Landowner Sues Botetourt County Over Closed-Session Approval of Google Data Center Agreement

Zoning & Land Use Filed
Date
November 2, 2026
Added to tracker
November 4, 2026
Court or forum
Botetourt County Circuit Court, Virginia
State
Virginia
Property type
Data Center
Amount / scale
$14 million land purchase and tax agreement under challenge
Parties
Defendant: Botetourt County Board of SupervisorsDefendant: Botetourt CountyDefendant: Botetourt County Economic Development AuthorityDefendant: Helio Capital LLC

A Botetourt County, Virginia landowner sued the county, its Board of Supervisors and Google subsidiary Helio Capital LLC, alleging the board approved a $14 million data center agreement in closed session without disclosing its terms.

A Botetourt County, Virginia landowner filed a petition for a writ of mandamus and injunctive relief in Botetourt County Circuit Court on November 2, 2026, seeking to void the county's economic-development performance agreement with Helio Capital LLC, a Google subsidiary, that cleared the way for a data center campus at the Botetourt Center at Greenfield business park. The petition alleges the Board of Supervisors violated Virginia's Freedom of Information Act by discussing and effectively agreeing to the terms of the performance agreement in closed session on June 24, 2025, then approving it in open session without disclosing its substance.

Why it matters

The suit shows that an open-meetings or public-records defect in how a local government approved an economic-development deal, not any flaw in the deal's substance, can become the biggest litigation risk to a data center or other large commercial project's permits and tax arrangements, with a remedy -- voiding the approval outright -- that a conventional zoning challenge does not carry. Developers negotiating incentive or performance agreements with localities should confirm that substantive terms are disclosed in open session before a final vote, not just voted on as an unnamed closed-session product.

Original source ↗

Part of the Data Center Litigation Tracker: every related matter in one table.

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A Botetourt County, Virginia landowner has sued the county, its Board of Supervisors, its Economic Development Authority, and Helio Capital LLC -- a subsidiary wholly owned by Google -- seeking to void the economic-development performance agreement that cleared the way for Google's data center campus at the Botetourt Center at Greenfield business park. The petition, filed November 2, 2026 in Botetourt County Circuit Court, asks the court to declare null and void both the board's closed-session discussion of the agreement and its subsequent open-session vote approving it, and to rescind any expedited permits issued under it, on the theory that the board violated Virginia's Freedom of Information Act.

Case timeline · 2 entries Latest: November 2, 2026 — Landowner files suit in Botetourt County Circuit Court seeking to void the agreement and rescind related permits

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