Public method · versioned parameters · reproducible determinationParameter set v0.6.0 · engine build 0.6.0-rc2

DICAData Infrastructure
Community Assurance

A method, not an opinion

A county is asked to approve a $4 billion data center. How much assurance should the developer post — and who checks the number?

DICA sizes financial assurance for data-center development the way an engineer sizes a footing: from stated inputs, through a published function, to a number anyone can recompute. The method is open. The parameters are versioned. The determination carries its own evidence.

Published function

Every adjustment is defined in Part A and applied exactly once.

Versioned parameters

A determination names the parameter set it was computed under.

Bound evidence

Each input cites a document by digest. Substitute it and the record breaks.

Independent review

Applicant-funded, jurisdiction-directed. The assessor answers to the county.

For counsel and staff

Read the Standard

Part A is the normative text: definitions, the four disciplines, the coverage function, evidence classes, and the conformance rules an assessment must satisfy. Clause-level citation, stable anchors, diffs between versions.

Open Part A — v0.6.0

For anyone

Run the calculation

Enter a project. Change one evidence class and watch the requirement move. The calculator is the same function the standard defines — shown with illustrative parameters so the mechanics are visible.

Open the calculator

For jurisdictions

Adopt it in an ordinance

What to write, who pays for review, how the obligation is released, and the objections a developer’s counsel will raise — with the answers. Model clause included.

Adoption guidance

The discipline

Four questions, in order. Each answered once.

01 · Attribution

What is ours?

The share of a cost the project causes, separated from background growth the project did not create.

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02 · Protection

What already covers it?

Contract, insurance, tariff and statute that stand ahead of the community — credited at the strength of the instrument.

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03 · Uncertainty

How well is it known?

Evidence class drives an uncertainty factor. Better evidence, smaller factor. This is the lever the applicant controls.

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04 · Likelihood

How much must be covered?

A continuous coverage function of the risk score. No bands, no cliffs, no argument about which side of a line a project sits on.

Why order matters. Most disputes about assurance are really disputes about double-counting — the same protection credited twice, or the same uncertainty charged twice. DICA fixes the order and applies each adjustment exactly once, so a disagreement resolves to a specific input rather than to a philosophy.

Prove more, bond less.

The requirement is not a penalty and it is not a negotiation. It is what the uncertainty costs. An applicant who commissions independent review of the closure estimate — the single largest self-attested input on most projects — converts an E4 assumption into E2 evidence and the requirement falls by a computable amount.

The calculator ranks inputs by exactly that: dollars of requirement removed per dollar of verification. It tells an applicant where to spend, and it tells a county where the number is actually load-bearing.

What DICA is not

A rating, a score, or a sealno
A prediction of failureno
A substitute for underwritingno
Priced against the amount it setsnever
A published function anyone can runyes