187 People Came to Object. But AVAIO’s Data Center Was Already Approved.

On June 15, 2026, eighty people addressed the Pittsburg City Council with comments and concerns about a data center. A further 107 speaker cards were filed in opposition by people who did not wish to speak. The project — filed by Pittsburg Data Hub, LLC of Stamford, Connecticut, and marketed by AVAIO Digital as “Perseus” — was not on the agenda, and there was nothing for the Council to vote on, because every land use approval it needed had already been granted. Five weeks later forty-six more speakers appeared, many of them returning, along with four more opposition cards, and the Mayor cut public comment to two minutes each, citing the number of cards received. On August 3 the Council’s regular agenda carried a single line at the top: “The regular meeting will begin after the special meeting - study session adjourns.”

It is worth setting out plainly what the city gets on both sides of that ledger. The City estimates the project will eventually yield roughly $1 million to $1.4 million a year in property tax and about $1 million in sales tax, and puts Phase I at 20 to 60 permanent jobs. Its budget books none of it: a preliminary $5 million General Fund deficit was trimmed to a projected $2 million after every department reduced proposed spending, and the budget says only that “future property and sales tax will be realized if the Avaio project on the former golf course is developed.” On the other side of the ledger — three of five Council seats on the November 3 ballot; questions the City’s own FAQ records from the June meeting about a moratorium, a voter-approval threshold for expansions, and a citizen oversight committee; a Utilities User Tax on data center development that staff will bring back to the Council as a revenue option; a lawsuit that has not actually ended; and 54 acres of the same site with no application filed. The entitlements are done. The politics are not.

Someone did sue. The Center for Biological Diversity filed a CEQA challenge on December 2, 2024, four weeks after the City’s Notice of Determination. In December 2025 the parties settled, and the terms read well: $750,000 for local climate work, rooftop solar, recycled-water cooling, zero-emission construction, wildlife surveys, added noise controls. Both the City and CBD describe the deal as securing separate environmental review for the project’s future phases.

The executed agreement says something narrower. That review commitment runs to warehouse and logistics centers, not to future phases generally — an office, an R&D building, or a second data center falls outside it. “Zero-emission construction equipment” is drafted as zero-emission or CARB Tier IV, with an exemption path. “100% renewable” is satisfiable by buying renewable energy credits. And the case has not been dismissed: it is stayed, and CBD’s obligation to dismiss is contingent on two things, one of which is the City adopting a resolution that does not appear anywhere in its published approvals record. If the City never adopts it, the agreement is void by its own terms.

Which raises the question of what the environmental review actually was. Ask in Pittsburg and you will be told, correctly, that the project had a full Environmental Impact Report. It did — for a 76-acre land use plan. That EIR says of itself that “the Specific Plan does not provide authorization for the PDH project, and the PEIR provides a programmatic, rather than a project-level, environmental analysis for Phase I.” The data center was studied as one of four alternatives.

The building itself cleared on a Mitigated Negative Declaration prepared by the California Energy Commission, which acted on it at its business meeting of December 8, 2025 and granted the project a Small Power Plant Exemption the same day. Three days later Pittsburg’s Zoning Administrator — a single staff official acting as a CEQA Responsible Agency, not lead — certified the state’s document and approved the design. That hearing was noticed five ways: mailed to property owners within 300 feet, posted at City Hall, delivered to the Pittsburg Library, posted on the City website, and posted on Nextdoor. It was not a City Council item. It is also more than Pittsburg’s own Specific Plan required: section 8.2 provides that where the findings can be made, the Zoning Administrator “shall approve the development application and the Design Review Permit administratively without public notice and without the need to hold a public hearing.” The City noticed and held one anyway.

Nobody skipped a step. At every stage the required notice went out, and at the last stage the City exceeded what its own plan required. That is what makes the sequence worth reading closely — the gap here is not between the City and the law. It is between the law and the room.

What the Council Approved in November 2024

The document the City Council adopted was a Specific Plan, not a data center.

The Pittsburg Technology Park Specific Plan covers 76.38 acres of the former municipal Delta View Golf Course, south of West Leland Road. The Contra Costa Canal splits it: 22.05 acres north of the canal became Phase I, and 54.33 acres south of it became Phases II and III. The development capacity table sets 347,740 square feet for Phase I, 368,551 for Phase II and 392,567 for Phase III — 1,108,858 square feet total.

The sequence, from the recitals in the City’s own later resolutions:

What the Specific Plan did not do was authorize the data center. The Draft PEIR is explicit:

“The PDH project remains speculative because the project design and other details have not been finalized; the CEC may or may not approve the required SPPE... Accordingly, the Specific Plan does not provide authorization for the PDH project, and the PEIR provides a programmatic, rather than a project-level, environmental analysis for Phase I.”

The Pittsburg Data Hub was studied in the PEIR as Alternative C, one of four alternatives, not as the proposed project. The permitted use list the Council adopted is broad: administrative and professional offices, data centers, energy facilities, financial offices, government offices, medical offices and testing, research and development, custom and limited manufacturing, and warehouse and distribution.

A note on the record: the Notice of Determination and Notice of Availability give the Plan Area as 2222 Golf Club Road. The Vesting Tentative Map and the applicant’s CEC filing use 2232. The two Zoning Administrator resolutions use 2242. The first two describe the full 76.38-acre Plan Area; the third describes the roughly 22-acre Phase I parcel, APN 095-160-008, created by the subdivision.

The Project-Level Review Was a Mitigated Negative Declaration, Prepared by the CEC

The Draft PEIR states that under Public Resources Code section 25519(c), “the CEC must act as lead agency for the PDH project.” The Notice of Availability explains the trigger: the CEC “has regulatory authority over data centers with over 49 megawatts (MW) or greater capacity.”

The backup generating plant cleared that line. Per the PEIR, the facility would have “a generation capacity of up to 92 megawatts (MW)” and “would consist of 37, 3 MW diesel-fired backup generators” — 36 replacing the data center’s utility supply, one serving office and life-safety loads. (Appendix C to the PEIR separately describes a total backup capacity of up to 98 MW, covering maximum building demand.) The Small Power Plant Exemption application went to the CEC on February 28, 2024, four months before the Draft PEIR was published, under docket 24-SPPE-01.

Zoning Administrator Resolution No. 445 records what happened next:

“An Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND) was prepared for the project by the California Energy Commission (CEC) as the Lead Agency with the City of Pittsburg serving as a Responsible Agency (Docket Number 24-SPPE-01).”

“On December 8, 2025, at the CEC’s regularly scheduled Business Meeting, the project’s IS/MND was certified by the Commission and the SPPE application was approved.”

So the City certified an EIR for a land use plan, and the state certified a Mitigated Negative Declaration for the building. An MND is available where an initial study finds that revisions to a project avoid or mitigate all potentially significant effects. It is a lower tier of review than an EIR, and it carries no requirement for a draft-and-response cycle of the kind the Program EIR went through in mid-2024.

AVAIO announced the CEC action on December 8, 2025 under the headline “AVAIO Digital Marks Major Milestone as CEC Approves 99MW for Bay Area Data Center Project Perseus.”

Two Design Review Approvals, at Staff Level

Phase I returned to Pittsburg as a design review application. Specific Plan section 8.2 assigns that review to the Zoning Administrator and provides that, per Pittsburg Municipal Code section 18.18.050, the decision “can be appealed to the Planning Commission.”

Resolution No. 445, December 11, 2025. Ryan Bernal of Kimley-Horn, on behalf of AVAIO, had filed Application AP-25-0113 on November 18, 2025 for “a three-story data center, project substation, PG&E switching station and transmission lines, a generator yard, and related accessory structures and site improvements.” The Zoning Administrator certified the CEC’s IS/MND, adopted Responsible Agency findings and an MMRP, and approved the design review. The resolution records that notice was posted at City Hall, on the City website’s Public Notices section, at the Pittsburg Library, on Nextdoor, and mailed to the applicant, the property owner, “owners of property located within 300 feet of the project site,” and anyone who had previously requested notice.

Resolution No. 446, February 12, 2026. On January 12, 2026 the applicant proposed two modifications: “(1) relocate the interconnection location for the PG&E power line to the nearby Tesla line, and (2) adjust the project’s site layout and grading plans to accommodate the creation of wetland features required by the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) for on-site wetland mitigation.” The Zoning Administrator processed these as a Minor Revision under Specific Plan section 8.3, supported by an Addendum to the certified IS/MND prepared under CEQA Guidelines section 15164, and adopted an updated MMRP.

Two things are worth noting. The City’s public project timeline describes the February action only as a modification to incorporate a wetlands area to be maintained by the developer in perpetuity. It does not mention the transmission interconnection relocation. And the City’s approvals page lists this as Resolution No. 466; the executed document is No. 446.

Neither hearing was a City Council agenda item. The City’s rationale is that the policy decisions — Specific Plan, zoning, subdivision map, EIR — were each heard by the Council as standalone items in 2024, and Phase I was then processed exactly as the adopted plan directs.

Asked in June 2026 why no on-site notice sign was posted, the City answered that the site is closed to the public, sees little traffic, and is not visible from the public right-of-way. Asked whether Spanish-language notices were produced, the City answered that mailed notices were not translated and that the website carries built-in translation.

The Settlement: What the Executed Document Says

The Center for Biological Diversity filed suit on December 2, 2024 — four weeks after the Notice of Determination — in Contra Costa County Superior Court, Case No. N24-2162, assigned to Judge Edward G. Weil in Department 39. CBD was represented by its own staff attorneys, the City by City Attorney Donna Mooney, and Pittsburg Data Hub, LLC and AVAIO Digital Partners I, LLC by Cox, Castle & Nicholson.

What the parties filed was a joint ex parte application for a stay pending settlement. Counsel signatures on the application are dated December 11, 2025 — the same day as Zoning Administrator Resolution No. 445 — and the supporting declaration and proof of service are dated December 16, 2025. The proposed order in the packet is unsigned with the day left blank. Under Section 4.8, the Agreement’s Effective Date is the date the court issues the order staying the lawsuit.

The dismissal has not happened

CBD’s obligation to dismiss is contingent. The Implementation Date is the first date on which both of the following have occurred, each defined as the “first to occur of” a waiting period or the final resolution of a challenge:

Only then does CBD file to dismiss with prejudice. Section 1.4 carries a hard failure clause: if the City does not adopt the Future Review Resolution in substantially identical form — or adopts it and then amends it inconsistently after a challenge — “this Agreement shall be null and void, and none of the terms of this Agreement shall be binding on any Party.”

The future-review commitment is narrower than the summaries

The City’s settlement page states: “Separate environmental review to be conducted for the project’s future phases.” CBD’s December 16, 2025 press release states that the agreement “requires separate environmental review to be conducted for future phases of the project.”

Section 1.1 of the executed agreement is narrower:

“The Parties agree that future environmental review shall be required prior to any City approval of a discretionary entitlement required for any future warehouse/logistics center proposed as part of Phase II and Phase III of the Project.”

Section 1.2.1 specifies what the Future Review Resolution must contain: a commitment to prepare or require an EIR certified in advance of or concurrently with approval of a discretionary entitlement for any future warehouse/logistics center in any phase; a provision that while subsequent EIRs “may incorporate by reference sections of the current EIR, the City may not rely on the current EIR’s conclusions and must update each section to specifically analyze a proposed warehouse/logistics project”; and a provision that “no potential impacts of a warehouse/logistics center are or will be considered by the City to be fully addressed, evaluated, or mitigated by the current EIR.” Section 3 imposes a full mitigation package on any discretionary approval for a warehouse or logistics project in any phase.

Three limits follow. The commitment attaches to warehouse and logistics uses, not to future phases generally — an office, an R&D building, or a second data center in Phase II or III falls outside it, and the City has said future phases “could be tiered” off the existing Program EIR at staff’s determination. The trigger is a discretionary entitlement. And what is barred is reliance on the current EIR’s conclusions, not the use of a tiered or incorporating document.

The Phase I terms, as written

Two enforcement carve-outs. Section 2.4, the carbon-free power commitment, is enforceable only through the MMRP, not through the settlement agreement. Section 2.5, the $750,000 payment, is enforceable only through the agreement, not the MMRP.

One drafting artifact: Section 2.1 requires “an average Power Usage Effectiveness of at least 1.27.” Lower PUE denotes a more efficient facility, so as literally drafted the provision sets a floor where a ceiling was presumably intended.

Three provisions the summaries omit

CEC mandates supersede. Section 4.3 provides that if the CEC or any other agency with jurisdiction mandates a design or mitigation measure conflicting with the agreement, “the CEC or government mandate will supersede and will govern,” and compliance is not a breach.

CBD’s non-opposition is conditional and Phase I-only. Section 4.1 bars CBD from objecting in any administrative, regulatory, or legal proceeding — including “referendum, initiative, or moratorium” — and extends to the CEC and to subsequent City approvals “such as a development agreement.” But the covenant runs only “so long as Owner, or its permitted assignee remains in substantial compliance with the terms of this Agreement and the City’s, or any other governing agencies’ required approvals.” CBD gets a 30-day cure right; specific performance is the sole remedy; a judicially found material breach by CBD excuses the Owner and City from their remaining obligations. The same section preserves CBD’s right to engage in, comment on, and oppose approval of Phases II and III.

The agreement is freely assignable. Section 4.4 permits the Owner to assign or convey all or part of the agreement, or collaterally assign it, “at any time, without need for the Center’s prior consent.”

Where the public summaries and the text diverge

None of this makes the settlement weak. Ninety-percent PV coverage of undisturbed roof and parking spaces, Tier IV construction equipment tightening after grading, a 500-meter burrowing owl survey buffer, and an EIR requirement aimed at exactly the use category the PEIR flagged as the one that would push emissions past what was analyzed — these are substantive. But the summaries circulating publicly are broader than the document, and the gaps sit where a resident is most likely to look.

Six months after the agreement was signed, the environmental group that sued had settled, and the residents who had not sued filled the Council chamber.

The Numbers, and Which Document They Come From

Several figures central to the public debate appear on the City’s FAQ page rather than in the certified environmental record, and in two cases the sources differ.

Power. The City’s FAQ states Phase I is designed for a 60 MW critical IT load served by a 100 MVA substation, with up to 92 MW of emergency backup, and that “no power beyond 99 MW has been considered or approved by any agency.” AVAIO’s own site now lists Perseus at “99 MW Phase 1 Baseload Power,” energized 1H 2028; the City’s FAQ separately references AVAIO marketing the site at up to 500 MW, “private marketing the City does not control.”

On the utility question, the record is not uniform. The City’s repeated answer is that the data center is served by the Pittsburg Power Company, the City’s municipal utility, while residents are PG&E customers, so the load does not draw from the same pool. Appendix C’s backup-generation section agrees: the facility “will be supplied electricity by PPC through a new transforming substation on the PDH site operated by PPC and a new PG&E switching station constructed on the PDH site and owned and operated by PG&E.” But the Draft PEIR’s energy chapter states that “electrical service to the proposed project would be provided by PG&E through connections to existing offsite electrical lines and new on-site infrastructure,” and Appendix C’s air quality and GHG report calculates data-center emissions using PG&E carbon-intensity estimates for 2027. The design review application likewise describes a “PG&E switching station and transmission lines” on site, and the February 2026 modification relocated the PG&E interconnection to a nearby Tesla line. The PPC-not-PG&E framing is the City’s; the certified documents describe a more entangled arrangement.

Per the City, a PG&E System Impact Study funded by the developer established the required transmission and delivery improvements, and the developer is funding roughly $100 million in grid upgrades. The System Impact Study description is from the City’s FAQ; the $100 million figure appears on the City’s project details page.

Water. Appendix C puts Phase I recycled water demand at 58,407 gallons per day. The City frames it as 0.058 mgd against Delta Diablo’s 2023 average recycled production of about 7.5 mgd and the golf course’s roughly 0.27 mgd from the same pipeline; the PEIR separately reports Delta Diablo’s recycled water facility as providing over 9,600 acre-feet per year.

The City describes the cooling system as “closed-loop.” Appendix C describes air-cooled chillers “sized to be able to carry the full heat load... without any water requirement,” with an “optional ’adiabatic precooling system’” spraying recycled water on the coils to reduce compressor and fan power, plus humidification. The phrase “closed-loop” does not appear in Appendix C or the PEIR.

The City states the potable and recycled systems will not be interconnected in Phase I. Appendix C describes the existing one-million-gallon on-site storage tank as including “an air gap” and having “back-up connection to domestic water to provide reliable service,” and describes laterals providing water service “for fire and potable water needs at the building.”

Emissions. The PEIR estimates Phase I operational greenhouse gas emissions at 84,979 MTCO2e per year for 2027 through 2039, with full buildout worst case at 90,768 MTCO2e per year from 2040.

For the generators, three different figures circulate:

The 50-hour figure is the annual ceiling imposed by BAAQMD’s Authority to Construct and CARB’s Airborne Toxic Control Measures, not the modeled runtime. Appendix C notes that the 134-hour case “exceeds the offset threshold of 10 tpy NOX, thus the Project will offset these emissions consistent with BAAQMD Rule 2-2.” The GHG figures sit below the Bay Area Air District’s 10,000 MTCO2e stationary-source significance threshold. All 37 generators are to carry MIRATECH ACIS-3 aftertreatment systems.

Distance to homes. The City states repeatedly that the facility sits more than 400 feet from the nearest residence. The figure closest to that in the certified record appears in the PEIR’s vibration analysis, which places Phase I “approximately 400 feet from the nearest sensitive receptor.” The PEIR’s own sensitive-receptor table describes low-density residential as adjacent to the Plan Area on Golf Club Road, and another low-density residential receptor 85 feet northwest on West Leland Road. The 400-foot figure and the receptor table are measuring different things, and only one of them is what residents hear.

Jobs. The PEIR’s development capacity table estimates 60 employees for Phase I and 1,582 across the full Plan Area at buildout, against 3,300 in the 2040 General Plan’s buildout assumption. The City’s FAQ narrows Phase I to 20 to 60 permanent positions and states the point directly: “data centers do not employ large numbers of people on an ongoing basis, and the City will not suggest otherwise.” Per the City, AVAIO has entered a Project Labor Agreement with the Contra Costa Building and Construction Trades Council and the NorCal Carpenters Union.

The Fiscal Case, Against a $2 Million Deficit

Pittsburg’s FY 2026-27 budget frames why this project matters to the City’s balance sheet.

The preliminary General Fund budget showed a $5 million annual deficit. Departments cut proposed spending to bring it to $2 million, with Police, Public Works, and Community and Economic Development absorbing most of the reduction — and staff noted those cuts were not sufficient, with a further $1 million revenue loss anticipated from the Pittsburg Power Company. The budget lists among its opportunities that “future property and sales tax will be realized if the Avaio project on the former golf course is developed,” and flags two revenue measures for Council consideration: increasing the Landscape and Lighting Assessment District and “a Utilities User Tax (UUT) on all data center developments.”

On the project side, the City reports an independent fiscal analysis by Mangum Economics estimating roughly $2.0 billion in total investment, with new local tax revenue growing from about $5.5 million before operations begin to a stabilized $13.4 million per year across all local taxing entities. The City puts its own share at approximately $1 million to $1.4 million in property tax and approximately $1 million in sales tax annually, with local schools receiving well over $1 million a year, over 1,000 total construction jobs, and roughly $131.5 million in ongoing annual economic output in Contra Costa County. These figures come from the City’s FAQ; the Mangum analysis is not among the certified environmental documents.

There is an incentive, contingent on performance: the City states that should the project generate the anticipated revenue, it would rebate a portion of net property tax and Bradley-Burns sales tax over ten years, and that it has not subsidized the project to date.

This is not Pittsburg’s first energy-infrastructure host arrangement. The Council approved a use permit and development plans for the Diablo Energy Storage project on a 12-acre portion of Empire Business Park at 701 Willow Pass Road on September 17, 2018, with the Mitigated Negative Declaration and MMRP adopted on October 1, 2018 through Ordinance No. 18-1456; the project is authorized under its interconnection agreement to connect up to 200 MW of storage to the PG&E Pittsburg Substation. A May 18, 2020 staff report recommended a license agreement letting the developer run a high-voltage tie line under Willow Pass Road for $1 per year over an initial 40-year term, with the developer bearing all construction and maintenance costs, and estimated the project would pay an estimated total of $5 million in property tax and $800,000 in sales tax.

The Developer

AVAIO Digital describes a four-campus portfolio with over 400 MW of secured power coming online in 2027 and 2028: Leo in Little Rock, Arkansas (150 MW Phase 1, ground broken, energized Q3 2027); Taurus in Brandon, Mississippi (116 MW, ground broken, Q3 2027); Perseus in Pittsburg (99 MW, 1H 2028); and Hercules in Appomattox, Virginia (50 MW, 2027). The company reports 1,600 acres across those campuses, all zoned for data centers, plus a pipeline of “1,500+ developable acres with access to over 1.5 GW of total grid power” across North America and Western Europe.

The senior team is led by CEO Mark McComiskey, with John DeLacio a Principal — the contact named for the applicant on Pittsburg’s Notice of Determination. Community and government relations is led by Melody Neil, whose title appears on the site both as Public Affairs Lead and Head of Community & Government Relations. The advisory board includes Buddy Rizer, Executive Director of Economic Development for Loudoun County, Virginia. Named partners include Clune Construction, Schneider Electric, Salute, and Cummins.

The company states it “prioritizes locations with supportive local authorities” and engages “with local communities from day one to ensure alignment.” Its site carries supportive quotes from officials in each of its four markets, including one attributed to a Contra Costa County Supervisor: “The City of Pittsburg has a long history of supporting innovative industrial uses, and these developments are core to the City’s workforce and economic development initiatives.”

Where the Approvals Stand

Per the City’s approvals tracker:

The City states the Development Agreement was executed in 2019, before the Specific Plan existed, and that power sales and infrastructure agreements are still being negotiated. Phases II and III have no application on file.

Why It Matters for Site Selectors and Developers

The CEQA tier the public remembers is not the one that approved the building. Pittsburg certified a Program EIR with a full draft-and-response cycle for the land use plan. The data center itself cleared on a CEC Mitigated Negative Declaration. Both are defensible under CEQA. But “the project had a full EIR” is not what the record says about the building, and residents who go looking will find that out.

The 49 MW CEC line is a jurisdictional fork with community-relations consequences. What put this project in a state docket was the backup generating plant, at up to 92 MW, under Public Resources Code section 25519(c). The venue that hears the technical case will not be the venue where local sentiment forms.

Match the notice to the constituency, not to the statute. The hearing that approved the building was noticed to property owners within 300 feet, plus City Hall, the library, the website, and Nextdoor. That is more than the law requires. The people who filled the chamber six months later came from across Pittsburg and from Antioch, Bay Point, Martinez and Concord. For a project of this profile, the radius that satisfies the code and the radius that contains the affected public are not the same number.

Keep your public figures and your filed figures reconciled. Generator emissions appear in three forms across the record — 34 hours, 50 hours, 134 hours. Both the low and high numbers are legitimate answers to different questions. Presented without that framing, they read as inconsistency.

Settling with a statewide environmental group does not settle the neighborhood — and the settlement’s own terms say so. Section 4.1 buys conditional non-opposition to Phase I and expressly preserves CBD’s right to oppose Phases II and III. The largest public turnout came six months after signature, from people who were never parties.

Summarize your own settlement carefully. The gap between “zero-emission construction equipment” and “zero-emission or CARB Tier IV-compliant, with a two-part unavailability exemption” is the kind of thing an organized opponent finds and reads aloud.

Under-claiming jobs is defensible. Pittsburg’s FAQ states flatly that data centers do not employ many people and declines to argue otherwise, then pivots to tax base, fiber, and infrastructure. Against a 20-to-60-job number opponents will find regardless, saying it first costs less than being corrected.

The Risks and Obstacles

The settlement is not final, and it has a null-and-void clause. Dismissal requires both the Future Review Resolution and the Data Center MMRP adoption to clear their challenge windows. If the City fails to adopt the Future Review Resolution in substantially identical form, the entire agreement — the $750,000, the solar, the recycled water commitment — becomes null and void, and the CEQA challenge is live again. That resolution does not appear on the City’s approvals tracker.

Phases II and III are the open question, and the settlement covers less of them than the summaries suggest. 54.33 acres and 761,118 square feet already carry Planned Development zoning and an approved subdivision map; what they lack is a filed development application, which under Specific Plan section 8.2 would go to the Zoning Administrator, not the Council. Warehouse and logistics uses requiring discretionary approval carry an EIR requirement and the Section 3 mitigation package. Everything else in the permitted use list — offices, R&D, energy facilities, manufacturing, another data center — does not.

A pending Development Agreement amendment and pending power agreements sit in front of an aroused electorate. Both are Council-level actions. Section 4.1 anticipated a future development agreement explicitly.

The Utilities User Tax under consideration would apply to “all data center developments.” It is a revenue option in the adopted budget, not an adopted tax. A UUT requires voter approval, and the Council in June 2026 adopted a resolution consolidating its municipal election with the November 3, 2026 general election.

A Council ad hoc committee on “Data Center and Hydrogen” — Members Killings and Banales, staffed by J. Davis — is listed on the roster as ad hoc, meeting as needed. Residents at the June 15 meeting asked about a moratorium, a voter-approval threshold for expansions, and a citizen oversight committee. The City answered the first two the same way — a policy decision the Council would have to consider and approve, not currently before it. On the third it went further, saying a citizen oversight committee is something the City Manager or Council could establish, alongside a public dashboard, annual reporting, or a community advisory group. Section 4.1 names “referendum, initiative, or moratorium” among the proceedings CBD agreed not to support as to Phase I.

The engagement format is itself contested. The July 30 community workshop was held on Zoom, with questions solicited in advance by email and an in-person viewing location at the Marina Community Center. Comments on the City’s own announcement objected to both the virtual format and the advance-question process.

What to Watch

Whether and when the Future Review Resolution reaches the Council agenda. It is the condition precedent to everything in the settlement, it must be substantially identical to Exhibit 2, and it carries a 90-day challenge window once adopted. Mechanically, it is one of the few remaining data-center items that has to come back to the Council in public.

What the August 3 study session produced. Watch for a public dashboard, annual water and energy reporting, Spanish-language materials, or a community advisory group — all four were named by the City as things it is open to.

Whether the first Phase II or III application is a warehouse. If it is and requires a discretionary entitlement, an EIR is required and the City may not rely on the current EIR’s conclusions. If it is anything else, the tiering question is open, and that determination sets the template for the remaining 54 acres.

The Development Agreement amendment. A 2019 agreement being amended in 2026 against this backdrop is the most likely vehicle for new community benefit commitments.

Whether the Utilities User Tax reaches the November 2026 ballot. A data-center-specific UUT adopted by voters in a city with a $2 million structural deficit would be a template other California cities read closely.

Building and grading permits. They are under review. Under the settlement, the MMRP is to be enforceable prior to issuance of any Phase I grading permit, and the first 50% of the $750,000 comes due within 90 days of the first building permit.

This article is factual background and is not legal, financial, or investment advice.

Pittsburg approved the data center before the town showed up. Now comes the bill.

Not a construction bill. A political one, and it is itemized.

Three of five City Council seats are on the November 3 ballot — a working majority.

A Utilities User Tax on data center development is one of the revenue options city staff will bring back to the Council. In California that kind of tax goes to the voters, so the city would be asking residents to tax the industry it just recruited.

The CEQA lawsuit is not over. It is stayed, not dismissed, and the whole settlement — the $750,000, the solar, the recycled-water commitment — voids itself if the city never adopts a resolution that has not appeared in the public approvals record.

Fifty-four acres of the same site are still undeveloped. They already carry the zoning and the subdivision map, so under the adopted plan the next application goes to a single staff official rather than the Council. Which is exactly the arrangement residents are angry about.

And on the table since the June meeting, per the city’s own FAQ: a moratorium, a voter-approval requirement for future expansions, a citizen oversight committee.

Against all of that: an estimated $1 million to $1.4 million a year in property tax, about $1 million in sales tax, eventually — and 20 to 60 permanent jobs in Phase I. The adopted budget books none of it.

Here is how a city ends up on that side of the ledger.

Eighty people addressed the Council about the project on June 15. Another 107 filed cards in opposition without speaking. Five weeks later, forty-six more spoke and the Mayor cut comment to two minutes each. None of it was on the agenda. There was nothing to vote on, because every land use approval the project needed had already been granted.

In 2024 the Council held the big public hearings and approved a plan for 76 acres of a former city golf course. Those hearings were about the land, not the building. The environmental report says so directly: “the Specific Plan does not provide authorization for the PDH project, and the PEIR provides a programmatic, rather than a project-level, environmental analysis for Phase I.”

Review of the building itself went to Sacramento. Because the project includes a backup generating plant of up to 92 megawatts, state law made the California Energy Commission the lead agency. In December 2025 the Commission adopted a Mitigated Negative Declaration — a lighter form of review than an EIR — and granted the project an exemption from full state licensing.

Three days later a single Pittsburg staff official, the Zoning Administrator, certified the state’s document and approved the design. That hearing was noticed five ways, including mail to property owners within 300 feet, the library, the city website and Nextdoor. It was not a Council item. It was also more than Pittsburg’s own plan required — section 8.2 lets the Zoning Administrator approve these applications “administratively without public notice and without the need to hold a public hearing.” The city noticed and held one anyway.

An environmental group did sue, and settled in December 2025. The terms include $750,000 to a nonprofit for regional climate resiliency work, prioritizing disadvantaged communities within Pittsburg, plus rooftop solar, recycled-water cooling and wildlife surveys. Both the City and the group describe the deal as securing separate environmental review for future phases. The signed agreement limits that to warehouse and logistics projects.

So: was it worth it?

The city’s case is real. Pittsburg’s preliminary budget showed a $5 million General Fund deficit; departments cut proposed spending to bring the projection down to $2 million. A couple of million a year in new revenue is not nothing when your own budget is short. But the adopted budget books none of it, and everything on the other side of the ledger is still ahead.

That’s the trade worth thinking about. A city can run a process that exceeds its own requirements — mailed notice, the library, the website, Nextdoor, a hearing it didn’t have to hold — and still end up here. Legal notice and political consent are different products. The first can be satisfied at a staff hearing. The second has to be earned early, in public, on the actual building. The bill for skipping it doesn’t come due on the phase you already approved. It comes due on the next one, and at the next election.

This is the kind of thing Obedio surfaces from municipal records before it becomes a headline — the staff-level resolution, the ad hoc committee named “Data Center and Hydrogen” on every agenda, the tax option sitting in a budget message. By the time it’s news, the decisions are made.

Full breakdown, document by document: [link]