Neighbors in Stokes County are taking the fight over a massive proposed data hub to court, asking a judge to slam the brakes on a rezoning that cleared the way for Project Delta, a hyperscale data center campus spanning roughly 1,800 acres along the Dan River.
The lawsuit, filed last week in Stokes County Superior Court, targets a January vote by county commissioners that opened the rural tract to industrial use. The complaint argues the decision puts burial grounds, historic properties and the local watershed at risk, and claims the rezoning was rushed through without the notice and review residents say they were due.
According to The Charlotte Post, the suit names the National Hairston Clan, CleanAIRE NC, the Dan River Basin Association, 7 Directions of Service and several local residents as plaintiffs. "Our foreparents are buried on the data center site," National Hairston Clan chair Robert Hairston said in coverage of the filing, insisting that descendants' cemeteries must be shielded from heavy development.
The rezoning moved forward in January despite a standing-room-only public hearing and ultimately passed on a 3-2 vote, according to local TV coverage. WXII reported the packed meeting, and WFAE noted that developers say the Project Delta campus could pump $20–$40 million a year into the county’s tax base and create hundreds of jobs.
Cultural sites and the Dan River at risk
Opponents argue the site is not just another empty field. They say the land sits within a landscape of family cemeteries, historic Hairston plantation properties and locations tied to the Saura people, and they warn that large-scale construction and 24/7 operations could damage the Dan River corridor.
Reporting by Spectrum News records neighbors’ worries about constant noise, heavy water use and the long-term transformation of a quiet county that has seen little heavy industrial development to date.
Legal claims
The complaint asks a judge to throw out the commissioners’ rezoning decision, alleging officials did not follow procedural safeguards required under state law and failed to provide adequate notice and review before the vote.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys say the board overrode a planning board recommendation and pushed the change through before any operator, infrastructure plans or environmental assessments had been disclosed, The Charlotte Post reports. One lawyer criticized “that the commission approved it without full consideration of the impacts on the community,” a point that has become a rallying cry for local advocates.
Backlash spreading across North Carolina
The Stokes County battle is part of a wider North Carolina backlash against mega data centers. Developers have paused or scrapped projects elsewhere, and several local governments have moved to temporarily block new facilities while they sort out the tradeoffs.
In Wake County a developer pulled a New Hill proposal and Apex leaders are weighing a one-year moratorium. Chatham County’s board has imposed a 12-month pause on permitting, according to county records, and GovTech notes that Gates County moved earlier to put its own moratorium in place.
With the complaint now filed, the fight over Project Delta shifts from the commissioners’ dais to a courtroom, where judges will decide whether the rezoning survives. For now the project exists only on paper: it has been approved on the land-use map, but no construction has started. The outcome of the lawsuit will determine whether the sprawling data center campus can move forward as planned.
