When An Unfamiliar Use Arrives
A Hearing Room
Is Not A Community
Ten years ago it was wind. Five years ago it was solar. Today it is data centers, and battery storage is already at the door. When a use nobody has had to evaluate before lands in a town, the loudest twenty people become the official record. We find out what the other several thousand think, we tell everyone the truth about what is actually being proposed, and we hand the governing body a record it can defend.
Available as prime consultant or subcontractor, nationwide.
Sources: Data Center Watch project report, research timeline May 2024 to March 2025. National Conference of State Legislatures, Which States Are Banning Data Centers? Brookings Institution, Turner Lee and West, July 2026.
The Problem We Solve
The Technology Changes. The Problem Does Not.
Wind. Solar. Data centers. Battery storage. Whatever is next. Every few years a use arrives that a community has no vocabulary for, and the same thing happens.
A company buys a building. The use is permitted by right, or close enough that nobody has a definition to argue with. The application moves. Then a room fills up, and a city that thought it was processing a permit discovers it is in a fight.
The fight is not really about the technology. It is about whether anyone is telling the truth, and whether the people in the room speak for the town. Those are answerable questions. Almost nobody answers them.
So the council votes on the only evidence it has, which is the twenty people who keep showing up. And whichever way it votes, half the town believes it was never heard.
By the time most cities call anyone, three things have gone wrong
- The public has stopped trusting the city. Which means the city can no longer be the one to explain anything.
- Nobody knows who the loud voices speak for. An open comment period and an online survey are self selected. They structurally cannot answer that question.
- No one in the room can say what the use actually does. Not the applicant, who is not believed. Not the staff, who were handed a term with no definition.
None of that is fixed by another meeting.
Who We Serve
Three Kinds Of Client. One Standard.
We work for whoever needs the truth about a community. What does not change is how we get it, and what we are willing to say about it afterward.
Cities, Towns, Counties
Governing bodies facing a first application for an unfamiliar use, rewriting a code after a fight, or trying to find out what the quiet majority thinks before they vote.
- Planning commissions and city councils
- Development services and planning staff
- County commissions and boards
- Code and comprehensive plan updates
Districts, Authorities, Agencies
The public bodies that get pulled into a siting fight without ever having applied for anything, and who need their own read on where the public actually stands.
- Rural water districts and public utilities
- Port authorities and industrial districts
- Regional planning bodies and councils of government
- State agencies and economic development offices
Applicants & Developers
We will work with the private side. We will not work for it in the ordinary sense, and the terms are not negotiable. They are listed in full below, and we put them on the table in the first meeting rather than the fourth.
- Developers and site owners
- Operators and end users
- Utilities and interconnection partners
- Investors conducting siting diligence
The Private Sector Stipulations
Six Conditions. No Exceptions.
Our product is neutrality. Sell either side a result and the product is gone, and it does not come back. So if you are the applicant, these are the terms, in writing, in the contract.
The findings are public
Whatever the community says, it is released in full, on a date set before the work begins. We do not write a private report you can put in a drawer.
We do not advocate
We will not testify for your application, appear as your representative at a hearing, or lobby the governing body. We report what we found. You make your own case.
The jurisdiction is told first
Before we speak to a single resident, the city or county knows who we are, what we are doing, and who is paying for it. Nobody finds out later.
Our name goes on the method, never the outcome
You may say you retained The Nash Group to conduct independent engagement. You may not say, imply, or print that we support the project.
No contingency, ever
Our fee never depends on an approval, a permit, a vote, or a closing. A contingent fee buys a conclusion, and we do not sell conclusions.
One side per project
We will not take the applicant and the jurisdiction on the same project, in the same cycle, ever. If we hold one, the other is declined.
If any of those six is a problem, we are not the right firm for you, and we will say so in the first meeting. That is not posturing. It is the only reason our findings are worth anything to the community you are asking to accept your project.
Position
What We Are, And What We Are Not
We are not here to stop your project
We are not an advocacy group and we take no position on whether a use belongs in your town. That is the governing body's decision, and we say so, in public, before the first meeting.
We are not anyone's public relations department
We do not sell approval and we do not sell denial. If we told a client what they wanted to hear, the report would be worthless the first time somebody checked it.
We are the third party in the middle
We find out what a community actually thinks, using methods that hold up when they are questioned, and we explain the technology honestly, including the parts that are inconvenient for everybody.
Our Services
Seven Emerging Industry Engagement Services
Every one of them is use agnostic. Swap data center for battery storage, or for whatever arrives in 2031, and nothing in the method changes.
Emerging Industry Register & Briefing
Plain Language, From A Third Party
We identify the uses a community is about to face and write plain language profiles of each one. What the use is, what it requires, and what it does not do. Delivered in public, by someone with nothing to gain from the answer.
- Emerging use identification and screening
- Plain language technical profiles
- Myth and claim verification, both directions
- Public education sessions and materials
Representative Community Assessment
What The Whole Town Thinks
A statistically representative survey by telephone or mail, so the governing body learns what the community thinks rather than only what the hearing room says. An open online survey is self selected and cannot answer that question. This one can.
- Statistically representative sampling
- Telephone and mail instruments
- Subgroup analysis by geography and tenure
- Published methodology and margin of error
In Person Engagement Campaign
Meeting People Where They Actually Are
Town halls, pop ups where people already gather, faith partnerships, walking audits and bilingual delivery. Built for the households that do not open email, which in a small town is most of them.
- Facilitated town halls with live translation
- Pop up stations at existing gatherings
- Faith community and civic partnerships
- Door to door canvassing and walking audits
Owned Channel Strategy
Using What The Jurisdiction Already Has
We run outreach through channels the client already owns. A utility bill insert reaches every household. An active municipal social page already has the audience. Using them costs nothing and signals stewardship rather than spending.
- Utility billing and newsletter inserts
- Municipal social channel strategy and drafting
- Existing resident list activation
- Channel effectiveness reporting
Neutrality & Scope Protocol
Rules Published Before Meeting One
Written ground rules, published in advance, stating exactly what this process can and cannot decide. This is what keeps residents from arriving believing the engagement can undo a decision that has already been made, which is the failure that leaves a jurisdiction worse off than before it hired anyone.
- Published scope and decision rights statement
- Conflict and funding disclosure
- Ground rules for facilitated sessions
- Escalation and complaint procedure
Findings Report Built For The Code
A Record The Governing Body Can Defend
The engagement report written so it drops straight into a unified development code update or a zoning text amendment. We do not write the code. We write the record the code is built on, in a form the next consultant can actually use.
- Findings organized to code sections
- Verbatim record and participation log
- Defensible methodology appendix
- Council and commission presentation
Governing Body & Staff Readiness
Ready For The Room
Preparing the council, the commission and the staff for the hearing itself. What the questions will be, which ones have real answers, where the record is thin, and how to conduct a meeting that a hostile room still recognizes as fair. This is the piece only someone who has sat in that chair can deliver.
- Hearing preparation and question mapping
- Staff report and record review
- Public meeting conduct and de-escalation
- Post decision communication planning
Why We're Qualified
Why A Third Party, And Why This One
Public education about an unfamiliar use has to come from someone with nothing to gain from the answer. That is not the city, which residents have usually stopped believing by this point, and it is certainly not the applicant.
We Have Sat In That Chair
Eight years on the Kansas City Council, four as Chair of Planning, Zoning & Economic Development. We know what it is like when a room turns.
We Are Active Developers
Which means the education we deliver is accurate rather than merely reassuring. We know what a use actually requires.
We Teach This
Assistant Teaching Professor at a major university, teaching real estate fundamentals, principles and development. Residents hear an expert, not a contractor.
We Do Not Engage From A Conference Room
Our founder camped six days on one of Kansas City's hardest corners and moved into a troubled housing complex for a month to see it himself.
Ready To Find Out What Your Town Thinks?
Stop Guessing At The Twenty People In The Room
If your council is hearing from the same faces every month and you still do not know what your community believes, that is the problem we solve. And we will tell you the answer whether or not you like it.
Contact Dr. Troy Nash directly: tnash@thenashdevelopmentgroup.com | (816) 213-4461