New York State Guidance for Host Communities: Implementing the Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development is an eight-page guidance document published by Empire State Development (ESD), New York's economic development agency, with an accompanying landing page, released in September 2026. It accompanies the state's voluntary Community Investment Framework (CIF), which Executive Order No. 62 of July 14, 2026 directed ESD to create within 60 days. The guidance recommends that localities negotiate community investments from data-center developers, operators and owners at a benchmark of $1 million per megawatt of utility demand. The topic page is New York Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development (2026).
Purpose and legal character
The guidance describes the CIF as "a structured approach to identifying, negotiating, and documenting investments" from what it calls Data Center Parties, aimed at strengthening local infrastructure, improving quality of life, preparing residents for economic opportunities, addressing project impacts and creating lasting community assets. It states that every project and community differs and that the framework "is not intended to produce identical outcomes"; municipalities may use or modify it as they see fit.
Three statements fix its legal character:
- The framework "is not intended to serve as a comprehensive agreement," and localities are advised to engage counsel to negotiate and memorialise any final agreement. "It is up to municipalities to decide, with the advice of counsel, whether to make the Framework binding."
- CIF negotiations should be coordinated with review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) and other statutes.
- A locality asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement "should think carefully about whether such NDA benefits the community," and should limit any NDA to proprietary or commercially sensitive information or trade secrets exempt from disclosure under New York's Freedom of Information Law.
Assessing community impacts
The guidance directs localities to weigh four categories:
- PILOT agreements. Property-tax revenue should be assessed against any Payment In Lieu of Taxes incentive that reduces it.
- Construction labor. Many projects use traveling construction teams, so localities should assess how far New York workers will be employed.
- Visual, noise and environmental impacts. These include light, noise, air-quality and water impacts, to be evaluated most often under SEQRA and mitigated through site-design commitments.
- Site and energy usage. A data center on an industrial site "often means that a community expends the limited resources of space, energy, water and other resources on a project which typically results in fewer permanent jobs."
The investment benchmark and guiding principles
The first guiding principle states that, "relative to alternative industrial development, data centers typically generate fewer permanent jobs per megawatt of electric demand," and that the framework, "pursuant to Governor Hochul's Executive Order No. 62, establishes a recommended community investment benchmark of $1 million-per-megawatt of utility demand." The fund section adds that the benchmark is "inclusive of investments into grid modernization as required by New York State," and gives an example: a 50 MW project carries a recommended community investment of $50 million, "much of which may be distributed through a Community Investment Fund." Payment timing is left to negotiation.
The other principles are long-term planning for a decades-long presence, including what happens if a data center leaves; planning for the ongoing maintenance costs of funded projects; a community-informed priority list revisited over time; confirming local ownership of funded assets, for example publicly maintained rather than private roads; and sequencing projects by readiness.
The guidance says the CIF should build on statewide regulatory frameworks being finalized by the Department of Public Service to protect ratepayers from data-center costs and "create a funding pathway to directly lower bills."
Negotiating and fund governance
Localities are encouraged to run transparent public engagement, identify priorities early, confirm which entity (developer, owner or operator) has authority and will be responsible for commitments, seek a binding agreement with counsel before construction starts, and start negotiations before design and labor agreements are finalized. They should define investment areas specifically, provide for additional investment if a project expands, complement existing local plans, document responsibilities and timelines, and allow agreed substitution of projects. Localities "may require" Data Center Parties to deposit funds into an imprest account to pay for counsel of the municipality's choice.
The Community Investment Fund should be set up early. Localities should specify the managing entity (a municipality, local development corporation, industrial development agency or other governmental entity), approval roles, accounting procedures, public reporting and project-evaluation processes. Payment schedules may include an initial deposit, subsequent payments, a replenishment threshold and inflation adjustment, with separate schedules where developer and operator differ. Authorized uses may include fund administration, enforcement of the agreements, mitigation of environmental or infrastructure impacts, and remediation of defunct or abandoned data-center sites. A final section lists seven state agencies as resources: DEC, HCR, DOL, DPS, DOS, DOT and ESD.
Landing page
ESD's landing page describes the CIF as "the nation's first statewide Host Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development," which is ESD's own characterization, and names four "core pillars": Establishing Good Neighbor Commitments; Enforcing Workforce & Labor Standards; Standardizing Transparency & Accountability; and Specifying Targeted Investments. The guidance PDF does not elaborate the pillars, which presumably sit in the separately published CIF template (not captured). The page lists eligible investment areas including public infrastructure upgrades, broadband expansion, child care facilities, K-12 educational programming and blight remediation, and asks communities to share completed frameworks with ESD.
Relation to Executive Order No. 62
The order directed ESD to post a framework within 60 days, covering a developer-capitalized community investment fund, local infrastructure investment, labor frameworks prioritizing prevailing wages, project labor agreements and local hiring, and transparency reporting (New York Executive Order No. 62 (Data Center Moratorium, July 2026)). The 60-day period ran to September 12, 2026. ESD's landing page was last modified late on September 14, and the guidance was reported on September 15. The labor and transparency subjects in the order appear on the landing page as pillars but receive little treatment in the guidance itself, which concentrates on the benchmark, negotiation and the fund.
Differences from coverage
Reuters reported that New York recommended local governments seek investments "of at least $1 million per megawatt of utility demand" and quoted ESD President Hope Knight: "because data centers are not major local job generators, their economic development profile differs from traditional manufacturing" (Source: reuters.com). The guidance calls the figure a "recommended community investment benchmark," states that it includes state-required grid-modernization investment, and leaves to each municipality whether the framework binds. The Knight quotation does not appear in the guidance or landing page and was not traced to a press release.
Provenance
Captured on September 16, 2026 from the ESD PDF (8 pages, HTTP 200) and landing page (HTTP 200). PDF extraction artifacts (joined words, duplicated URLs, a split table) were repaired without altering wording. The CIF template (.docx), the "Town of Empire" worked example and ESD's July 14, 2026 policy outline were not captured.
Relationships
- supports: New York Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development (2026) — the topic page.
- depends-on: New York Executive Order No. 62 (Data Center Moratorium, July 2026) — the executive order that directed the framework.
- related: New York Data-Center Moratorium (2026), Kathy Hochul, Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics