan due diligence on title, environmental condition, geotechnics, natural heritage, archaeology and utilities, and estimate site yield
• Identify when federal or provincial environmental assessments apply and obtain air, water, stormwater, species, heritage and Indigenous consultation approvals
• Prepare and review noise, visual and traffic impact studies, and design mitigation that meets limits with margin
• Estimate water and wastewater demand, assess municipal servicing and fire flow, and size stormwater management facilities
• Plan building permits for data centres, including code analysis, occupancy classification, phased permits, alternative solutions, inspections and occupancy
• Identify the approvals for substations, transmission lines, fuel storage, gas supply, on-site generation and battery storage, and coordinate them on the critical path
• Negotiate servicing, development charges, taxes, community benefits and Indigenous partnerships with municipalities and provinces
• Evaluate economic and fiscal impacts, incentives and effects on electricity customers using credible methods
• Build an approvals strategy with permit registers, probabilistic schedules, risk registers and decision gates, and recommend a site with fallbacks