Statesboro and Effingham data center lawsuits explained

Between September 17 and September 21, residents in two Georgia communities went to Superior Court over data centers. In Statesboro they are challenging the rezoning of a 27-acre tract on Burkhalter Road. In Effingham County, a conservation group and five residents are challenging how the county's Industrial Development Authority negotiated and signed the deal for OpenAI's Project Camellia.

Neither complaint asks a judge to decide whether a data center is a good idea. Both argue that the local government skipped steps it was required to take. For a resident weeks from a vote, that is the useful part: the grounds these suits rest on are things you can check in public records before the vote, not only after it.

Statesboro: a rezoning appeal filed on a 30-day clock

On August 18, Statesboro City Council voted 3-2 to rezone about 27 acres at 6539 Burkhalter Road from R-4 high-density residential to O, office and business, according to the Statesboro Herald. Grice Connect reported that the mayor broke a tie to pass it. The applicant, 4AM Development LLC, had submitted a sketch of a two-story data center of roughly 230,000 square feet.

On September 17, eleven residents and the nonprofit Coastal Communities United filed what the Herald describes as a "petition for review/appeal and request for declaratory judgment" in Bulloch County Superior Court, naming the city and 4AM Development. The Herald says it was filed to meet a 30-day deadline. That deadline is the first thing to take from this case. The window to appeal a zoning decision is short. Residents who wait to see whether the project actually moves forward can lose the right to challenge it.

According to the Herald and WTOC, the petition argues that:

The city did not follow its own rules. The petitioners say the city disregarded its own procedural requirements. WTOC reports the petition lists what the city did not require before voting: traffic studies, an environmental impact assessment, consultation with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and a hazardous-materials review covering battery storage, diesel generators and cooling systems.
The project breaks the city's own data center ordinance. Council adopted a Data Centers Ordinance on June 2, by a 3-1 vote. The petitioners say that ordinance prohibits hyperscale facilities. The developers have applied to Georgia Power for up to 99 megawatts, the Herald reports, which the petition says is only one megawatt under that threshold and is hyperscale in substance. That is the petitioners' reading of the ordinance. A court has not ruled on it.
It is spot zoning, and it takes neighbors' property value. The petition also claims spot zoning, due process and equal protection violations, and "inverse condemnation," a theory that government action reduced the value of neighboring property enough to count as a taking. It cites harm to the watershed and aquifer, noise, vibration, traffic and property values.

The petitioners ask the court to declare the rezoning void, to declare the data center ordinance unconstitutional, and to send the matter back to council with instructions to follow its own code. Robert Abney Fricks Sr., a Warner Robins attorney, represents them.

Whether the suit pauses anything is disputed. WTOC reports that filing under Georgia's Zoning Procedures Law stays proceedings. But City Attorney Cain Smith told the Herald the lawsuit would not, on its own, stay the project's special use permit process unless a court grants injunctive relief. If you are relying on a filing to freeze a project, get a lawyer's answer on this for your own case. Don't assume it.

The city confirmed it was served on September 21. In a statement quoted by WTOC, the city said it "intends to meet" the 30-day response deadline and would not comment further while the matter is pending. WTOC gives the case number as SUCV2026000219. The developers told the Herald they intend to go ahead. Charles Way, one of them, said they have more than one potential end user and are close to an agreement with one.

Separately, Bulloch County, which surrounds Statesboro, has a moratorium on data center permitting in its unincorporated areas that runs through December 31, 2026. Commissioners extended it 5-0 in May. The Burkhalter Road site is inside the city limits, so that moratorium does not cover it.

Effingham County: the second Project Camellia suit

OpenAI's Project Camellia was announced on July 22 as a $20 billion campus at the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub near Rincon. On September 2, three residents filed the first lawsuit over it. That suit challenges the county's August 4 ordinance allowing data centers in industrial zoning districts, and argues the county skipped required hearings. We covered it in our September 6 roundup.

The second suit, filed September 21 in Effingham County Superior Court, has a different target. The plaintiffs are the conservation group One Hundred Miles and residents Amy Collins, Robert Collins, Elizabeth Fisher, Crystal Hayes and Manjusha Sheobaran, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center. They name the Effingham County Industrial Development Authority and Octans GA, an OpenAI affiliate, according to WTOC.

As reported by WTOC, the Effingham Herald, The Current and The Georgia Virtue, the complaint alleges that the authority:

entered a nondisclosure agreement over the project in October 2025 and negotiated behind it into 2026;
moved its regular July meeting without the week's public notice Georgia law requires;
listed the item on its July agenda as "Project Gateway," without saying it was a data center or that it involved tax incentives;
discussed the tax deal in closed executive sessions;
sold publicly owned land to Octans without the public vote that property sales require; and
did not release records residents asked for.

The Georgia Virtue counts four alleged Open Meetings Act violations and one Open Records Act violation. The plaintiffs ask the court to declare the tax agreement and the land sale void, and to order release of the May and July purchase and sale agreements.

The stakes are large. The authority's memorandum of understanding with Octans grants a 50% property tax abatement for 15 years, and WTOC reported it was signed the day before the public announcement. WTOC and the Effingham Herald now put the value of the abatements at nearly $900 million. Neither outlet says how that figure was calculated, so attribute it to them if you repeat it. The Herald describes the project as needing up to 3.2 gigawatts of power.

The authority told the Herald it "will respond appropriately through the legal process." It told The Current it would review the allegations once it receives formal notice. No court has ruled in either Effingham case.

What a resident can do with this before the vote

These two cases show two separate ways to challenge a data center decision, and each one depends on records you can collect now.

Know your appeal deadline before the vote. The Statesboro petition was filed to beat a 30-day window. Find out your state's deadline for appealing a zoning decision, and line up a lawyer before council votes, not after.
Read your community's own data center ordinance against the application. If your town has already adopted size limits, compare them with what the developer requested from the utility, not only with the square footage on the site plan. In Statesboro, the gap between 99 MW and the hyperscale limit is the heart of the ordinance claim.
List what the city did not ask for. Traffic studies, environmental review and hazardous-materials review of generators and batteries are concrete, checkable items. Put the question of whether each one was required on the record at the hearing.
Look past the zoning board. In Effingham, the land sale and the tax break went through a development authority, not the county commission. Get that body's agendas, meeting notices and executive-session minutes. A code name on an agenda, a meeting moved without notice, or a property sale with no vote is each its own claim under open-government law.
File records requests early and keep the dates. A request that goes unanswered becomes evidence, as the Effingham plaintiffs' records claim shows.

None of this guarantees a result. Both cases are at the very start: the defendants have not yet answered in court.