A Texas city is being sued by its residents after giving the OK to a potential data center project last week.

Residents of Granbury are suing the city after officials voted on Tuesday, April 7, to approve the rezoning of a 2,100-acre land parcel linked to a potential data center.

Energy company Bilateral Energy is the company backing the rezoning request at 2801 W US Highway 377, better known as Knox Ranch.

The claimants allege that the annexation of the land parcel, which took place earlier this year in January, was marked by procedural violations.

Its main claim is that the city failed to properly disclose the annexation’s connection to plans for a potential data center known as ‘Project Patriot.”

The lawsuit says that city officials violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by deliberately staggering arrival times when they toured a Bilateral Energy data center facility in Dallas prior to the annexation.

If all officials had visited at the same time, there “would be a quorum,” said the City of Granbury’s director of economic development, Shea Hopkins.

If there is a quorum, the act stipulates that city officials have to post a meeting notice and ensure that discussions of official business take place in public, and the lawsuit alleges that the site visit would constitute a “walking quorum,” which is when discussions that meet quorum occur outside of a posted meeting.

The lawsuit calls for a pause on further action related to the data center and revocation of the initial annexation, as well as damages.

“Due to ongoing litigation, the City of Granbury has no comment at this time,” a spokesperson for the City told DCD.

Bilateral Energy is a power infrastructure provider for “data centers, AI, and high-performance compute,” according to its website.

Granbury is located in Hood County, which is southeast of the Fort Worth-Dallas Metropolitan Area.

Real estate firm Sailfish is planning a large development in Hood County close to the Comanche Peak nuclear plant that could total more than 2,000 acres and 5GW, while Mara operates a cryptomine in the county. Pacifico Energy is planning an off-grid gas project to serve a data center development in Hood County.

Hood County officials also narrowly voted against a moratorium on data centers last February.