Amazon has filed a petition with the King George County Circuit Court requesting a review of the county's refusal of a data center project in Northern Virginia.

In an 878-page document filed on April 24, the company is asking the court to revisit the determination of vested rights regarding 869 acres of land owned by Amazon in King George County, Virginia, where the company had hoped to build a large data center campus, reports FXBG Advance.

In September 2023, Amazon was granted permission to develop an 869-acre data center campus at the old Birchwood power plant on State Route 3 near Sealston. The campus could have totaled 19 data centers spanning 7.25 million sq ft (673,550 sqm).

However, after a change of local government, new officials decided to backtrack on the agreement, saying the money being offered to the county by Amazon wasn’t enough to justify giving up land to the company.

In April 2024, the Board of Supervisors began discussing re-rezoning the land back to agricultural, a decision that Amazon's attorneys called "an act that would block the project and wipe out Amazon’s reasonable investment-backed expectations in the use of the property.”

In May 2024, Amazon asked King George County's then-administrator, Angela Foroughi, to find that it held vested rights in the parcels of land which had been purchased by the company for data center use.

She was replaced by county administrator Matthew Smolnik in June 2024, who in August told Amazon that asking him to decide that would see him need to interpret Virginia State Code, which was "outside his legal responsibilities."

Amazon filed to appeal that decision, but the Board of Zoning Appeals upheld Smolnik's position.

Now, the company has filed with the King George County Circuit Court asking that it reconsider Smolnik's ruling.

As reported by the Fredericksburg Free Press, Amazon is being represented by Hirschler Fleischer Attorney Charlie Payne, has argued in the petition that, as Smolnik's ruling came two days outside of the 90 day period given for a decision, it was "untimely" and "unresponsive" because Virginia code allows zoning administrators to make “findings of fact, with concurrence of the attorney for the governing body and conclusions of law regarding determinations of rights.”

Payne further notes that the Board previously accepted the zoning change to industrial, the amended proffers, and adjusted the county's comprehensive plan to support the project, while Amazon spent $168.8 million acquiring the land and a further $6 million in other development efforts.

“It is difficult to imagine a more clear-cut case of vested rights — vested rights that the board cannot now unwind by downzoning the property back to agriculture,” concluded Payne. “Accordingly, we are seeking a determination that Amazon has vested rights in the rezoning, proffer amendment, the SPEX amendment, and the Comprehensive Plan amendment.”

The King George County Board of Supervisors met in a closed session to discuss the lawsuit on May 6.