Projects don't die in the permitting office. They die in the community. I've spent 25 years making sure that doesn't happen.
"They die when residents hear about a project from a headline instead of from you. They die when the first public meeting turns into a shouting match because nobody built trust before the site plan showed up. They die when a loud minority organizes online and your team is still polishing the technical FAQ."
Community relations is no longer a nice-to-have. It's a permitting requirement.
Before founding PR Bunker, I ran a large Boston-based agency as its president, a firm known for winning town meeting votes and securing properties through community engagement. Today I'm also president of the Revere Chamber of Commerce, which means I sit on the community's side of the table too. I know what residents and local officials actually want to hear, because I represent them.
One of the largest redevelopment projects in New England, navigated across two communities with deep roots and strong opinions.
Open-air retail development in a residential suburb.
Dealership development and siting.
Urban infill in a dense gateway city neighborhood.
Host community agreement and abutter engagement for the most contested use category in the state.
Community relations for a BESS project facing exactly the scrutiny every energy project in Massachusetts now faces.
Massachusetts communities are pushing back harder than they have in a generation. Battery storage projects draw packed hearings. Data centers are getting banned town by town. And as of July 1, 2026, the state's consolidated siting framework makes pre-filing community engagement mandatory for large clean energy projects.
Who the stakeholders are, where opposition will come from, what the real concerns are.
Materials residents actually understand.
Preparation for every hearing, including being in the room.
Narrative management with the outlets residents actually read.
Municipal and stakeholder relationship building.
When things get loud.
That's what an engagement looks like. Different rooms, same job: reputation decides the outcome.
As of July 1, 2026, large clean energy facilities, including battery storage projects of 100 MWh or more, must complete pre-filing consultation and community engagement before filing with the Energy Facilities Siting Board. The engagement has to be real, documented, and early.
By getting there first. Most opposition hardens because residents feel blindsided. We map stakeholders before the first hearing, meet concerns directly and in plain language, and make sure the community hears from the project team before they hear about it from a headline. When opposition is already organized, the work shifts to honest engagement, correcting misinformation, and giving persuadable residents a reason to trust the process.
Yes. The playbook is the same whether it's retail, mixed-use, cannabis, dealerships, or battery storage: trust is the lever. The 165 million square feet behind this practice spans all of them.
Lobbyists work the statehouse. Lawyers work the regulations. This practice works the community: the residents, the local media, the planning board room. When you hire PR Bunker, you get me in every room. No junior handoffs.
PR Bunker does, led directly by Don Martelli. The practice covers stakeholder mapping before the first hearing, fire-chief and first-responder briefings, plain-language project materials, abutter-view renderings, and the hostile-room facilitation that turns a petition into a conversation. Under the 2026 siting framework that work is now a pre-filing requirement for BESS projects of 100 MWh and up. Start with the five questions residents actually ask about battery storage and how to answer them.
Yes. Data centers are drawing the sharpest opposition in Massachusetts right now, including outright bans, and most of it is a process failure rather than a substance one: residents learned about the project from a headline. The playbook is the same one behind 165 million square feet of permitted development: get there first, brief the people the room trusts, and give the community wins it can point to. If a project has already been voted down, read Your Project Got Banned. Now What?
For large clean energy facilities, developers must complete documented pre-filing consultation with the host community before the Energy Facilities Siting Board will accept an application: accessible public sessions, plain-language project information, engagement with environmental justice populations where applicable, and a record showing resident input was gathered and considered. The state framework took effect July 1, 2026, and municipalities must stand up consolidated local permitting by October 1, 2026. The step-by-step version is in The EFSB Pre-Filing Process in Plain English, and the practitioner read on the law is in what the framework actually requires.
By listening in the places the conversation actually happens: Nextdoor threads, Facebook groups, comment sections, public meetings, and elected officials' statements, synthesized into a daily briefing leadership can act on. The infrastructure rollout case study shows what that looks like in practice, and Your Community Is Already Talking About You explains the listening gap most project teams never close.
Signed September 8, 2026: any data center over 25 megawatts needs a community benefits agreement with its host town, meeting the state's standards and reviewed by the Office of Environmental Justice and Equity, before any state agency can issue a permit. NDAs between state agencies and developers are barred. The community conversation is now the first permit, not the last hearing. Here is the plain-English version of the order and what to do this month.
Community landscape, public meetings, local media, municipal relationships. You get me in every room. No junior handoffs.
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