Photo: İsmail Enes Ayhan / Unsplash
By Darren Svan | The Center Square
The plaintiffs will appeal Caddo Parish Judge Ramon Lafitte’s ruling last month to uphold a special-use permit approving construction of a massive data center in west Shreveport, the Sierra Club announced.
The deadline to appeal is June 26 in the Second Circuit Court of Appeal, according to the Sierra Club.
“I was pretty frustrated with the outcome during the hearing in April, and pretty adamant about appealing, but I wanted to make sure the executive committee was on board and the plaintiffs didn’t have reservations,” said Angelle Bradford Rosenberg, chair of the Sierra Club’s Delta Chapter.
The parties agreed this week to move forward with the appeal, Rosenberg said.
On April 20, Lafitte dismissed litigation brought by three plaintiffs asking for a judicial review of the City Council’s decision to approve the development after the city’s planning commission had initially blocked it.
The Delta Chapter, a statewide organization involved in environmental litigations, provided financial support for plaintiffs Tyler Gordon, Michael Craft and Mary Blakemore. They’ve spent about $20,000 and anticipate spending another $10,000 for the appeal, according to Rosenberg.
The Delta Chapter campaigns against data centers, carbon capture and sequestrations in Louisiana.
“The goal is to truly get the city to revisit the decision to approve the special permit,” she said, adding that her organization will file an amicus brief stating their support for the case. “We did not originally sign onto it.”
The legal victory gave developer STACK Infrastructure the green light to build a third massive data center campus for Amazon Web Services. Construction of two $6 billion tech hubs are already underway in north Bossier and rural Caddo Parish.
The special-use permit was needed for a data center to operate at Resilient Technology Park. Progress at the Shreveport campus stalled for 90 days after the original litigation was filed.
It’s unclear if STACK has begun construction at the industrial park. After Lafitte’s ruling, Justyn Dixon, president and CEO of North Louisiana Economic Partnership, told The Center Square that “we don't anticipate this hindering the project’s forward movement.”
The plaintiffs plan to use the same legal counsel of Jack Bailey, who has an office in Shreveport, and Clay Garside, a New Orleans-based attorney.
“This is a way to hold cities accountable for the decisions that they make and adhere to the policies that are on the books,” Rosenberg said.