DANBURY, N.C. (Aug. 20, 2026) — Just days after Stokes County’s Planning Board delivered a resounding win for the community, voting 5-2 to recommend denial of a massive proposed hyperscale AI data center known as Project Delta in Walnut Cove, a local court has officially voided the county’s original, flawed January rezoning for the same project.
The ruling came Wednesday after Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), and lawyers for Stokes County jointly asked the court to void the original rezoning decision and adopt new safeguards for the next round of rezoning. The court agreed, and the January text and map amendments are now void, treated as if they had never been enacted in the first place.
SCSJ and SELC filed a lawsuit last March on behalf of local residents and nonprofit groups, pointing out serious flaws in the January rezoning process. That pressure led the county to acknowledge in April that its original actions approving the data center were never validly enacted, void from the moment they were adopted in January, and today’s court order makes it official and legally binding.
The court’s ruling resolves core issues regarding the January rezoning.
“We’re glad the county recognized its errors here,” said Anne Harvey David, Chief Counsel for Environmental Justice at SCSJ. “Residents deserve real transparency and a meaningful voice in decisions that affect their community, and this is a step toward accountability.”
“This community has carried more than its share of industrial burden for generations — from the coal ash contamination along the Dan River to the historic displacement of Black families to make way for Belews Creek,” said Megan Kimball, Senior Attorney at SELC. “Today’s ruling means Stokes County has to start over and do this the right way, with real transparency and a real chance for these residents to be heard before any decision is made about their community’s future.”
At last Thursday’s Planning Board meeting, only two speakers — a father and son with no residence or business ties to Stokes County — spoke in favor of Project Delta. Engineered Land Solutions (ELS) renewed its application for rezoning for Project Delta after the prior decision was voided. Every other member of the public who spoke at the meeting stood against it, raising concerns about harm to air and water quality, damage to archaeological resources, round-the-clock noise, rising utility costs, and threats to property values and the local tourism and agricultural economy. The Planning Board took those concerns seriously, and the majority voted decisively to recommend denying the project.
The final decision about the data center now rests with the Stokes County Board of Commissioners, the same body that approved it 3-2 in January. In line with the new procedural safeguards adopted by the court this week, the county will hold a special public hearing from 5-9 p.m. Sept. 8, with a minimum of three hours reserved for public comment. Speakers can sign up in advance for 30-minute blocks, with any unused time held for same-day sign-ups. Written comments may be submitted before and during the hearing to PublicComments@co.stokes.nc.us.
Stokes County residents are hopeful the Commission will use the upcoming hearing to listen rather than decide, taking time to weigh both spoken testimony and written comments before making a final call on the Project Delta rezoning application at its regularly scheduled meeting Sept. 14.
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Southern Coalition for Social Justice, founded in 2007, partners with communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities in the South to defend and advance their political, social, and economic rights through the combination of legal advocacy, research, organizing, and communications. Learn more at southerncoalition.org and follow our work on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
The Southern Environmental Law Center is one of the nation’s most powerful defenders of the environment, rooted in the South. With a long track record, SELC takes on the toughest environmental challenges in court, in government, and in our communities to protect our region’s air, water, climate, wildlife, lands, and people. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, the organization has a staff of 250, including more than 160 legal and policy experts and advocates, and is headquartered in Charlottesville, VA, with offices in Asheville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Chapel Hill, Charleston, Nashville, Richmond, and Washington, DC. Learn more at selc.org.